Easter Thursday
Here we go again. Finally Talulah has completed the requirements for his prac in his teaching degree, but there is no rest for the new teacher. Within an hour of the school bell ringing we were on the road to our 5 night, eagerly awaited Easter 2023 break. Of course we could have hit the road tomorrow but that would be a waste of the rest of today. The weekend is to be spent in Koi Kyenunu-ruff (the Stirling Range), with the goal of climbing Bular Mial (Bluff Knoll). The range is too far to get to after work, so we decided to head to Wickepin, the home of Mr Facey, then on to the range tomorrow.
We planned to have dinner at the pub in town and then stay at the free camping area across the road. Little did we know that the pub, whilst there, had absolutely no patrons at 7pm on the last working day of the week (before a 4 day weekend)! Nonetheless the staff checked with the chef and we were able to get a meal ordered. While we waited we decided to have a game of pool, but the table had a different idea, coughing up a single ball for us to play with. Old mate behind the bar then had to call someone to find the key to open the table and get it to spew out the others balls, right as our dinner came out!
After our dinner experience we headed across the road to assess the free camp, which while likely to be fine, didn’t appeal to us for various reasons, so we called up the local caravan park and headed there instead. We were welcomed in by the caretaker, and spent the rest of the evening enjoying a drink or two and a couple of games of Yahtzee. A good start to our extra long weekend.
Good Friday
After a safe and quiet night in Wickepin we head off down the road towards the range. Despite deliberately heading to our destination via Wickepin so we could visit Mr Facey’s house, it won’t come as a surprise to you that we completely missed it. That is to say, the house was obvious but we forget until we were on the road south, to actually visit it. Next time …
Not too far out of town we stopped to check out Toolibin Nature Reserve. No camping (for future reference) but there is a lake there, albeit a little dry at the moment. The lake is suffering terribly from ground water salinity, caused by the removal of natural vegetation to make way for agriculture, resulting in the water table rising and bringing salt from underground aquifers. This causes the soil and water systems in that area to become saline, which impacts on the health of Toolibin Lake’s fragile lake floor vegetation. There is a recovery program in place which involves channels, sumps, ground water pumps and various other strategies. The lake is important to birds and mammals, hence the urgency to correct the salinity issue. Failing to correct it will be catastrophic, with the lake facing a fate similar to that of the nearby Taarblin Lake. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. I feel a science lesson coming on.
Back in the car we headed on down the road to Dumbleyung where we took the opportunity to grab a coffee. Having spent time in town before, we decided to push on to the school ruins at Datatine to enjoy a hot cross bun (it is Good Friday, so we can legitimately eat them now). The ruins are exactly that, made worse by inconsiderate individuals dumping their rubbish at the site. Nonetheless I could imagine kids running around the site, past the gorgeous gum trees. I am not sure where the kids came from, but perhaps there were many more homes in the area than there are now, that seems to be deserted.
The rest of the road trip was continuous, with us passing through Nyabing, Gnowangerup and a side trip through the little silo town of Borden. We were listening to our local radio station via I❤️Radio, hearing about the endless traffic back in Perth, all attempting to head south on the freeway. Meanwhile I think we passed a handful of cars, and didn’t catch or get caught by a car on our side of the road! As a result, we made great time without exceeding the speed limit and risking double demerits, and arrived at the Stirling Range Retreat just after 2pm, the official check in time.
Naturally we spent the rest of the day setting up our camp, right in the middle of the park, where we could see almost everyone, and of course almost everyone could see us. Not our preferred style, but we won’t be here too much. We decided to set out the tent on the kerbside of Tas, to give us any extra room for storage and to sit in to avoid any adverse weather. The site is big enough that we can also put out our other awning for shade on the roadside if we need it, and park Maz. We have power (always handy for a longer stay) and water, as well as amenities just across the way. Fully set up we decided to take a wander around the caravan park, that is huge, mostly undeveloped and included many walking trails. Being autumn, there was little to see in the way of flowering plants, but there are signs everywhere, indicating the place will be ablaze with colours in spring. We did see a new to us bird, when I haven’t even heard of before. How exciting. It’s a Restless Flycatcher with an awesome song. We were initially deceived into thinking it’s song was a workshop noise, but soon realised it was actually a birdy. Apparently a numbat has also been seen making a dash across the park a few years ago and there is a population of numbats in an area of the National Park. Imagine my excitement and anticipation of seeing a numbat here! Fingers crossed.
After our walk we settled in for the evening, enjoying dinner and a few drinks, planning and preparing for our Bluff Knoll climb tomorrow, and turning in for an earlyish night. I am super excited about taking on WAs highest peak. The entire walk is 6.8km return, and Grade 4 trail. It will take us to the top of the world (at least in WA), 1098 metres above sea level. They say the views from the summit are spectacular and worth the effort to get there. We’ll see …
Easter Saturday
Needless to say, we had a somewhat restless sleep, likely due to their anticipatory adrenaline rush of our impending climb. So it was no surprise We were both up, raring and ready to go by 8 am, which was the original plan. Concerningly, Bluff Knoll, which we had seen from the caravan park yesterday, didn’t appear to be visible when we popped a heads outside. Ever the optimists, we were hopeful that the clouds would miraculously disappear and the mountain would miraculously appear and would be able to climb. So we got ready and just as we’re about to get in the car our neighbours returned from their exhilarating climb to the top of Bluff Knoll. While they were full of excitement, they were also full of caution and warning. They set off well before dawn so they could experience sunrise from the top of the peak, but thanks to the blanket of cloud cover, they could barely see their hands in front of their faces. They also reported terrible weather, including rain coming at them sideways and freezing cold wind. It goes without saying that I was none too keen to add that experience to my bucket list, so we made the somewhat disappointing, but appropriate decision to postpone our climb to tomorrow.
Of course this meant we needed a new plan, and new plans only come about through careful thinking, combined with coffee. One of the things we really wanted to do while we were down here was buy some more fresh macadamias from the place we got them in Cranbrook when we did our Franklin River trip last year. So we decided to head over to Cranbrook for morning tea grab, some macadamias and see what other options we could come up with. The advantage of going to Cranbrook was that we would add another untravelled road to our map and we also get to have a lovely look at the Stirling range as we drove there.
Despite all the chopping and changing, we manage to arrive in Cranbrook around about 9.30, which is a great time for another cup of coffee, and some home-baked goodies from the cute cafe. We also got our macadamias but we are hugely disappointed that we weren’t able to get a cracker to open them. Looks like I’ll have to use the hammer until we can get home and find one from one of the kitchen shops. Caffeine’d and up we decided to drive back and see if the weather was any better towards the eastern side of the range. along the way we were thrilled to come across the biggest flocks of emus I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t begin to count how many we saw in the paddocks particularly to the north of the range, but they must’ve been in the hundreds. They were big ones and little ones and they were queued up in lines and they were walking and running and appeared to be absolutely everywhere. Obviously the conditions for emus in this part of the world are perfect (and they don’t taste any good).
With the weather showing no signs of improving, we decided to head home and spend some time playing a couple of games in the Annex, hoping that after lunch things might improve. Anyone who knows me, knows that it was torture to be on holidays sitting in the Annex playing games, no matter how much, I tried to look like I was “relaxing” eventually Tallulah agreed that we would head out again and make something of the day.
It’s fair to say the weather probably hadn’t cleared up that much, but at ground level. At least, it wasn’t raining and we could see the tops of some of the lesser peaks, so we made the call to have a go at climbing Mount Trio. It’s probably not the greatest idea to head up a mountain in the afternoon, but the sign suggested we could be up and back down again well before dark. There were other cars in the car park, so I was confident that we wouldn’t be the only people climbing up or down Mount Trio. So off we headed, straight up! The straight up is the reason why I wanted to climb, Mount Trio. Last year when we were in the Porongorups, I noticed this particular path leading up this particular mountain, when we drove past on our journey home. So it seems like a good idea at the time as many things do, but once we start a climbing, I’ll admit to having second thoughts. But once committed It would be a shame to admit defeat. Fortunately the weather was mostly on our side, and stayed relatively dry as we struggled straight up. Being weekend climbers our fitness level is far from optimal, but we’re not completely unfit either. So we took our time, took lots of breaks and eventually made it to what we thought might be the top, only to realise that there was more path to the top around to our right. So we kept going and going a bit further and then going a bit further and finally we arrived at the top of the world.
As luck would have it, the weather cleared so we could see almost 360° around us. To our north we could see the beautiful farm plains leading back to where we spent last night. To our East Bluff Knoll remained shrouded in gorgeous silver grey clouds. To our south, we could see the Porongorups and make out the mountains we climbed last November, when we hatched the plan to come back to the Stirling Range and climb these mountains. And to our west, we could see the range travelling off towards the coast. While it was mostly clear skies, there were minutes where we would be in the clouds, barely able to see our surroundings, and then the wind would take the clouds away, and it would all be revealed again. We were also privileged to have it all to ourselves. I guess maybe we were the only ones crazy enough to be out on a mountain at this time of day. Eventually, of course we had to descend.
As you know if you’ve read anything that I’ve written, descending is much harder for me than ascending, and the weather was starting to turn a little more inclement. Eventually we made it to the bottom, and I have to say that climbing Mount Trio saved the day! It wasn’t the easiest climb we’ve ever done and nor was it the hardest climb I’ve ever done, but it was one I really wanted to do ever since I saw that track. Now I can say I’ve done it. Go me. Go us.
An achievement like that can only be celebrated with a delicious dinner and some inviting wine and gin, which I was more than happy to accommodate. Our neighbours were gracious in their acknowledgement about our achievements, given their own immense achievements of the morning. We exchanged a few stories and were reinvigorated to prepare ourselves for Bluff Knoll tomorrow. Here’s hoping it reveals itself and and this time tomorrow we can say we’ve conquered it …
Easter Sunday
After our false start yesterday I was super hopeful that the weather gods would be in our favour and we would get the opportunity to tackle the climb. Thankfully when we woke up, although it was overcast there was no rain in sight and in fact we could see the mountain. So, after breakfast, we headed off for take two. It seems like we weren’t the only ones, and we were forced to wait a while for a car or two to come down to the park entrance so we could drive up. But, by 08.30 we were in the carpark, readying ourselves for the start of our climb.
These things always start with loads of energy and cheeriness, and today was no different. I was certainly keen as mustard to get along that path. We were sharing it with descenders as well as ascenders, all of whom were equally as cheery as us. The first part of the walk is along a cement path, that quickly makes way for a compacted earth path, with a slight incline, that also doesn’t last long. Fairly soon the steps were close together, with many of them a challenge for my short legs. All too soon, with the mountain looming way above us, I was starting to wonder if we would be able to achieve this challenge. The cheery descenders were a definite encouragement so we pushed on, and on, and on and on …
I would say we were far from the fittest on the walk, and also far from the most unfit. We stopped every 15 minutes or so, to let the heart rate come back down and catch our breath. We overtook some and some overtook us, but the mountain didn’t look like it was going anywhere, so we plodded on. Eventually we rounded a corner and realised we were above the clouds, in some sunshine, clear of the little bit of rain that had been sprinkling on us. The signs suggested that if the weather wasn’t good, this was the place to make the call to turn around. Having come this far, it would need to be a thunderstorm with lightning for me to turn around. The entire walk was hard, but the last 1km seemed to take extra long and require extra grit. Then we saw the 0.1km to the summit sign and knew we could make it.
At the top, we joined many others, hanging out, checking the view and munching on some sustenance. The view is spectacular and we could see the tiny carpark way below us. Like yesterday there were some clouds rolling past, but nothing that blocked the view for too long.
The sun shone for us and the lizards the whole time we were on the top of western Australia.
Given our great success and the completion of Tallulahs prac on Thursday we cracked a couple of little bottles of prosecco and dined on our ham and cheese wraps, chocolates and bubbles. I wasn’t sure if it was excitement, adrenaline, low blood sugar or high blood alcohol levels but my legs seemed even more shaky after stopping for our break than they did on the climb.
Eventually we decided to make the dreaded descent. We were both lamenting the lack of a slide that goes all the way down as I decided we should just getting cracking. And with that, I cracked my knee straight into a rock that was barely jutting out across the path! My painful shrieks made Tallulah panic, thinking I had twisted an ankle. Thankfully I had only taken off a bit of skin and caused some soft tissue damage. Fortunately I could still walk and bend my knee, albeit a little painfully. And we thought the walk down was going to be hard before this added complexity. Now would be a good time to have one or two of those brand new walking poles we left in the car …
Although not a serious injury, I admit it was painful, so I our descent was even slower than our climb and slower than our normal. I led with my left leg to avoid bending the knee and took each step carefully. We didn’t need to stop as much as we did on our ascent, but my extreme caution meant we didn’t eventually get back to the car park until almost 2pm. I can assure you that you probably can do the whole climb and descent way faster than we did, but we didn’t have any other plans for the day, so there was really no reason to race or rush. At the bottom, with jelly legs, I have to say I was stoked! This climb is on our Seventy B4 70 list; another one ticked off! We did manage to get a post-climb selfie before collapsing into Maz who was faithfully waiting to lovingly take us home!
Once back at home we relished coffee and hot cross buns, hot showers, boasting to other campers and reclining in our camping seats. Sorting through the backpack I found the empty wee Prosecco bottles and was horrified to find that each contained 1.8 standard drinks and we had downed them on empty tummies, at altitude, with jelly legs in a few short minutes. No wonder I sustained a serious injury. It’s a wonder I didn’t need to be evacuated off the mountain!
The rest of our day (which was almost over anyway) was spent patting ourselves on the back, resting and playing bananagrams, patting ourselves on the back, drinking and eating, patting ourselves on the back and trying to recover. Neither of us took much rocking at bed time, but although we were both completely knackered we concurred that another pat on the back was well deserved!
Monday
It’s fair to say, we woke up still patting each other on the back. I also woke up patting my sore calves and sore thighs in an effort to make them feel somewhat better. It’s a funny thing though, sore muscles from exhilarating exercise. They’re like a badge of honour. Today’s plan involves recovering from yesterday’s plan and the plan of the day before that. In other words, the plan is to rest the muscles.
Because you can drive along the range on both the north, and the south side, and we took the road on the north side to Cranbrook. We decided to take the road on the south side to Mount Barker. Although the plan had been to rest the legs, we somehow ended up at Central lookout a great place to view the range to the east and the west. My legs weren’t nearly as keen as I was to see the view. With rumours of numbats in the vicinity. We decided to head along and try to find a likely woodland where we might see them. There are some beautiful places to stop along this road, but we weren’t fortunate enough to see a numbat on this occasion. I guess it’s lucky we know exactly where to find them. What we did find at the Western lookout, which was far from intentional, was a nest of western crowned snakes. Apparently these are madly venomous probably more risk to small animals than two human beings, but I guess where there’s one type of snake they’re probably others so I wasn’t keen to hang around too long.
We decided to head to the famous bakery in Mount Barker and grab some bread and pastry delights. We were definitely not the only people with this idea but fortunately the bakery must’ve anticipated the huge demand they were experiencing and had more than enough stuff and more than enough goodies to satisfy the hungry travellers. Of course my navigator responsibilities require me to find the great lunch spot for each trip. I think I’m more than achieved at this time when we pulled up at the lookout and backed the Ute up. I also think I managed to buy the most delicious pie I’ve ever had the good fortune to consume, this one was chicken and camembert which is oozing with creamy fatty goodness. Of course Tallulah enjoyed his two pies, one of the savoury kind and naturally one of the apple kind. From look out, we could see another look out across town, one we haven’t been to. So we decided to try and find our way to it, which turned out to be an impossible mission. Although we could see it and we could lap around the bottom of it, we just couldn’t find a public road to the top. Maybe next time …
Because we’ve been to Mount Barker before and not able to find the second look out, there wasn’t much else we wanted to do so we turn for the Stirling Range and decided to stop for another numbat hunt. They are the most recent creatures at the best of times, and I don’t think there are many of them in the range, so finding them here is like finding a needle in a haystack. I hope they stay safe and hidden from predators so they can build up their numbers and flourish in the future. Maybe we’ll see them next time … our last stop for the day was back in the range at Mount Toolbrunup peak look out. No we weren’t silly enough to climb it this trip, but it’s definitely on our list for another trip along with Mount Talyuberlup and maybe another couple. I definitely can’t see this being our last trip to the range. After all, we still have the beautiful wildflowers to experience down here. Who knows, this might be the place where we finally see the Queen of Sheba. It’s certainly a place, we would highly recommend to anyone we there inclination to incline or just a love of the great outdoors.
Tuesday
As we are want to do, we weren’t really in any great hurry to race home and unlock most people we were dragging the chain getting out of the Caravan Park. Eventually, though we were packed and on our way, only to take another sightseeing detour barely up the road. I was chasing photographs of Bluff Knoll, trying to capture one shows it size and majesty, but photos will never do it justice.
We were going to go to or try to go to the Mallee fowl, rehabilitation and breeding centre but it’s just too far out of the way and inconveniently not open over Easter. Another good reason to come back down here. Instead, we meandered up the road Katanning, where we grab some coffee to enjoy with our lunch. It looks as though Katanning might be a good place to spend a weekend sometime in the future. They even have a brochure to help you plan a couple of days in the area.
Of course we would highly recommend the all ages Park, which was heaving with people today. So instead, we decided to head over to the Katanning sheep sales yards, which sounds far from fun, but turned out to be one of those uniquely Australian things. Visitors are welcome to watch the huge trucks arrive at the yards and unload the sheep ready for sale. The Yards a massive and all undercover, and very hard to comprehend how many sheep can fit in there. We were fortunate to see one truck and unload, with the sheep dog, jumping all over the backs of the sheep as it works to efficiently round them off the truck and into the yards. As I say this is one of those things that you can probably only watch in rural Australia with the only requirement being you were closed in shoes. I love living in Australia.
Having had no joy at numbat spotting in the Stirling Range, we couldn’t resist an afternoon stop at Dryandra. The weather was quite cold and really against us seeing a numbat, but it was good to stretch our legs on the long drive home. I daresay will be back here soon. After all, it is really our go to campsite. The drive home is always a great time to reflect on how lucky we are to be able to duck away for a weekend to somewhere new and do something new. This weekend we’ve ticked off one of the Seventy B4 70 list items. It feels amazing to have climbed Western Australia’s highest peak. It’s going to be a big year of bucket list items, but I have a feeling this one will be a highlight for a while to come. Very deserving of another small pat on the back.
The Solo Avocado 