Schafer to Northcliffe
Bibbulmun Track
Start
Schafer
Time
3-4 Hours
Finish
Northcliffe
Date Hiked
4th August 2018
Length
14.1km
Campsite Style
Track Town
Elevation
219m
Traditional Custodians
Bibbulman People
The Hike - Waking up to another beautiful morning on the track, this would be the last day of my trip and also the shortest in terms of length at only 14.1km. Setting off at around my usual time (8:30am) this would be a fairly gentle day and a bit of a change from the Karri dominated experience of the previous two days. With my pack on and the weather looking good I decided to leave the rain cover off the pack but I made it about 100m before it started to rain out of nowhere. The sunny skies quickly turned to overcast and with my pack cover now on I set about leaving Schafer Campsite on the straight 4x4 track heading due south. A fairly easy start to the morning was made a bit more difficult when my hopes for a day of dry socks was dashed after a few hundred metres. The 4x4 track had become inundated after the overnight rains and there was no option to go around without disturbing a whole lot of undergrowth so I just waded straight through the skin deep water and embraced that cold and wet feeling of soggy socks.
With that experience over I continued on and after a kilometre the track turns and borders a hardwood plantation with its uniform layers and creepy vibe. It isn't long before you leave the 4x4 track near a distant farm and head onto a single track path through some regrowth forest. A shadow of the giants seen in the previous two days it is still better than walking past a plantation and over time it will grow into a beautiful forest full of life. The forest walking does not last long and you are soon spat out onto a smooth gravel road that introduces you to the first sustained section of tea tree walking you will encounter. The walk along the road sees you pass a low lying area that was flooded when I came through but the road provided a dry path to walk on. Paperbark trees line the road before you turn off onto a dedicated trail leading you off the road. This is where things started to go a little downhill and I mean that both literally and figuratively. This area had been burnt quite recently and that always leaves the place looking a little ragged and unwelcome. Sometimes it can look quite amazing but with tea trees and scrappy forest it didn't have this effect.
I understand why they do controlled burns but sometimes their methods and locations baffle me. In a clearing you could see that 50m away the forest was unburnt and its my understanding that they just walk along the track and burn because it's an easy way to get their pie in the sky targets fulfilled. It's sad that the track is meant to be an advertisement for the state and it is treated like a giant firebreak. This type of scenery continues for the most part all the way to the farmland with some of the more interesting bits occurring in the non-burnt sections. I came across a recently fallen Karri tree that by the looks of it must have fallen very recently as the roots were still covered in dirt and the rainfall had been quite pronounced in the past few days so you would think it would have washed away. I had some fun marvelling at the size of the root system as it projected up into the sky and an issue that had been plaguing me a lot this year occurred again, camera fogging. I apologise for the hazy look of most of the photos but that's what you get for having your camera uncovered a lot of the time and then walking through humid forest.
Reaching the farm section was a bit of a shock as this was much more open than the farm visits on previous days with no forest bordering the paddocks. Instead you walk along a 4x4 track between green fields that are lined by some very mossy trees. As a bit of a poster child for the drainage powers of the native forest, this area was very boggy and waterlogged so with already wet socks I just waded through the small lakes of water that sometimes reached my knees. About halfway along the first 4x4 track it rained quite heavily but it was all part of the fun and I continued wading. Relief eventually came from both the rain and the wet track as I reached another 4x4 track that was a bit more substantial than the one I'd previously been on. Turning south I was delighted to see a dry sandy road leading into the distance and with open views all around I could watch the dark clouds roll by. Some pristine farmland is located on either side with a few lots of farming equipment to photograph plus the odd herd of cows in the distance. I really enjoyed this part as it was carefree walking through a lovely part of the countryside.
As you continue along towards the house the trees get a lot bigger and it transported me back in time a little bit when perhaps this walk into town from the nearby properties wouldn't have been such a foreign concept. The romantic notion of country life stayed with me as I passed the house and the track leads you into a small section of bush bordering Middleton Rd. Seeing a car rush past on the tarmac road brought me out of my little nostalgic state but once I crossed the road and continued down the Karri lined gravel road that connects up the properties along here, I was back into feeling like I was in another time. This is also where the Bibbulmun first joins up with the Munda Biddi as they both head into Northcliffe. Reaching the end of the 4x4 track, I was confronted with tape blocking off the way forward. Thinking a diversion was in place I had a look around at where the track could go from here and the only option was to go onto private property so I accessed my inner rebel and walked over the tape.
Not sure what it was doing there but this was definitely the proper way as you head deeper into the forest and alongside the Gardner River. It isn't long before you have to cross the river and this is done by a wide-ish wooden bridge for both the Munda Biddi and Bibbulmun. Dual markers right next to a heavily moss covered log provided a nice example of the two long distance trails getting along nicely and this wasn't the only fun thing to photograph. The river wasn't a raging torrent at this stage but was big enough to try some long exposure shots as the water collided with the mossy boulders. It wasn't anywhere near as impressive as the Cascades from day one but it was fun nonetheless. The trail splits with the Munda Biddi just up the hill and the Bibbulmun continues along 4x4 tracks along the Gardner River. You get close to it a few times but have to scramble off track a little bit of you want a really good view.