Donnelly River – Pemberton: Swimming Heaven, Mozzie Hell

30 June 2024

Hello! It’s been ages since my last post – in classic me fashion, I fell behind and never looked at this blog again. The good news is, I still have all my notes and drafts from the trail! I’m gonna post whatever I have, even if they’re not as polished or detailed as I’d love them to be. Something is better than nothing, I reckon! 

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HALFWAY!!!

It’s official: On Friday, October 13 (spooky!) I officially reached kilometre 501, the halfway mark. How exciting is that!!! What a moment!! I’m feeling very proud, brave, and proud of myself, but also wondering where the hell all that time went!!

This section was incredible, and probably my favourite (so far, at least!) At long last, we finally reached the Karri forest, where the colossal and majestic eucalyptus Karri trees – one of the tallest species of hardwoods in the world – tower above your head. It’s hard to put into words how incredible this area is; it’s just wondrous. The trees make you feel so small, and are almost overwhelmingly beautiful.

look at the scale of person to tree!!! incredible!!

This section is made even more magical by the Donnelly River, which the trail follows every day of this stretch. Almost every day, you have at least one swimming spot, which for me was just divine and made this stretch an immediate favourite.

You do, however, have to pay for this privilege: you are transformed into a mosquito smorgasbord. I have never in my life been so covered in mozzie bites. My ankles are one big bite. (I still think it’s worth it, though!!)

THE KARRI FOREST AND THE RIVER HAVE MY HEART

Donnelly River – Tom Road, 16.2km

I have to admit, there is something to be said for beds. In our little cottage in Donnelly River village, all of us slept through the night (a record!) and had a sleep in till 6:30!.

Dan had very kindly bought eggs and bread and milk, so we had the absolute privilege of scrambled eggs for brekkie. They were genuinely delicious.

a feast!

At 8:30, the general store opened for coffee, so reluctantly we packed up our things and headed out. I started this journey having never seen an emu in the wild, but after sitting for a while at Donnelly River general store I have become completely desensitised! They are everywhere; as comfortable around people as pigeons in the cities are. To be honest, it made me a bit uncomfortable, but it was cool to see them up close.

We knew the walk to Tom Road hut was short and fairly easy, so it was hard to muster the motivation to leave. We may have eaten an ice cream or two before finally deciding to set off, and l will admit i was definitely the last to leave.

Walking in the Karri forest is incredible. It gave me an Alice in Wonderland shrunken feeling; like the trees were normal size, and it was me who was tiny. I walked along, a little bug version of myself, and loved every minute.

a lovely lunch spot.

After lots of stops and a nice break by the river, I got to camp around 4:30/5pm – very late by usual standards!! Tom Road is an amaaaazing hut that sits right on a beautiful lagoon-like swimming spot, and even though it was freezing cold and late evening, Zoe and I decided to jump in. It was some of the coldest water I’ve been in, and getting in was hysterical. See my instagram for hilarious videos of this!

Zoe and I contemplating our cold plunge!

Tom Road – Boarding House, 24km

This was a massive day that started off difficult and could have stayed that way, but in fact turned out to be really magical.

To be honest, on this morning I had one of the hardest starts I’ve had on trail. In the last 2kms of the evening before, I’d started to feel a really intense and frankly scary pain in a muscle (I think??) in my thigh, right above my knee, and it had only worsened overnight. By the time I started walking the next morning, I was basically limping, and it only got worse as the hours went on. Mentally, that took a toll, because unlike a normal day where my pace is quite fast and constant, I physically just was not able to move quickly. Watching everyone go fast and pass me (while in pain) made me feel pretty teary, but I just got on with it and eventually that feeling passed.

The day took turn a turn for the better around halfway, when I caught up with Zoe, George and Teresa at a dam a little way off the track. We spent hours there eating lunch, reading in the sun, dipping into the icy cold water, drinking tea, and practising our very bad German skills. It was dreamy!!

Unfortunately, at some point we had to face the fact that we still had about 12km to go, so with the sun beating down on us we set off. The walk was very long and very hot, with lots of scrambling over, under and around massive fallen trees. Eventually, though, we reached the sign we’d been excitedly anticipating: the halfway mark!!!!!

hooray!!

What a feeling, to know I’d come so far (and still had so far to go). It was surreal, to be honest!

The final few kms of the day gave us a taste of what the next day – the dreaded “rollercoaster” day – would hold; with constant ups and downs that were quite hardcore after already walking 20-something kms!

At the campsite, we had a fire, and poor George tried to deal with his terrible blisters; even wondering if he would be able to get through the next day.

(spoiler: he did!)

Boarding House – Beavis, 21km

I woke up to a beautiful view from the hut, fully submerged in the bright green forest and completely surrounded by birdsong. All of us were slightly dreading the day ahead, which meant that Zoe basically refused to get out of bed until absolutely necessary while I had my brekkie and coffee “in bed”. Soooo good!

We couldn’t put it off forever, though, and eventually the day began; the infamous rollercoaster.

We started off the day all walking together, which is unusal, but I reckon we were banding together in mutual fear! Zoe and I spent the morning “learning” German from Theresa, as we’ve been done since Balingup, which mostly meant learning a word or two and then loudly proclaiming nonsense sentences at each other and falling about laughing.

karri trees 1, Zoe 0.

An hour or two in, the others all stopped for a snack break, and although I’ve been tryyyying to get better at stopping and resting, I just get too antsy! I can’t do it!

To my surprise, I actually really enjoyed a lot of the ups and downs of the day. I was finally pain-free, thank GOD, so was able to get into that awesome walking flow feeling which I looove and haven’t been able to sink into for a few days.

At about midday, though, we hit the insane, insane down and up bit (technical, I know) that this “rollercoaster” day is famous for. It’s this very intense, very steep decline into a valley – with switchbacks, thank god – which then goes immediately straight back up on what is by far the steepest and most hardcore incline we’ve had on the Bibb yet. At this point in the day, it was super hot and muggy, and the incline was ridiculously hard. It was so hard, in fact, that Zoe, Theresa and I genuinely laughed our way up it. What else can you do!

It took us 30 mins to climb this one 1km hill, which tells you a lot, and at the top we found some shade and collapsed for a lovely long lunch break. My trail sushi has never tasted so good!

The final 8km of the day was fine, and at one point I stopped and clambered down a bank to dunk my feet and face in the river. This was lovely until I got absolutely swarmed by mozzies; I have never put my shoes and pack on faster in my life.

This is unfortunately the point at which things stopped being so cheery. By the time I reached the hut, I was very tired and very hungry, and upon reaching the hut this turned into a bad mood very quickly. I can say with all certainty that Beavis hut is NOT one of the good ones. It was built right next to (literally a meter away from) a man made pool of water that was dank, stagnant, and full of leaches. This meant that the mosquitos in the campsite were seriously horrific. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was boiling hot (28 degrees at 6pm) but I was forced to put on thermals, long pants and socks, just to try and cover my skin a bit – not that it really helped. We even put 40% Deet on our clothes, but even that didn’t scare them away! It was just ridiculous.

bags hung in an attempt to save them from the monster rats!

What made it all worse is that there were only 3 proper campsites/tent spots that had been marked out and levelled, and the rest of the ground wasn’t very tent-suitable, so I was forced to sleep in the hut with the mozzies and two hikers who turned out to be impressively loud snorers!

Long story short, it’s a badly designed hut, and I felt very grumpy about the whole thing. Luckily, Zoe lent me her mozzie net, which genuinely saved my life that night!

We all at a very very early dinner and were in bed before 6, just to escape the mozzies, and by 4am I was up again; but that’s a story for the next day!

 

WONDERFUL DISCOMFORT

Beavis – Beedelup, 22km

This day was iconic.

At the top of yesterday’s killer hill, we had noticed on the map a potential restaurant / coffee opportunity at a place called Karri Valley Resort, and upon googling it I found out that on Sundays they did a buffet breakfast until 10am. Here was the catch: it was 16ish kms away from Beavis. If I wanted to get there, I’d have to leave by 5am at the latest.

I can promise you, I would have done just about anything for the chance of eggs and a coffee – and you would too if you had hiker hunger like we’ve had!! – so that is exactly what I did.

I woke up at 4am, and silently as I could I packed up and hit the track by 4:45. It was still completely dark, which was a bit scary, but I just told myself that the only thing I could do was walk – so that’s what I did. Besides, scrambled eggs were calling my name.

dawn light on the tops of the karri trees

It was an incredibly beautiful morning, and I spent the first few hours of walking watching the morning sunlight rising through the trees. I hiked fast, and got to the dam a lot sooner than I had imagined. By 8:30am, I had paid my $30 and was sitting in the Karri Valley Resort restaurant with about four people’s worth of breakfast sitting in front of me.

Absolute bliss.

I had an hour and a half to get my money’s worth, and boy did I achieve that! I’m still incredibly impressed (and slightly horrified) at what I managed to consume that morning. Here is a comprehensive list:

  • 3 enormous pieces of sourdough toast
  • 1 piece of raisin toast
  • scrambled eggs
  • mushrooms
  • baked beans
  • two hash browns
  • a croissant with jam
  • a chocolate croissant
  • coco pops + cornflakes with yoghurt
  • overnight oats
  • a large soy latte
  • two cups of tea

A breakfast fit for the gods!

The thing was, as much as my tastebuds were revelling in this feast, my tummy was feeling not so good. By 10am, I won’t lie to you – I was feeling bad. The rest of the day was spent in a considerable amount of pain and discomfort, and my stomach really let me know it was unhappy with me. Lesson learnt: just cause you can eat your weight in food, doesn’t mean you should!

Once I was able to move, I practically rolled my way out of the restaurant and onto a lovely grassy patch next to the dam, where I spent a few hours lying in the sun and swimming in the crisp cold water.

Eventually, George and Zoe rocked up, followed by Theresa, and we spent a lovely, lazy day by to the dam. Around midday, George was picked up by Caroline, and for the first time it was just the three of us women – Zoe, Theresa and I.

And, (spoiler alert!), so began a trio that unbeknownst to us would continue for the rest of the track.

In the late afternoon, we reluctantly dragged ourselves away from the valley and headed out towards Beedelup for the final few kms left of the day.

Beedelup falls

I won’t lie, it had been an entire day and I was STILL in a lot of discomfort from the morning’s breakfast extravaganza, so this walk, though short, was pretty uncomfortable.

On our way to the hut we passed Beedelup falls, which were lovely, and pretty soon we were at the hut, where we were surprised to find Dan! It was a classic Dan meeting; always popping up when you least expect him. The mozzies at this hut were incredibly bad, so all of us set up our tents quickly and escaped to them as soon as dinner was eaten.

Beedelup – Pemberton, 25km

Aaah, another town day – and this one a very long one! I set my alarm for 4.30am, hoping I could manage another impressively early start, but I couldn’t bear to leave my cozy tent until juuust before 5, when I heard the others stirring.

I packed up quickly and was out by 6am, hoping to get a head start on the heat. It was an especially windy morning, and unfortunately I spent the first few hours walking into it which made for some tough going. The track wound through farmland for a while, which made for a nice change, and the kms slipped past quickly.

About 10km into the walk I caught up to Zoe, and together we walked through a spindly, foresty, slightly eerie section where I got a major fright! I was walking ahead when suddenly I heard a loud cracking above me, and as I turned and ran back down the trail a tree branch came crashing down right next to where I’d been standing. I’ve found that the thought of tree branches snapping on you is a bit of a constant, underlying worry in these forest sections, so it was pretty unpleasant to have that fear half confirmed!

With about 6km to go we reached Big Brook Dam, and stopped for a quick lunch by the water before pushing on. At this point, the heat was really starting to ramp up, and the last few hours felt like a real slog. It was all rewarded, however, when the track led us straight into Pemberton via the town’s natural pool! The water runs straight from the river, and we immediately dumped our stuff and leapt into the freezing cold water for a very very well deserved swim and cool off!!

Once in Pemberton, we found our accomodation and spent the day snoozing, shopping, doing our washing and stuffing our faces. I even bought myself a lovely cold beer and took it back down to the dam in the evening where I had another swim. This might have been idyllic, but as the sun began to set the termites / flying ants swarmed into the air, and my clean damp skin was soon covered (italics) in the little bugs!! I live by the saying “you never regret a swim”, but I won’t lie: this one pushed it a little bit.

We met up with Dan and Theresa for a classic pub dinner, and spent the following day relaxing, shopping, and feeling shockingly antsy considering we’d been desperately keen for a day spent horizontal!

Again, I adored this section. Beautiful swims, incredible landscapes, and lovely company!!

 

Head to instagram @issygoeswalking for more photos, videos and updates from the trail!

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