Bibbulmun Track Unsupported FKT

The Bibbulmun Track is a long trail located in southwestern Australia. It stretches around 1,000 km from Kalamunda to Albany and has around 20,000 m of elevation gain along its length. The bioregions feature a bit of everything and the trail is a mixture of single track and vehicle tracks. The Bib is well maintained and fairly well graded despite what it felt like on this hike. As far as I know, for reasons that are now apparent to me, no one had even tried to hike the Bibbulmun Track in an unsupported style prior to my attempt which is documented here.

Before the hike

While hiking the PCT our group came across a hiker who was intentionally going heavyweight to spite the now dominant ultralight crowd. When one ultra lighter told him that he wouldn’t make it, he went out and bought the biggest can of gas he could find, just as a fuck you. A kilo of gas, on top of the half a kilo of gas he already had. His pack was 70 pounds (31 kg). We joked about how long we could go without resupplying while carrying the same weight. It would be about a month. About then was when I started wondering how far you could go without resupplying and without really knowing it, the seeds of my stupidest idea yet were sown. And when I found that an unsupported hike of my home trail the Bibbulmun Track had yet to be completed… well, that was too tempting to deny for long. Doing something that no one had ever done, nor probably even tried and maybe even thought about was a big part of the inspiration for actually trying it. 

Such a hike is not unprecedented. The AZT is 1,300 km and has been hiked unsupported first by Ben Broady in 28 days (46 km/day) then by Heather Anderson (Anish) in 24 days (54 km/day). These hikes were longer and harder, so it was nice to know that I wasn’t trying the obscenely impossible. 

Preparation

Before this trip I was in relatively good hiking shape. Within the last two years having ticked off the Te Araroa, Bibbulmun, and the PCT covering roughly 8000 km across these hikes. None of these trails were completed particularly fast, I was mainly hiking with other people in a fairly typical thru hiker fashion. Enjoying long breaks, plenty of rest days and a very light pack. With my camera I usually hike with a kit that’s about 4-5 kg base weight. Still, I think coming right off the PCT and starting this endeavour after a few weeks off was as good a base of training as I was likely to get any time soon. 

I did something of a training hike a week before starting. I filled the pack with spare clothes and around a dozen tins of beans until it got to 17 kg and went on an overnighter. I covered just under 100 km over the two days but it was near relatively flat Dwellingup. While I felt fairly good on this hike it was quite a bit harder than I expected. Well actually it was just a slog and every step felt like I was hiking uphill. But I didn’t injure myself so my confidence actually grew. I do confess however I did honestly get a little bit scared. It was the first time it became apparent just how much pain I would have to go through if I actually made it the whole way. And that was quite daunting. 

Planning

Once I had decided to take on the Bib unsupported it was time to bring out the spreadsheets and scales. This hike required a fairly high level of planning and logistics. It wasn’t as simple as loading up with a bunch of food and going for it. 

On the Bibbulmun there are large swathes of trail that are situated within areas that you cannot camp in, outside of the official shelter/camp areas which are excepted. Specifically, the Bibbulmun Track Foundation notes that camping in Public Drinking Water Source Areas, National Parks, Conservation Reserves and Nature Reserves is not allowed. This is just in keeping with the state policy regarding allowed activities within these legislated lands. These shelters are roughly 20 km apart, although this does vary and the distance is much shorter towards the ends of the trail, particularly in the north. The trail also goes through towns, which presumably were treated as ‘shelters’ by the foundation as the usual 20 km between shelters also counts towns. But the towns don’t have free and public camping options, so for the unsupported hiker there are 40 km or so gaps on occasion where you simply cannot sleep anywhere. If planned poorly this could mean you’d be forced to decide between a 40 km day (much too short) or a 80 km day (too long for me). 

So I mapped out everywhere along the trail where free camping was and was not allowed and put together an itinerary that was as close as possible to the distances I wanted to be doing while avoiding the camping dead zones around towns. The shelters themselves are three sided AT style structures made specifically for Bibbulmun hikers. There are always rainwater tanks here (there is very little reliable water elsewhere), a drop toilet and camping areas. 

Food

Food is obviously a massive deal in general when hiking but for an unsupported hike it’s everything. How much you bring determines how long you can take to finish a given trail and therefore how fast you have to go. There is some wiggle room, you can ration if you need to but that sucks. The more food, the more manageable the daily mileage can be and your pace can be slower. But conversely the more food you bring the higher the impact on your muscles and joints from the extra weight, the more energy you expend per mile and the slower you’ll move. So it’s a balancing act. 

I decided I really didn’t want to carry more than 19 kg. I could get my base weight safely and comfortably below 4 kg in the spring season I was going for. Which meant 15 kg of food and other consumables. At around 830g of food per day that worked out to a hike duration of 17 days. That would be about 58 km per day which I thought would be easy with a normal pack weight. I didn’t know how much the weight would impact my hiking but decided I’d find out the hard way. Yes I was indeed naive. 

As far as what I ate. I eat vegan at home and on trails as well. It’s always worked well for me and I’ve never had too hard a time finding suitable food on the hikes I’ve done while rarely having to mail anything ahead. Other than this requirement I’m not fussy. This trip though I focused specifically on higher calorie and/or easy to eat foods. 

I cold soaked dinners for the weight and time savings. Being local it was easy for me to cook and dehy some meals which worked extremely well. I’d never cold soaked before but it was so convenient and the meals were delicious. Definitely the right call. I had a pasta with marinara sauce, zucchini and tvp which I topped with olive oil of course. I cannot begin to adequately describe how good this was as a backpacking meal. The other main meal was a red curry I made with a fat free paste, lentils, sweet potato, fried tofu, fried onions, cashews, coconut cream and rice. Super high calorie and super freaking tasty. Dinners were a huge morale boost. The last water before camp I’d take extra for dinner and eat while I walked around 6 pm, about 2 hours before reaching camp. 

The rest of my food I snacked on throughout the day as I walked roughly having 50g of nutrition per hour. This included things like Oreos (4.9 calories per gram), Kookas (4.8), Woolworths granola cookies (4.7), sesame snaps (5.1), BBQ shapes (4.9), muesli bars (4.3), dark almond Whittaker’s chocolate (5.5) and sour patch kids (3.6) to name a few key picks. Anything over 4 calories per gram I considered suitable. You can’t deny the energy boost from the sour patch kids though so despite only being a 3.6 a fair few of them made it into the pack. They’re also maybe the only candy I can get down in bulk. On top of this I also had 150g of electrolyte which I barely used because the flavour was trash and about 100g of instant coffee, which I almost ran out of prematurely. A potentially hike-ending hazard I hadn’t appreciated. I tried no doz too but only had a few because coffee just worked much better for me. 

Gear

The gear I took was fairly minimal but with a focus on prioritising sleeping comfort. I was going to try and rely on getting some very solid sleep to stave off cumulative fatigue. 17 days is a bit long to go 4 hours a night like Tom did on his self-supported sub 12 day push on the Bibbulmun. I also just didn’t need to and wasn’t interested in going into that kind of depravation. I ended up sleeping like shit anyway as you’ll find if you read on, but the strategy I don’t think I’d want to change. 

The pack I used was borrowed from my friend Brenden who I hiked with for around half of the PCT. It was a SWD long haul and it was absolutely phenomenal. Despite having 4000 km on it before this hike it carried the heavy load like a champ and weighed only 1.1 kg. Massive thanks to you Brenden. Between sending me the pack from his holiday in Ireland and sending me podcast length voice messages right when I needed them most it was as much support as I could have received without breaking any rules of the unsupported category! 

The rest of my gear I’ll link here:

Lighterpack

Day 1
(49.0 km, 13:00, 1,620 m, 19 kg)
(Distance, total elapsed time (hr:mm), elevation gain, starting total pack weight)

After a pretty decent sleep my partner and I woke up at 5 am. I said a fond goodbye to the espresso machine tried not to injure my back transporting the behemoth of a pack into the car. 

The fate of this journey was going to be decided one way or another by a war of attrition. I would either slowly devour the beast on my back or it would slowly, or maybe not so slowly, pound my body into submission. After getting a hint of what I was in for on the training hike a week earlier I was not particularly looking forward to this at all. But I was determined to give it my best go and just see how it went. I knew I could make it at least two days, probably three so I’d do that and take it from there. 

We got some photos, pressed start on my watch and I was off. Just like any other journey, it starts with a single step. This one was considerably heavier than usual though. 

Something that became immediately obvious was just how much harder any change in elevation was with the heavy pack. Going down steps one stride at a time was out, it was a shuffle. I was leaning on my poles so much I’m surprised they didn’t snap. My knees were sore and quads were burning in no time. Last year on this hike I didn’t even notice any significant grades. This time I was getting absolutely wrecked. After about 20 km my feet started to get sore. I’d get sore feet normally on the PCT but usually after around 40 km, not a mere 20 km. It was a relatively cool day but I was expending way more energy than I was used to and running super hot. I can usually get by without much water just fine but needed a lot more despite the cool temps. I ended up taking 5-10 minute breaks every 60-90 minutes to stave off the worst of the already mounting fatigue. By 30 km I was well into the pain cave and not enjoying myself all that much to be fair. I wrote one line in my notes for the first day and it was just “got f#cked by the hills”. 

I came into camp after having struggled on through the last half of the day feeling worn out but accomplished. It was before daylight fully waned and maintaining high effort had still managed 3.8 km/hr trail pace for the day (included all breaks). So I had earned plenty of time for a luxuriantly long sleep, which I’d bargained on for the recovery. In theory. In reality I laid in bed, all the muscles in the lower half of my body burning in sharp agony for over 3 1/2 hours. I had thought that, having used not a small amount of energy throughout the day, I’d pass out as soon as I laid down. Instead I groaned in pain and frustration as I furiously tried to sleep. Not a great method for drifting off to sleep but I’d lost my cool after the second hour of being denied any rest. It was also about 10-12 C as I was trying to sleep. It should have been a perfectly comfortable temperature for my 5 C quilt. My legs however had lit their own metabolic fire and I was sweating uncomfortably all night. 

It was some time after 11:30 pm that I finally made it to my destination of unconsciousness. All the while being vaguely aware that the time until my alarm was due to wake me up (4:30 am) was creeping uncomfortably nearer. 

Day 2
(50.0 km, 13:13, 1,213 m, 18.2 kg)

After waking groggily to my third alarm, my watch informed me of what I was already painfully aware. I had managed just over 4 hours of sleep and unsurprisingly achieved a ‘poor’ sleep quality score. Oh well, the first night on trail is often not that restful. The upside is that at least tonight I’ll be so tired that I’ll pass out immediately. Or that’s what I thought.

The morning of day two was slow. The northern stretch and particularly this section has the highest grade of the trail. Feeling each rise and even more so the declines, acutely. My knees didnt feel like they were on the Bibbulmun, the feeling was more reminiscent of some New Zealand hiking. The relatively new track now taking in Mt Dale I thought was particularly rude and unnecessary. More walking and slow hills ensued and, while I wasn’t setting any land speed records, I was still going.

Arriving at Monodocks camp for the night I could see some hills in the distance. They were tomorrows problem. For now I just needed to get some solid sleep to help restore myself after just a tired slog of a day. The whole lower half of my body felt beaten up. Intentionally making these first few days shorter meant at least finishing before dark. But still my hips, quads and glute muscles were in too much agony to simply drift off, and so again it was a lot of hot, painful rolling until sleep belatedly came at around 11:30 pm.

Day 3
(46.4 km, 12:57, 965 m, 17.4 kg)

I was so sore on the previous two nights that I fully expected to wake up, take one step and the predictably obvious injury I had sustained to manifest itself. It at least took until this third morning to occur. Within 20 minutes of starting I pulled up limply as I felt that particular feeling of pain in my left foot that somehow distinguishes itself from other non-injurious pains. It was sharp, aching, not moving around anywhere and not getting better when ignored (my preferred method of treatment). I stopped and found that my flexor brevis area had become very tender any motion of my toes up or down would illicit a painful response. I performed a bit of massage and kept going. It didn’t improve over the next 30 minutes, actually it was getting worse and I was noticeably limping now. Ok so this was a thing. Stopping again I had another look and yeh it wasn’t feeling good. Still I had other avenues to try and put some KT tape over the painful area and plodded on. Despite this being my first time using KT tape and not having a clue how to properly use it for my injury, it seemed to help a little. I could at least continue for now and see how it went. I was trying hard to heel-strike as much as possible to alleviate forefoot pressure. I certainly wasn’t going to throw in the towel at the first sign of injury, but I was, and already had been, forming a mental list of all the things I could do once I’d gotten home. Which was probably going to happen in the next day or two.

The Monodocks (hills) and especially Mt Cooke kept my pace down to around 3 km/hr for the first 5 hours of the morning. After getting down Cooke, the rest was a trudge on tired and sore legs, but at least it was flat and I was able to make up some time. By the time I had made it to camp it was dark but my foot hadn’t gotten any worse, in fact maybe it was feeling a bit better. It was around this point any pretence of getting in front of the schedule or pushing myself further than necessary went completely out of the window. I was going to do my best to survive and that was it. That was after all, all I had to do. I was trying to set a record, not break one. Every day in theory would be closer to the day that it became easier. At the last shelter before camp I wrote in the log book “tomorrow is a lighter day”. This became somewhat of a mantra.

I managed to fall asleep a little earlier, just after 10 pm. It was set to be a very much needed good nights rest.

Day 4
(54.0 km, 15:13, 1,103 m, 16.6 kg)

I was awakened by a tickling in my beard at 3 am. It was dark and I was half asleep, mostly asleep, as I picked the ant out of my beard and tossed it aside. Its not that unusual to get the odd ant when cowboy camping. And my half net tent wasn’t exactly ant-proof. But I had to repeat the procedure twice with two more ants in the same spot immediately. Maybe after a crumb in my beard. Ok now I was awake. I turned my light on to find and evict any other stray ants. But they were not strays. What the light illuminated was a swarm of a hundred of ants crawling over me, my shelter, the netting, everything. My shelter had become the ant nest.

I laid there for a few seconds. I hadn’t experienced an invasion like this before so it took a a bit for my brain to reboot and register what was occurring. It still didn’t make sense. Ants aren’t usually active at night, I hadn’t left any food out and there were like three species of ants here. What the. I opened up the mesh netting and started swiping out swathes of ants. I shortly gave up the effort to reclaim my sleeping place and just started packing up. It took a while to separate the ants from my gear. Another non-ideal 5 hour sleep but at least I had an early start. It would leave plenty of time to sleep tonight. I didn’t let it affect my mood and walking away I just wished I’d had the wherewithal to take a funny ant-ridden photo.

The day continued on, the hills again really affecting my pace. I also took a few longer breaks with the extra time time I had up my sleeve. A long, slow, tired day that ended with me feeling not too beat up all things considered. I pitched in the dark, 200 km from Kalamunda after four days. Not at all surprised that it was the four hardest days of hiking I’d ever done.

While spending my customary 3+ hours of rolling, groaning and sweating instead of sleeping I’d managed to leave my left hand up against the bug netting long enough for half a dozen mosquitoes to extract some probably pretty deoxygenated blood, causing my hand to swell up. Now hyper mosquito aware, their buzzing lifted me from sleep not a few times throughout the night.

Day 5
(51.9 km, 14:51, 1,217 m, 15.7 kg)

I woke up tired, sore and feeling like I hadn’t really left the pain cave. Both of my forefeet joints (MCP joint- where the toes join the foot) had been feeling irritated hadn’t fully recovered overnight. The bad sleep and impact fatigue was catching up, well overtaking, me it seemed. It was 10 or so km into Dwellingup, where I would have to charge my power banks at the visitors centre and change over the strapping on my ankles that I had applied pre-emptively before the hike.

Leaving town, walking past cafes and the grocery store was a little weird and sadly not as badass as I thought it would feel. It seemed unnecessarily arduous and I guess it totally was. I did never get a sense of satisfaction from carrying my food the whole way and being fully self-sufficient, which I thought I would have. And right then I would have loved an oat flat white or ten.

I was feeling not great but ok for the next 20 km, till at about 30km in I hit a few hills which unapologetically wrecked me. The legs were struggling to move through the fatigue and muscle pain and the feet were feeling every step. I had mentally had enough of the pain so took an ibuprofen. It didn’t lift my pace but kind of helped. I did however not like the feeling of numbness, almost drunkenness that came from it and I couldn’t track my pains as acutely as I’d like for trying to identify and stave off injuries. I had been feeling like I was walking on the brink of injury the whole time and so was trying to pay close attention to the various pains. Trudging on till after dark I made camp at the end of a long and very slow day. I no longer was looking forward to (trying to) sleep. I’d resigned myself to the hours of torment that came from being exhausted but in too much pain to fall asleep. This night it was mainly my glutes that kept me awake. 

Day 6
(59.8 km, 14:51, 1,221 m, 14.8 kg)

After having almost 6 hours of sleep I was feeling surprisingly refreshed as I woke and started packing up camp. I set off in the dark at a good pace, the body feeling somewhat recovered. It was after dawn and 5 km later that something else dawned on me. I had sped off down the trail, full of energy, in the wrong freaking direction. Oh boy. I felt very foolish. But actually not too annoyed. I knew there was a diversion around Lake Maringup that would cut off about 14 km of walking on net that I’d have to backtrack to make up the mileage at some point anyway. That diversion was over 300 km away though and it would have been nice to make up that ground with a much lighter pack. I was also a bit short on water, having carried about 500 ml to cover the 8 km to the next shelter that I was expecting to do this morning, which now had to last me 18 km. Luckily it was a cool morning so I ended up being fine on water. Overall not as disastrous a mess up as it could have been.

Up until today my walking could be broken into stages. The first 20 km was usually not too bad (a very relative term for this hike). The 20 km to 30 km section was where I’d gradually enter into the pain cave properly. And anything after 30 km was just a struggle, with the last 40 km to 50 km section seeming to take forever and just a painful trudge, usually stopping every hour. Today though was the first sign that the impact from the pack was somewhat relenting and it wasn’t until after the 40km mark that the pain cave began in earnest. An extra 20 km of moving and feeling fairly well was fantastic. And it was perfectly timed as my premature backtracking meant that today was the first 60 km day. I still had 20 km that were hard and painful, but I’d take that.

After a bit of evening night hiking I had my last break before camp, just sitting down with my pack on and I looked at my feet. To my eyes they looked like they were moving towards me. A strange visual illusion from night hiking tunnel vision. I took two ibuprofen and a Panadol half an hour before getting to the shelter. I was very over being in too much pain to get proper sleep. There were a few sleeping hikers in the shelter as I snuck in. It’s nice eating cold soaked food on the go as it means I can create minimal disturbance with my late arrivals. I was in bed by 8 pm, but still didn’t manage to get to sleep till some time after 10:30 pm. The drugs did very little to alleviate my discomfort.

Day 7
(58.1 km, 15:00, 1,020 m, 13.9 kg)

The residing hikers were still asleep as I quietly left the shelter, jealous of their slumber, after managing under 6 hours of sleep myself. The longer day hadn’t injured me and I left going in the correct direction, so all in all a good start. I was however feeling the extra 10 km from yesterday. I was hoping that any longer days would be done with a lighter pack. I fatigued early, muscles complaining painfully and the feet were feeling well used by the 20 km mark. I was also feeling the lack of sleep and was the most tired and sluggish I’d been so far and was struggling to cover ground. I was passing the turnoff to Collie today (which is off trail a few km). So it was one of those zones where there are no shelters and so also no water, which meant a ~40 km water carry. I cant say I was overly enthused about this and it effectively sent me back 4 days in terms of pack weight.

There was a bit of light rain predicted for the second half of the day. It was not light. It rained steadily from about 2 pm till right after I stopped around 8:30 pm. After an exhausted slog in the rain, I was cold, soaking wet and thoroughly over walking. At the end of the day, hiking in the rain and dark I got to a road a few km before I was due to camp in an area of state park. To my surprise and not a little annoyance the next section of trail had been closed due to a prescribed burn. There was a diversion that was either put up really recently or I missed it when planning. I was scheduled to camp in this 4 km or so closed stretch, but now this section of forest was literally on fire, despite the rain. I was tempted to go up to one of the burning logs for a bit of warmth, a veritable candle in the dark, but maybe that would be considered support.

I wanted to check my phone to navigate to somewhere I could camp, but my phone was too wet for the screen to recognise my touch and also happened to be on no more than 1% battery. I thought I could empathise with that, feeling quite the same way myself. When I went to charge it, it notified me that the lightning port had moisture in it and wouldn’t charge the phone. There was an emergency override, but that could permanently damage the phone, which I definitely still needed. I was completely soaked, freezing cold, exhausted standing in the dark at a random dirt road with my carefully laid plans in a heap, not knowing where I could even sleep.

I started waking down the road diversion and hadn’t made it 5 minutes before my head lamp dimmed to ultra-low mode, something it does automatically when it is almost dead. This made looking for a potential camping spot somewhat problematic. Eventually finding a good enough spot I pitched my tarp. I went to bed in my wet clothes knowing my body heat would dry them out. It was going to be near freezing in the morning and I wanted dry clothes. It was a shit day and I was a mess. I couldn’t remember having a worse day on trail.

Day 8
(58.7 km, 15:29, 1,262 m, 13.0 kg)

After a very broken 5 hours of sleep my alarm went off at the usual 4:30 am. It was hard to get up to say the least. My clothes and phone that I’d slept with had dried but of course a lot of the moisture condensed on my quilt overnight, as expected. I had woken up cold at about 3 am and barely slept after then. My quilt was not rated for the, I have to say rather unseasonal, cold temperature and was pretty wet which doesn’t help. Shivering, I packed up camp as quickly as I could then donned the fleece gloves that I had kept dry for this morning. They were a life saver. After about an hour of walking the dry clothes and gloves let me fully warm up and the sun came out from behind the fog not long after.
After just a terrible day and cold morning I got a long voice message from a mate that really picked me up and soon after I was feeling better and making good progress down the trail (thanks Brenden!). I took a couple of longer (20 minute) breaks during the day and took it easy on myself with a fairly leisurely pace. So it was dark by the time I made it into Balingup to charge and get water by the public gazebo in town. It had been a long day but I thought it might be starting to feel slightly easier now.

Day 9
(54.4 km, 13:46, 1,349 m, 12.1 kg)

It was a fairly cold night again, something like 3 C, and my quilt hadn’t fully dried out during my breaks the previous day so it was another short and fairly broken sleep of just under 5 hours. Starting out I was feeling not at all rested. I don’t know if it was the excessive coffee or the building and alarming lack of sleep, likely both, but I was feeling lightheaded today, like my brain was a bit disconnected or lagging behind my body. Luckily the walking was feeling a bit easier today and I could trudge along at a decent pace without overly much effort. Today was also slightly shorter as I was going into Donnelly River Valley (DRV), which was surrounded by its own Public Drinking Water Source Area (no camping allowed) but thankfully has a free Bibbulmun shelter in the village I could use.

The shelter was empty except for a bike packers bike and I had finished the day in good time reaching DRV by 6:30 pm and before dark, which by now was a rarity. My forefeet joints, particularly on my left foot, were not feeling great so was thankful for the early finish. It was going to be a cold night but sleeping inside the shelter, which has a tarpaulin closing the open wall of the shelter, would keep me warmer. So this was a perfect opportunity to catch up on sleep. Actually I had been thinking the whole day that the main mission for the afternoon was to make it to DRV early enough to get a monster sleep. I needed sleep badly. I rolled out my still very painfully sore muscles and feet, did a good 20-30 minutes of stretching and was in bed by around 7:30 pm.

By some miracle I had fallen asleep after only 1 1/2 hours of writhing at 9 pm. Sadly though it was short lived as I was woken by a possum inside the shelter knocking over my water bottles. And so began the night of the possums. They were fighting on the roof, walking around my head and at one point were ripping into the bags on the bike to get at some wrappers the cyclist had left in there.

Day 10
(58.9 km, 14:53, 1,514 m, 11.2 kg)

Last night was not the sleep I had needed. Beyond the possum party, I was too hot for most of the night, then woke up and 3 am then 4 am because I was too cold. My hip joints were painful for most of the night. Particularly the right one, which I had injured years ago and had some smaller issues with since, which was disconcerting. Despite having 9 hours of potential sleep time I had barely managed 6 hours of very broken light sleep. I gave up on ever getting good sleep about here. After the 4 am wake up, I packed up and made an early start. It was going to be a longer day after all with plenty of hills in the afternoon.

By mid-morning I reached the half way point of the trail. I reflected on the last 500 km, undoubtedly the hardest 500 km I’d walked. There was mixed feelings about reaching this juncture. On one hand I had flipping made it half way! I seriously didn’t think I’d make it this far. On the other hand, I still had half to go. And having to bail in the second half would be absolutely crushing. It had taken me a bit over 9 days to get to here, and I had a bit over 7 days of food left. I’d be picking up the mileage soon so I wondered which half I’d find harder. The pack was undisputedly getting smaller and lighter at this point. To me anyway. I’d been receiving comments about how small my pack was since day 3! I was feeling almost like a normal hiker again.

There were indeed plenty of hills in the afternoon, none of which were necessary at all I thought. The up and down was following vehicle tracks steeply in and out streamline valleys. The maker of said tracks obviously didn’t have hikers in mind. Still I was able to keep a good pace throughout the day, a testament to the 10 days of eating that had whittled my pack weight slowly down. It was now close to something I would carry at the start of a week-long section through the Sierra with bear can and snow gear. The hills were still tough but didn’t have the crushing effect they had at the start.

I once again managed to fall asleep early, around 9 pm, only to be woken up half an hour later and couldn’t sleep again till the usual time of ~11 pm. On an unsupported hike you’d think I’d be dreaming of food, but I just wanted to let my pain dissipate and fall asleep in soft bed.

Day 11
(55.6 km, 14:08, 1,432 m, 10.3 kg)

A hilly morning took its toll on my beaten up shins and knees. My hips were still feeling panful and inflamed, particularly my problematic right hip, so I took an ibuprofen at lunch and for dinner to try and get the inflammation down. Otherwise though was feeling pretty decent and was moving fairly ok despite my tiredness. Almost walking into three tiger snakes may have helped lessen my drowsiness. The potential for snake bite had never worried me, but having to SOS out of this hike now would really really suck.

I had to stop a few times for some sock armouring. A quirk of my shoes, the Olympus 6, is that they wear in a particular way on the outside of the forefoot area which creates a large amount of abrasion there. I had torn through socks this way with the last pair, but thought I’d been unlucky. The same was happening now so I taped the outside of my socks to avoid them getting shredded. Even the Leuko tape was getting worn through though so I had to reapply tape numerous time.

I went through Pemberton in the late afternoon, charged my power banks briefly at the library while I dried out my quilt. Leaving Pemberton is always beautiful, the Karri trees towered above me as I walked down this pleasantly flat and open section of track into dusk. It was a rare moment of enjoyment. I got to camp around 7 pm. And was asleep by 8:30 pm.

Day 12
(63.7 km, 15:37, 1,317 m, 9.4 kg)

I almost cried when I arose and realised I had barely woken throughout the night and amassed a massive 7 1/2 hours of solid sleep. It was the first time since maybe day 2 that I had woken up and felt like a human being, not a tired husk of one. It was a massive relief. My watch gave me a sleep score of 91/100 and the comment was “Highly restorative: You had extremely restorative sleep. You’re ready for a productive day.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. The little sleep reports had been quite antagonistic until now, positive feedback is always nice. I still had some catching up on sleep to do but wow, time to be productive.

The timing of my restful night could not have been better. From here I’d need to average over 64 km per day to make it to Albany on time and today was the start of the run of longer days needed to achieve this. It was a hilly morning, but they had lost some of their gravity and I was finally making actually good time. Not just “good all things considered time” but I was actually moving. There was still a lot of cumulative fatigue and niggling injuries, but it felt the momentum swinging. I stopped in Northcliffe for a power bank top up for about 30 minutes. Easily my longest break to date but I was looking ahead and power was going to be tight.

South of Northcliffe I detoured onto the large diversion thrown up due to prescribed burns, which followed the Munda Biddi cycling route. It was mostly dirt road and some asphalt. Boring walking but it was soon dark so it didn’t phase me too much. I reached the temporary Bibbulmun camp at Boorara Tree having averaged over 4 km/hr for the day despite my long stop in Northcliffe. Productive indeed. There were plenty of hikers here, about 7-8, a veritable bubble for the Bib. They were all asleep though, and were still asleep when I left the next morning.

Day 13
(63.2 km, 15:26, 760 m, 8.5 kg)

I couldn’t back up my great sleep, but it wasn’t too bad, just under 6 1/2 hours. I’d take that.

I finished up the diversion and put on my most used and dirtiest pair of socks because I was entering the Pingerup Plains. The notoriously wet section of trail that is partly flooded from late autumn till mid summer (so most of the year). My feet and left knee was not feeling great but this section was at least was flat. And the going was fairly easy which was nice. I was mainly paying attention to the trail and was trying hard to not step on any of the many snakes I saw that day.

I was getting to the end of the day and still had dry feet which was a nice surprise. When I had walked this section last year at the beginning of winter it was dry so I was harbouring some hope for a repeat. There were some large puddles which had flooded small parts of the trail but they had been avoidable. It was dark and about 2 km from the shelter when I reached not just a puddle but a small inland lake that apparently was the track. Shining my head torch ahead illuminated only water surrounded by thick scrub and rushes as far as the light went. After flailing then failing to get around I begrudgingly accepted I was getting wet feet. I hate wet feet and will go to great lengths to keep them dry. It was part way through wading along this section that my headlamp again automatically dimmed to ultra-low mode as the battery was about to give out. It felt like it took forever with literally no end in sight to traverse the slippery, muddy, flooded trail.

I got to the shelter and washed down my legs and shoes which were covered in all sorts of flotsam and jetsam. Finished the day at 8:30 pm, was in bed 20 minutes later and then asleep by 9:30 pm for easily the second best sleep of the hike.

Day 14
(59.1 km, 14:49, 1,579 m, 7.6 kg)

Buoyed by a solid 7 hours of sleep and the sounds of waves crashing in the distance, I made my way to the south coast. This wasn’t the start of the real south coast section, just a small taste before heading inland again around Walpole. But that small taste was enough to remind me of how much I hated walking on sand. My wet shoes and socks performed remarkably well as an attractant and receptacle for the sand. But still, it felt good to have made it to this oceanic milestone.

The beach was thankfully short and soon it was back inland to firmer soils. On the way up Mount Clare however I felt a little jolt of pain in my left forefoot while pivoting on it to change direction. It was a bit achy but didn’t seem to be too bad so continued to the shelter on the top of Clare and gave my foot a bit of a stretch and roll out. Heading down though it got quite a bit worse and had to pull up a few times on the way down to try and massage away the pain. I was a little worried at this late stage that it could turn into something serious. But I wasn’t about to stop so I walked carefully downhill the rest of the way into Walpole, trying to keep as much pressure on my heels as possible. I knew Walpole was going to be my last chance to charge my dwindling power supplies so I’d have a decent amount of time to rest and try to do something with my foot.

I had a luxuriantly long 45 minute break, mostly just because I needed the power. I massaged and rolled my foot as much as I thought it could take. Finally leaving town the foot seemed to have gotten mostly better and I made great time for the rest of the day. I was surprised upon arriving at the resort-like Franklin Shelter that it was empty. I didnt have to mess around with trying to be quiet so I was in bed 15 minutes later and bagged a glorious 7 hours 15 minutes of solid sleep.

I had expected this tail end of the hike to be putting more pressure on my sleeping time with the longer days. But I was just experiencing less intensity, duration and coverage of pain as the pack weight became more familiar so I was sleeping better it turned out.

Day 15
(67.2 km, 16:31, 2,099 m, 6.7 kg)

It took me less than 15 minutes from alarm to being on the trail. Today was the first of the longer three days I slated for the end of this hike so I might be needing the extra time. The walking through Walpole is always beautiful and I was benefiting from stringing together a few good nights of sleep. I found myself almost having a good time. The first 30 km flew by and all too soon I was back on the coast again. The soft, sandy dunes ensued. It felt like the Bib was determined to lead me up every dunal crest and then promptly descend to every dunal valley before repeating the process for basically the remainder of the day. Despite starting off not feeling too beat up, the dunes were quickly sapping my energy and the cumulative fatigue of the last two weeks was once again weighing heavily on me. It was also the start of two very hot days and the flies were out in force.

I was contemplating for quite a while as to which direction I should go for the unsupported attempt. The final decision to go south was based largely on wanting softer ground for shoes with 800 km of wear and accelerated compression on the soles. It meant starting in what I thought would be the harder northern end. But walking this section again I think I would have found going northbound the more difficult start.

Crossing the Irwin Inlet on a canoe had me slightly worried. I hadn’t done it last time, opting instead to wade the crossing near the shore and walk the firm beaches. This time though I stuck fastidiously to the official route. So I didn’t know how hard it would be for one person or if I’d have to make three crossings to leave a canoe on the same side as I departed. It was however a little moment of bliss and just one of those rare enjoyable moments. I was off my feet, out on the open water of the inlet, I didn’t have to go back to shuffle canoes and putting in was easy. The section afterward was desktop-background worthy rolling green hills peppered with kangaroos.

The sand, heat and hills had left me exhausted but rolling into camp at 9:15 pm I was feeling not too bad physically. I was however reintroduced to some old muscle pain that kept me awake so broke my run of decent sleep, only managing 5 hours.

Day 16
(69.0 km, 17:11, 1,670 m, 5.7 kg)

I hadn’t bothered setting up the tarp for the first time last night and so in a classic display of Murphy’s Law woke up cold and early with my quilt covered in dew. The first time on this trip it was particularly dewy. So it was a tired start. Leaving camp before dawn as usual, I was surprised to see another hiker up. It was a lady who had completed the PCT the prior year to me which figures. Sadly I couldn’t stay and reminisce. It was another one of those long days and I had a lot of ground to cover. And said ground was mostly of the soft, sandy variety.

I didn’t stop for the first five hours or so as I was racing the tide at Parry Beach somewhat, hoping for the firmer intertidal sands. The first half was nice but I was walking on the second, sandier half right before high tide so it was slow going. Mount Hallowell was unkind to me as the temps reached low 30’s and I became a little dehydrated. The heat did provide a good opportunity to dry my quilt. I draped it over my shoulders as I walked on the sidewalk from Ocean Beach to the Wilson Inlet. Wearing my bright orange quilt like a scarf in the mid day heat would have looked quite comical to the many drivers that passed me by. I felt like a bit of an idiot but so be it, I wasn’t going to stop and wait for it to dry out. Tonight was the last night on trail and I had the end firmly in mind.

The sand bar of the Wilson Inlet had long ago been opened. So it was a wade to cross it. I spent too much time placing everything in my pack just in case I went for an accidental swim. But I hadn’t needed to bother, it was a slow current and not above waist deep so a very simple crossing.

On the other side of the crossing I stopped to take off some now drenched tape on my forefeet which I was using to lessen the impact and mitigate joint pain. When taking off my right forefoot tape my skin had somehow fused to the tape and instead of just releasing the tape it started to tear a strip of my skin off with it. This was not just a flake of dead skin or the first layer. It was a thick strip of every layer of skin on my foot and peeled like a hang nail in a horror film, getting deeper as it went. I swore in frustration as the pain swelled and blood dripped from my foot. What the actual fuck. Ouch. I had just managed to make the remaining 80 km unnecessarily that much more painful for myself. I hobbled out of the sand, cleaned up the ‘wound’ (I guess), laid the strip of skin back down over where it pulled up from and applied five more layers of Leuko tape right over it. Tape got me into this and it was going to help me get out. I’m writing this a week after finishing the hike and those five layers of tape are still on my foot. Every time I go to take them off I get flashbacks to ripping off my skin and can’t bring myself to do it. Even removing other bits of tape after the hike was done with hands practically shaking. I really should take that tape off.

I was so angry and frustrated leaving the beach that it drowned out the pain and I furiously smashed the next 20 km in under four hours. This little flesh would was obviously not going to stop me, pain be damned. What ever.

Towards the end of the day I ran into Heaps and Spicy, fellow hiker trash. They had somehow discovered and joined maybe the largest and definitely youngest group of hikers on trail and were all piled into the shelter like a student share house in a cost of living crisis. I wasn’t telling anyone my stupid mission unless they asked, but they quickly clued it out of me. Their stoke was really uplifting and it was quite amazing how much got packed into such a short conversation.

My mood had turned 180 but it was time to head down the trail. It was now getting dark and I still had a couple of hours to hike. Tomorrow was the freaking last freaking day. How did that happen? I finished my day around 9 pm and set up camp for the last time.

Day 17
(63.0 km, 14:46, 1,290 m, 4.7 kg)

I woke up at the usual 4:30 am. I didn’t turn my alarm back on. Checking my watch, I had only had managed 5 hrs of sleep, but I didn’t care. I could dose up on caffeine and not suffer any negative effects from sleeplessness. Well at least it wouldn’t impact the hike. There had been no dew overnight so it was a dry pack up, but again I couldn’t have cared either way. My goal today was simply and explicitly, no matter what happens, to just not step on a snake. That was the only thing short of a horrifically broken bone or similar freak accident that would take me off trail. A minor break would probably have been manageable. Hiking the Bibbulmun unsupported means nothing unless you finish after all. I could feel the pressure to ensure that the last 16 days of self-inflicted torment would not be wasted.

I set off at 4:50 am and immediately downed an ibuprofen as my first step on my slightly wounded forefoot elicited a sharp stabbing pain. Coffee soon followed. Sadly and precariously the last of it. This is of course the true breakfast of champions. 

After an epic sunrise it was a short 5 km or so till the next shelter. I topped up on water as the residing hikers dozed on. For not the first time, but at least it was the last time, I was jealous of hikers sleeping in. But I was planning to put them all to shame soon with a monster sleep in of my own. It was a relatively cruisy morning. The sand felt firmer and the trail seemed like it wasn’t trying to hit every dunal peak and valley. Rounding the headland I had an emotional moment as I saw the wind farm in the distance. This was the last horizon I’d have to pass, the end was just behind those cliff-top turbines down at the familiar harbour city of Albany. 

It was high tide but the last beach was firm by southwest standards and I was pleasantly surprised that the Torbay inlet was closed by a somewhat recently formed sand bar. Actually, truth be told, I was fucking ecstatic with that small win. I had just lanced and taped my first blister and this turn of luck also meant I wouldn’t have water seeping into my taped wound. 

Clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped as I left the beach and climbed the coastal cliff to the wind farm. In classic Albany fashion it was looking like rain and I watched the weather roll in while making good time across the cliff top. I stopped and chatted to four other hikers that would be finishing their end to end hikes the next day before leaving Sand Patch shelter. The last shelter, I realised belatedly a little way down the track. The next ‘shelter’ I’d sleep in would have four walls and be in a city, that much further removed from the outdoors. Was I missing this suffer fest already? No definitely not, a bed sounded fantastic. But also maybe yes. Then it started raining.

I backtracked 2.4 km along the Princess Harbour footpath (I needed to make up 4.6 km more to balance out the residual difference in detour route lengths to get back to the official trail distance). In hindsight this was not a good place to do the extra km’s. The paved pathway was a hammer to my tender feet. And walking away from Albany as it was in view sapped my momentum. Speaking of sapped, I had earlier drained the last charge from my power banks, rationed into each device with hopefully enough to get each one to the end. Managing power was a big part of this trip and something I haven’t really gone in to. It was a little bit tight for comfort, but I had basically nailed it. That at least had gone well.

Somewhere along the harbour sidewalk I ate the last food I had. A packet of sour patch kids. I realised that it was the first time in two and a half weeks that the next thing I ate wasn’t going to be coming from my pack, carried all the way from Kalamunda. It was silly but I felt a little insecure about this. Did I remember how to acquire new food? Ah yes there’s shops for that. It was now that my pack was down to essentially my base weight of 3.7 kg and felt like nothing.

The new route into town was longer than expected but after a final sunset and short night hike I was beating a fast walk (maybe hobble is more accurate) down the Main Street of town. Then, abruptly and at last, I found myself standing at the southern terminus. The end of the trail. Huh. 

After 16 days, 13 hours, 35 minutes, 982 km, 22,631 m of elevation gain, 14.5 kg of food eaten and not nearly enough sleep for this precious pea, it was over. Composure gone, I had an emotion or two, ok several, and got some photos of me holding my now comically empty pack. My partner had met me there and had made some vegan sausage rolls from scratch and procured a celebratory beer, both were summarily devoured. It’s was off to a second course of lasagne and then finally bed. But my retrospective excitedness, residual pain, emotional confusion, a bit of shock and copious caffeine meant I slept not at all. But I didn’t really care. 

I had given myself a realistic 30% chance of competing this hike. Maybe it should have been lower. Everyday I felt like I was going to bed and just hoping naively that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning, take a step and realise I was injured and couldn’t continue. After the first day I was thinking of lists of other things I could be doing and even should be doing instead of this ill advised pack haul, for when I would inevitably call my partner to bail me out at some far flung dirt road. But somehow, one day at a time, I had made it. I don’t know if I can say I am happy about doing something I am so relieved to be done with. I wouldn’t call a single day of it enjoyable on the whole. There were moments, but it was just a big slog and the hardest thing I’ve put myself through on a trail. By not a small margin. For whatever value there is in doing hard things for the sake of doing them, I can at least say that I’m proud to have done it. 

Becoming the first person to hike the Bibbulmun unsupported was a crazy, ambitious, stupid dream. But now it is a memory. One I’m pretty proud of.

Diversions

As with all Bibbulmun hikes there will inevitably be some trail closures, some of which are perennial. At each trail closure and ensuing diversion I noted the difference in the diversion length to the original route length and balanced out the difference by backtracking in two locations: for 10 km near Murray shelter and for 4.8 km along Princess Harbour near Albany. I’ve included the details and a photo of the diversions below.

• Harvest Diversion near Dwellingup (+0.9 km)

• Prescribed Burn near Mumballup Pub (-1.7 km)

• Beedalup Bridge Outage (-1.7 km)

• Prescribed Burn south of Northcliffe (-13.7 km)

• Boorara Tree Campsite (+0.9 km)

• Quarram Bay Erosion Closure (+0.3 km)

• William Bay Realignment (+0.4 km)

Net diversion length is 14.6 km shorter than the official trail. Backtracked distance was 14.8 km, which balanced out the difference in route length.