- Our Hiking Adventures
- Walks
- Bibbulmun Track
- 2011: North to South
- Day 35 :: Schafer to Northcliffe
Day 35 :: Schafer to Northcliffe
A super-short day today, but we've decided to still get away in good time and get to town by lunch (a bought lunch today - which we are very much looking forward to!). The Guidebook describes the Northcliffe Forest Park that as "a jewel": we should have plenty of time to spend time exploring as requested. It will be very interesting to finally experience Roundtu-It Holiday Park: It doesn't get rave reviews in the Track Log Book.

Was up early this morning to hopefully get some nice sunrise photos across the dam. I wasn't disappointed, and in fact it finished the camera battery ~100 photos all before breakfast!
Sandi wrote:
Well rather a crazy restless night. A very loud squealing noise woke us up at some stage and then we had a funny night thereafter, but woke in time for the most gorgeous dawn chorus and then sunrise. Simply gorgeous watching the changes across the dam and the ducks cavorting. Fabulous start to a relaxing set out.


Perry wrote:
Couldn't believe the sunrise -- even better than the gorgeous sunset the night before with the moon. Couldn't drag my chilling body away from the side of the dam where we'd pitched the tent. In fact, used up my camera battery!



Schafer
Northcliffe

Length | 14.70 km | Day Length | 3:17 |
Ascend | 423 m | Descend | 470 m |
Walk | 2:54 | Average | 5.1 km/h |
Breaks | 0:00 | Average | 4.6 km/h |
Stop | 0:23 | Average | 4.5 km/h |
Sandi wrote:
We went through some wonderful flowers, a small pink one we hadn't seen before.
Sandi wrote:
Then onto a wide sandy area, quite different and a swampy area that we had to bypass, not to wade. Then onto some roads; 1st Lechanaultia growing in patches, then as we got closer to farms and town, the white bell bulbs in full proliferation. road walking always a spot tedious.
Sandi wrote:
Northcliffe forest park wasn't quite what I expected and then we were here and the caravan park is practically empty. One strange old bloke here and the owners away until 12:30pm. So we had morning tea, did a load of camp clothes through the wash (old twin tub, no fee, no dryer) and then headed into town.
Distance | Time | Hours | Speed | ||||||||
Section | Daily | Total | Arrive | Depart | H:M | Daily | Total | Km/h | Daily | Total | |
Schafer Campsite | 0.0 | 7:49 AM | 0:00 | 0.0 | |||||||
Lane Poole Road | 2.9 | 2.9 | 657.5 | 8:30 AM | 0:41 | 0:41 | 184.2 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 3.6 | |
Middleton Road | 6.2 | 9.1 | 663.7 | 9:55 AM | 1:25 | 2:06 | 185.6 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 3.6 | |
Roundtu-It Holiday Park | 4.4 | 13.5 | 668.1 | 10:45 AM | 0:50 | 2:56 | 186.5 | 5.3 | 4.6 | 3.6 |
Sandi wrote:
I was starving and it seemed a long way. Lots of people in the cafe, we sussed the pub (good dinners, no lunches) and General Store (lots of options), then went back to the cafe and had to have fish and chips and salad as they'd run out of steak. However when it finally came it was delicious, as were the scones and an apple crumble slice to follow. Good pot of tea too and staff much better once stress off. Very nice sitting in the sun though P seems out of sorts and not communicating.
During lunch we realised that if you look closely you can see that the Hollowbutt Cafe had replaced its "Internet" with a "Toilet". During our wander around town we found the iconic sign:
Food | Room | Service | |||||
Restaurant / Cafe | Total | S | P | S | P | S | P |
Hollowbutt Cafe | 3.6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
Roundtu-It Holiday Park | 31.4 |
Essentials | 12.2 |
Showers / Toilet | 3.0 |
Kitchen | 3.8 |
Laundry | 2.8 |
Shop / Close to Town / Shops | 2.7 |
Optionals | 19.3 |
Dining / Activity | 3.3 |
Tent Site | 3.8 |
Kitchen Utensils | 3.3 |
Park Ambience | 4.3 |
Staff Helpfulness | 4.8 |
Shop | 0.0 |
Close to Town | 1.5 |
Town Shops | 3.8 |
Did our shopping after that and were able to get everything we needed and mossie back up to Camp Ground. Met the [holiday park] owner and he was very pleasant, his wife currently having chemo. How hard is that? got walk clothes washed, still a good wind though sun of a gorgeous day almost gone from drying areas. Lovely spot for a tent (though a bit wet under foot).
Perry wrote:
The day was cloudless all day, though we were walking under canopy for the morning. Got to caravan park @10:45 and walked to town where the FUSE was put away. Came out again after lunch for the walk home. Chased sun @camp.
Unpacked and sorted our food parcel: excited to see all the things we'd forgotten were in there waiting for us! Charged batteries via mains and cooked our funny dinner: sometimes the meals we're able to make up from these country town IGAs are a little odd; but they are always enjoyable. Even though the showers didn't rate highly, it was wonderful again to have long hot showers.
Another family staying here loaned us some identikit books, and the snakes we'd been seeing are definitely Tiger Snakes. The dining / activity area here at RoundTu-It is a little odd, but is pretty much in keeping with the rest of the park.
- Mitupela.net Bibbulmun Track Page
- The Summary & Overview of our big adventure: all roads lead from here!
- 53 Day Track Log
- The Foundation's Distance Tables tracked on our GPS into Distance / Time / Hours / Speed point to point.
- Cup-a-Soup Ratings
- Cup-a-Soups are a great addition to the camping dinner: We scored all our evening soups.
- Back Country Ratings
- We used 42 Back Country dehydrated meals over the walk, scoring them each night (& once for breakfast): hunger sauce and discerning palates.
- Cafe Ratings
- The cafes on the track are often dreamt about on the way there: here is what we found when we got there.
- Bread Ratings
- We used bread for our lunches on the track and found that the different types performed quite differently.
- Camp Ground Ratings
- When in town we tented: the facilities were very important for the upcoming sections and variable!
- Google Earth Day Tracks
- Each day's walk as a Google Earth Track, and one track of all the days combined into a single track.
- Google Earth Section Tracks
- The 53-day walk split into the Foundation's Sections with the extra 'bits' removed; also a combined Northern Track and Southern Track.
- SPOT Adventure Page
- Use an integrated map, Download KMZ & GPX files, shelter photos.
- 54 Day Timelapse
- Over the 54 days of our trek, we took a portrait photo each morning before setting off on the day's walk and then each afternoon when we'd reached camp -- often capturing the morning's optimism and then the afternoon's pain of the journey on our faces.
- Flora of the Bibbulmun Track
- Kalamunda – Donnelly River
- Donnelly River – Albany
- Orchids of the Bibbulmun Track
- Trees of the Bibbulmun Track
- Stumps of the Bibbulmun Track
- Fungi of the Bibbulmun Track
- Photographs of the plants we found along the way: The abundant flowers, huge trees, amazing fungi and sculptured stumps.
- Photographs of the Bibbulmun Track
- The track was an ever-present and ever-changing companion for 54 days: here it is up close and personal.
- Panoramas of the Bibbulmun Track
- The SONY made neat sweeping panoramas, which detail the changing environment over the 1,000km.
- Fauna of the Bibbulmun Track
- We were amazed at the lack of fauna we found, what we did find is here.
- The Bibbulmun Track :: Our 2011 Walk
- For 8 weeks in September & October we took over 9,000 photos: Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8
Distance Walked: | 14.3 |
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Created by perry • Last edit by perry on November 22nd, 2018
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