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Reflections II
Five Years and Still Going
Hello. My name is Mark, a recently turned 33yo male living in Fremantle, Western Australia that enjoys hiking, photography and life (for those that only know me as the myth that is The Life of Py). It's been a couple of years since I've done one of these and with so much happening since then I thought it was best to put the remembering hat on and reflect on what has been a remarkable journey. Starting in 2014 I never thought this is where TLoP would end up and to be honest, I'm surprised at myself for sticking with it this long. Before I get into a long philosophical flow about life, love, hiking and the meaning of everything (this will be a long post that I make no apologies for), I'd like to thank a few people who have supported me to this point.
Caris (the partner of Py) is the one who lets me go on all my adventures by keeping the house together and doggos fed when I go off on my own for sometimes weeks at a time. She even joined me on a couple of adventures this year with an Easter trip to Fitzgerald River and beyond and a four day excursion on the Three Capes. Aron aka 1A1R is another who has been a big help, not only joining me on a few trips but also being a giant help when it came to tackling the regrowth around the Murray Campsite. The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions played a big part in my 2018 adventures with a couple of trips with the Google Trekker allowing me some experiences that were probably a year or two off if I'd organised them myself but I'll get to those a bit later on.
Now to the rambling... I'll start with a brief reflection on 2017 as it was an amazing year filled with friends, great adventures, new trails, stunning locations and a little bit of disappointment. I had a full year of organising group hikes where I met some amazing people and created some lasting memories. Thank you to everyone who came along to an event, it was great to meet you all and everyone added something special in their own unique way. Unfortunately I was unable to continue with the group hikes in 2018 because of insurance and license issues (which doesn't stop almost every other hiking group you see operating on Facebook but they seem to get away with it) but given what I have done in 2018, I'm not sure I would have had the time anyway. In between running the group hikes I explored some new trails, mainly in the South West with a couple of road trips to experience the wonderful natural beauty we are lucky to have all over the state. Before enjoying an amazing holiday exploring Europe in July (and getting in a couple of hikes in Switzerland and Greece) I took the first big steps in completing my sectional E2E of the Bibbulmun Track with a five day hike between Donnelly River and Pemberton.
Following Europe my focus was set on the 100km Oxfam Trailwalker and getting the training kilometres into the legs but the weather turned against us on the day and the 100km event was cancelled, to be replaced with the 50km option (you can read my thoughts on that on the page). That disappointment was quickly forgotten as I started another of my overambitious South West road trips trying to tackle way too many hikes where something would eventually go wrong. Starting off well with a visit to the Porongurups and Stirling Range, followed by an aborted attempt at the Stirling Ridge Walk, my faithful Audi A4 let me down at the Bluff Knoll car park with a mechanical issue (later diagnosed as a blocked catalytic converter) so I had to cut my trip down a little. I still enjoyed some hikes around Albany, Denmark, Pemberton and Northcliffe and the slower pace probably made it more enjoyable. Those hikes kept me busy for quite a while afterwards with lots of photo editing and posts to write-up.
It was towards the end of 2017 that Real Trail Talk became a thing with the help of Donovan from The Long Way's Better. I had always wanted to start a podcast and didn't realise that Donovan had all the equipment to record and edit when I asked him if he was interested so that turned out to be a bit of a bonus. With our respective websites we rarely get out to hike together and before the Stirling Ridge and Sheila Hill, I think we had only hiked together twice before. The podcast allows us to catch-up every couple of weeks, drink some wine and wax lyrical about a passion we both share. Having on some great guests has made it a better listening experience and we get a different perspective to the topics we discuss. Hopefully this continues into 2019 and everyone enjoys listening to us ramble on about trails. 2018 arrived and I started off the year as I would spend most of it, with a hike. Staying at Margaret River for New Years, I woke up early and decided to get in a morning walk at the Riverslea Run. I followed this up with another of the long forgotten heritage trails a few days later given the South West enjoys cooler temperatures over the summer.
A trip up to Cervantes in February to celebrate the birthday of 1A1R gave me the opportunity to add another trail to the Perth Hikes page (took some liberty here as it's two hours away) with the Lake Thetis Walk Trail. I also got to tick off an experience that I had wanted to do for a while, astrophotography at the Pinnacles. An invitation in early March to finish off the Wadjemup Bidi on Rottnest Island before the grand opening was one I couldn't pass up. Getting the full VIP treatment with transportation help from the staff on Rottnest was cool and it was a nice feeling to complete the full trail network because they've done such a great job to present the best side of Rottnest (seriously go hike on Rottnest). While prepping for the podcast we did on our 2018's in review I realised that the last three trails I mentioned here were my only "Perth" trails I did for the year. I didn't plan it that way so I apologise if you were hanging out for more Perth based content in 2018 (stay tuned in 2019). Some of that was due to the number of trips I took out to the Murray Campsite on the Bibbulmun Track to perform maintenance duties. A combination of summer rains, previous fires and excellent growing conditions meant the track was severely overgrown and it's taken most of the year and multiple weekends down there to try and tame the beast. I think I am almost there so if you passed through the area in 2018 and thought it was overgrown, I tried my best but nature was ahead in this battle until just recently.