Reflections IV
Still Exploring
Hello. As you can guess from the title, this is the fourth time I've written one of these biennale posts and it feels like a lifetime ago since I wrote the last one. For those that are new to the website, don't listen to the podcast or haven't seen one of the rare pictures of myself, I'm Mark, a now 37yo WA local that enjoys long walks, bike rides, snorkeling and taking tens of thousands of photos while I'm doing those pursuits. As I've said a few times over the years, having the website is a great way to catalogue some really important memories and in the process, share some amazing places with others. Over the past couple of years, avid website visitors will have noticed a few cosmetic changes to the UI and I'm pretty happy with how things are looking right now. A fun new design tweak I recently implemented was the main photo for each page being a single image that moves as you scroll down (desktop only), along with removing 99% of the ads on the website for a better user experience.
The above gallery of many photos represents one photos from each new adventure added (or eventually will be added) to the website over the past two years and seeing them all laid out certainly brings back some memories. It's been a lot of fun visiting new places, trying new things and reveling in going back to favourite trails and re-doing them with fresh photos and perspective. The website is a great catalyst for making the most of my time, whether that be on holidays or just finding time on the weekends, and I don't think I'd have lived the same life without it. With the global pandemic still continuing on, planning trips, especially anything requiring air travel was a bit of a gamble and unlike my podcast partner, I was fortunate enough to not have lockdowns interfere with the two main trips I had in 2021. In 2022, the borders opened and the little protected bubble that we'd been living in was gone. That presented new challenges and I'll speak more to that later on in the piece.
For now, I'll break it up into the two separate years again, so now would be a good time to go brew yourself a beverage if you're planning on reading the whole thing. Here goes...
2021 - An Epic Year of Adventure
New Trails - 75
Total Distance - 1,388.5km
Website Visits - 443,074 (down 17.2% on 2020)
With the world thrown into chaos in early 2020, there was meant to be a "return to normal" in 2021 that just never eventuated. For the most part, those of us living in Western Australia continued a fairly normal life apart from a few rolling lockdowns that never lasted more than a week. We could continue to travel, although it came with a degree of risk, and looking back it was a much simpler time. The early part of the year was spent on my road bike as the decision to ride an end to end of the Munda Biddi had been made in late 2020. Having enjoyed road cycling in my younger days, it was nice to get back out and put some kilometres in the legs, made easier by some of the great cycling infrastructure we have in Perth. I purchased a new mountain bike for the Munda Biddi and combined my road riding with early morning loops on the Railway Reserves Heritage Trail, a trail I always planned to add to the website after walking the full 42km but riding it is a much better experience. Along with cycling, I added a couple of new snorkeling spots to the website with Mettams Pool and the Cottesloe Eco Shark Barrier making for some nice summer fun.
The first big trip of the year came in April as Caris and I flew to Tasmania and joined her aunt and uncle for a three week driving tour of the island. Starting in Hobart and visiting Mount Field National Park, we moved onto Lake Pedder, then Lake St Clair, followed by a tour of the west coast including Strahan, Corinna and Arthur River. With Candy and Hal being active people, I filled up the trip with hikes ranging from little ambles to mountain epics, not thinking I'd get to do everything on my list. As it turned out, there wasn't much to do but hike in the places we visited, so I ended up adding 28 trails to the website, something that kept me busy throughout the middle part of the year. This trip is one that I look back on with utter fondness and reading back through the posts and seeing all the beautiful places we visited fills me with such a comforting energy. Highlights from what was a trip of highlights include climbing Mount Field West, gazing out over the wilderness from The Needles Track, the stunning beauty of Lake Pedder and tackling the challenging Mount Sprent, hiking through snow at Lake St Clair on the Shadow Lake Circuit, driving along the Lyall Highway and experiencing all the short trails, the Western Wilderness Railway, the cosy and secluded feeling of Corinna and all the wonderful trails to explore, plus getting to experience Arthur River and a tour of what's left of the Tarkine. I'll always remember this trip with great affection and was a fantastic way to start 2021.
Arriving back in Perth, there was a lot to do getting all those photos edited and posts written, so that kept me busy throughout the winter while also getting out and exploring new trails. My list of Perth trails that I have left to do is dwindling to the bottom of the barrel but there were still some nice experiences. The Honeyeater Hike out at Bungendore was a pleasant winter morning hike and I also checked out another of the shorter WalkGPS routes at Wongamine. An early morning trip out to Mount Dale to see the sunrise was another highlight, stopping by Roley Pool Reserve on the way home to document one of the more popular trails in the Perth Hills. Combining Munda Biddi training with new trails, Aron and I rode the updated Kalamunda Heritage Railway Trail, along with an out and back on the Kep Track that I had written about at the end of 2020. One trip I was looking forward to during this time was taking my oldest niece out on her first overnight hike on the Bibbulmun Track. I selected the section between One Tree Bridge and Tom Road Campsite as a fun spot, so one July weekend we went out fungi spotting and enjoyed one of my favourite campsites on the Bibbulmun Track.
August rolled about and it was time for the annual holiday to somewhere warm for Caris' grandmothers birthday. This year Exmouth was selected and this suited me just fine as I'd never been, was keen to explore Ningaloo Reef and there were a few nice trails to hike too. First up was a Whale Shark experience but as it turned out, we were just the second day of the season where no whale sharks swam by. This was overshadowed by the sighting of a pack of orcas trailing a Humpback Whale, resulting in nature taking its course and us witnessing a live kill of a baby Humpback that was quite confronting in the moment. With bad weather rolling in late in the trip, we made the most of the nice snorkeling conditions early on by visiting Turquoise Bay, Lakeside Sanctuary and Oyster Stacks. This was complimented with hikes at Yardie Gorge (along with a boat tour), Mandu Mandu Gorge and tackling the longer Badjirrajirra Trail. Escaping to the warmer weather was a treat and this was yet another memorable trip that I look back with great fondness over. Exmouth is such a fun place to explore and with a return trip planned for 2023, I cannot wait to get back in the water and snorkel the stunning Ningaloo Reef again.
In late August it was finally time to handball all my work projects off and set off from Mundaring to cycle over 1000km to Albany on the Munda Biddi. Having watched Aron's Strava over the winter I was a little concerned about his preparedness coming into the ride but didn't expect it to be as lacking as it was. The first day presented some challenges but after an adjustment to the schedule, some longer days later on and removing our side trip to Collie, we got back on track. In the end it worked out and probably meant it wasn't always going to be me playing catch-up as I stopped a few hundred times a day to take photos of everything I saw. With this being the longest end to end adventure I'd done, it was fun to settle into the daily trail life of eat, cycle, sleep. Bikepacking is a lot more physical than hiking and less of a meditative experience but the flipside of that is you get to see a lot more in a day. I've written a whole piece about my thoughts on the journey that you can read here so I'll keep this section brief. Highlights of the three week ride include all the amazing wildflowers and orchids in bloom, seeing my first echidna in WA, the whole town to town section between Donnybrook and Northcliffe, the stunning Karri Forests between Donnelly River and Northcliffe, Yirra Kartta Campsite, the Walpole Wilderness and the entirety of the Walpole to Albany section. I sound like a broken record but looking back at the posts, there are so many great memories I have from this trip and to do it all with a good friend was an added bonus.
With a lot of posts to write up, I was looking forward to getting stuck into those over the summer but still had some late season adventures to look forward to. First up was a rainy September day checking out the Mount Cooke Circuit that I had been meaning to write-up for a while now. It was also nice to reconnect with this area as I try to get out here once a year. In the first week of October Caris suggested we hike the new Yonga Trail in Lesueur National Park, so of course I said yes. It's a great overnighter that can easily be done as a weekend trip from Perth but silly me didn't check the spare battery I took and of course it was one that wasn't charged. As such, I only photographed half the trail and so will have to return in 2023 to fully document it for the website. The last couple of adventures involved an exploration of the Wadandi Track, both the northern and southern sections, and a visit back to Denmark to shoot the new alignment of the Munda Biddi near Greens Pool, plus get photos I missed out on thanks to the wet weather we got on our E2E. On the way home I stopped in at Dryandra for the first time and was impressed with what I saw. I just have to find time to return for a long weekend, where hopefully I'll get to see another Numbat in the wild. 2021 will go down as one of my best years in terms of the trails I visited and the quality of the places I was fortunate enough to go to.
2022 - A Quiet Year & A New Focus
New Trails - 56
Total Distance - 317.5km
Website Visits - 384,849 (down 21.27% on 2021)
2022 started with a longer than expected leave period thanks to my work deciding that everyone must take three weeks off over Christmas and New Years. With a few snorkeling spots I had been meaning to check out on my list, I spent some time with the family in Funbury in early Jan and managed to get out to Yallingup Lagoon, Shelley Beach and Hamelin Bay for some memorable time under the sea. Then there was a lot of time that passed between those adventures and hiking season starting to ramp up. As we experienced one of the hottest summers on record, I was out on the road bike a lot and enjoying the increased fitness that came with riding the Munda Biddi. Wanting to get out early on in the year and produce some content for the website but also wanting to save some of the trails I had planned for the year until winter and spring, I walked a couple more WalkGPS routes at Wundabiniring and Christmas Tree Well. In-between those trails I enjoyed an Easter trip on the Munda Biddi with Donovan as we rode between Donnybrook and Northcliffe over four days. That was a fun trip as I really enjoyed that section on my E2E and the sparkle had not diminished the second time around (or third for some sections).
In late April, I tagged along with friends Bonny and Lou as they had plans to tackle the Stirling Ridge Walk. This was something I had tentatively planned for maybe spring but when the opportunity came up to hike it with Bonny and Lou, I couldn't pass it up. We managed to get some decent weather for the two days and it was everything I imagined it would be. May and June were fairly quiet months in terms of adding trails to the website with the majority being smaller hikes or re-doing existing trails that sorely needed a refresh. The main one I wanted to tick off was the Echidna Trail in Walyunga National Park as the old version of that was a bit embarrassing compared to more recent posts. Another one I was looking forward to was the Jarrahdale Railway Heritage Trail as I'd never done the full loop and it was a great experience, coupled with watching the NBA Finals plus a movie afterwards. I managed to get out on the Bibb Track for an overnighter to Waalegh as that was a section I wanted to re-shoot but as of the time of writing, those posts have been put on the backburner.
July rolled around and the the long, hot summer was forgotten. The annual winter escape to the north of Australia had been planned for Katherine in the Northern Territory and I was excited to check out Nitmiluk National Park. Looking to add the Jatbula Trail to the end of the trip, I was a bit disappointed to find out that the prime July times are gone within a couple of hours of the bookings opening in November of the previous year. Things didn't get much better when we touched down in Darwin with Caris' uncle having to return home for some tests (everything was fine in the end). This meant the trip was a little less fun but with plenty of hikes to explore, I made the most of the time I was given in Litchfield and Nitmiluk. With eleven more NT hikes added to the website, I created a new page for them all that may or may not get expanded upon in the medium term future. Arriving home, I set my sights on a new project that I'm happy to announce to the world in this post, writing a guidebook of walks in the South West of WA. Having been recommended by another WA Travel Blogger, a publisher contacted me to add to their collection of guidebooks from around Australia and so began the long process of putting together a manuscript and editing up close to 1000 photos for the submission.
It was perfect timing as I could refocus my efforts for the remainder of the hiking season into re-visiting old favourites, adding in new trails that had been on my list and really revel in creating something that will hopefully see some financial reward that the website just doesn't generate. Starting with a few shorter trips to the South West, I re-did the Greenbushes Loop, perhaps one of the most lacking posts on the site, along with re-shooting the Bridgetown Jarrah Park and adding the somewhat underwhelming Balingup Racecourse Flora Reserve. In late August I visited Wellington National Park to jog my memory about the Sika and Jabitj Trails, along with finally doing the Kurliiny Tjenangitj Trail (my favourite of the three). Things were relatively quiet as I set about the time consuming task of writing the book in my free time, so September saw only a handful of trails being hiked including the Chuditch Trail, Bridge Trail and King Karri Trail. Unfortunately, right before I was about to embark on one of my road trips to consume a vast number of trails in a short space of time, I got Covid for the first time. Having been careful since the borders opened in March, I believe I got it while at the hairdressers and it was horrible timing.
Thankfully I had my booster shot a few weeks prior, so the symptoms weren't too bad but it meant I had to cut my trip a couple of days shorter than I had planned and miss out on hiking two trails that I really wanted to visit again. The revised schedule saw me hike 17 trails in 3.5 days, driving from Funbury to Dunsborough to Pemberton to Augusta to Yallingup to Balingup and finally finishing in the Ferguson Valley before returning home. While physically able to do it just fine, it wasn't as relaxing as some of my trips from previous years thanks to the compressed schedule and dealing with a lingering cough. The end of October saw me do some influencing for a global tiny cabin company that has setup three cabins near Margaret River, so this was the perfect opportunity to tick off the final two trails for the book on what was an enjoyable weekend. With everything I needed to complete the guidebook, I just needed to get to work and by early December I was ready to submit my manuscript. Having not communicated with my publisher since signing the contract, they weren't quite prepared for it so quickly (12 months was their estimate), so it most likely won't be released until the middle of next year (stay tuned for information about how to secure your copy).
With the book written and submitted, there was a weight lifted off my shoulders and I could start looking forward to the end of year plans that I had put to the back of my mind. First off, I joined long time fan of the website, Jeremy, on an off track walk as we explored the area that Alcoa plan to expand into very soon. I made a short video about all the area and what would be lost if they are granted permission to mine between Jarrahdale, Serpentine Dam and Albany Highway that you can view here. With the holidays approaching, I made plans to spend my birthday on Rottnest Island, taking in a couple of snorkeling spots (Henrietta Rocks & The Basin) that add a few more options to those looking to explore the island playground just offshore from Fremantle. Rounding out the year, I would be flying over to Tasmania with the main goal of hiking the South Coast Track. With flights being cancelled or changed quite frequently now Covid is over and we don't have to worry about it anymore (/s), I added a couple of days to the start of my trip just in case. With my flight staying as I booked it, this meant I had a couple of days to explore Hobart and surrounds so made use of the time by hiking the Pinnacle Circuit and taking a day trip out to the Cape Raoul Track to finally tick off the third cape that makes up the Three Capes. New Years Eve was spent on the South Coast Track as myself, Donovan and Bonny flew out to Melaleuca to hike the first day to Point Eric Campsite. Not a bad way to end 2022, a year that saw a little less adventure but a good deal of work that will eventually see me become a published author in 2023.
General Thoughts - With plenty of time to reflect upon the last two years, plus seeing it all laid out in picture form throughout this post, I count myself as being an extremely lucky and privileged individual. For the most part I am a happy and healthy individual with a relaxed demeanor and hiking/riding/exploring goes a long way to ensuring this remains the norm for me. There is a lot to be said for making the most out of life and as I've said many times, having the website is a great way of not only remembering all the places I've visited but is a creative outlet that let's me explore my passions and constantly evolve the craft (anyone who has been here from the start will know how awful my original photo edits were).
As you've seen above, website traffic has dropped off in the last two years despite the number of trails on the website growing significantly during that time. Looking back, the Covid boom of 2020 was unsustainable as borders opened and people weren't forced to only play in the vast sandbox of WA. Other factors including my pages being pushed down the Google Search Results by more and more competition, people seemingly going straight to the unvetted dumpster fire that is AllTrails for their trail ideas and various social media platforms no longer being as bountiful as they once were. On that topic, I dropped my Facebook usage a lot in recent times as it devolved into people asking the same thing over and over in the various groups, along with asking questions that could easily be Googled in five seconds. Add in my personal feed being filled with utter garbage that the algorithm wanted me to see and my preferred platform became Instagram, despite the shift to becoming an unsuccessful TikTok clone. It's a great way to communicate with the trails community and see what everyone else is up to, so I'll continue to be more active on there.
With the global pandemic continuing on despite everyone's best efforts to ignore it exists, it really adds a layer of anxiety onto planning any trip. Post the WA border opening in March of 2022, every trip has been at risk of being affected by flight changes (we were stuck in Darwin for two extra days because of it), getting Covid while travelling and making sure to limit interactions in the lead up to travelling. Although I had relatively mild symptoms, I don't look forward to a world where the risk of long term health implications increases with every reinfection, that could happen as quickly as 4-6 weeks with these latest variants. Looking back, 2021 was such a simpler time and I'm not sure when or if we'll return to those relatively carefree days.
Going forward, I'm planning on making the most of 2023 with a few trips already planned to various parts of the state. My to-hike list around Perth and the South West is really scraping the bottom of the barrel now, so my efforts will mainly be focused on re-doing old pages and perhaps enjoying more of the WalkGPS offerings in peak season. Maybe one day I'll get over to hike parts of NZ, NSW, QLD and different areas of Victoria but there is so much to cover that I would need a few long road trips to really be satisfied that I was covering it properly. It doesn't seem like the trail offering in WA is going to get any significant investment in the near future so I'll be looking elsewhere for my highlight worthy trail adventures going forward. Again, there is so much to do and so little time. Perhaps my book will be a raging success and that will provide me the opportunity to purchase some of my own time back from my employer.
In the end we are but sentient star dust clinging to a mostly hospitable rock hurtling through the universe at 108,000kmph, and it could all be over in a second. Be kind, show respect to each other and don't be afraid to pursue what interests you, whatever that may be.
If you're still reading then I'd love to hear from you in the comments section. It could be something random, a fun hiking story or just to say hello. As much as I am a socially awkward introvert, I do enjoy interacting with like minded people so would love to hear from you (especially if you are also a socially awkward introvert). If you've found the website useful over the years and would like to show your support for the website then click the below button and buy me a virtual coffee so I can continue adding trails and supporting the trails community. Better yet, follow me on Facebook and Instagram for details about when my guidebook will be published.
Happy Trails in 2023 and keep getting out there and experiencing as many adventures as possible.