- Our Hiking Adventures
- Walks
- Bibbulmun Track
- 2011: North to South
- Day 45 :: Frankland to Giants
Day 45 :: Frankland to Giants
The Guidebook warns not to linger too long in the sun, and it really was difficult to tear ourselves away... but we had a short day with the promise of magnificent Jarrah / Marri forest and more of the local Karri / Tingle / Sheoak forests, with a visit to the Valley of the Giants Tree-Top walk (which we're not sure if we'll do again or not).
After a comparative long sleep-in, and being woken by the gorgeous sun streaming into the tent, we had a very leisurely morning soaking up the sun as it warmed the campsite and our bodies.
Sandi wrote:
What a nice, relaxed start to the day. Saw everyone and we had breakfast while they dispersed. Had been a coolish night and we woke 3-4am, but thankfully did get back to sleep and then slept in to 6:30am! After p did some writing, had a really leisurely pack up and was just about to go when ~15 day walkers arrived in: quickly left!
Perry wrote:
Had a very relaxing start to the day with a wee sleep in, and a very relaxed pack and go (well after everyone else – and just before some day walkers arrived): 9:30!! The sun was so lovely and warm and shone straight into the hut: meant we dried the footprint and fly – and good charging to FUSE. Funny enough, as soon as we set off the clouds appeared and the humidity rose; it wasn't until lunch at the Tree Top Walk that the clouds disappeared and we sat on a seat to soak it up! Made us realise how little sun we'd had in the past weeks.

Frankland
Tree Top Walk
Giants

Length | 15.26 km | Day Length | 6:09 |
Ascend | 832 m | Descend | 724 m |
Walk | 3:40 | Average | 4.1 km/h |
Breaks | 1:58 | Average | 3.6 km/h |
Stop | 2:29 | Average | 2.5 km/h |
Isabel, my appointed trip planning advisor from the Foundation, was here doing some track maintenance a couple days ago, and it showed: the track looked very manicured!
Sandi wrote:
Strode along and felt pretty good. Rolling hills and along river then crossed on a great bridge (Sappers), then away from the river through the forest, plain but nice feel to it. Toe ibugaup tumas nau mi les liklik!
It was pretty humid by this point, so Sandi took the opportunity to wet her bandanna in the Frankland River, before heading off up Brainy Cut-Off Road.
Brainy Cut-Off Road revealed some Kangaroo Paws, which we've not seen nearly as many as we thought we would have, and a massive fungus! The Track turns off the road into some wonderful mature Jarrah / Marri forest before passing through a sandy section, where we eventually stop for Morning Tea. Actually, we had to quickly move during morning tea as the stump we were using was also home to a million angry ants!


Sandi wrote:
So morning tea and it was better. Had a fit of hysterical laughter and then P and I had a silly fight and he said we don't tell the truth when we're angry and upset and that was so true that my anger dissolved. Quite weird.




The track notes in the Guidebook got a little confused with our GPS, and we were left wondering if the descent "past massive, burnt out, hollow-butt, Tingle stump" at 8.2km was actually reached or not?
We passed a dead quokka (which wasn't hard) and Sandi had her laughing fit, which was unrelated to the quokka and we marched with a temper up to our lunch stop.

Sandi wrote:
Got to Tree Tops and sorted ourselves. Good timing as all forerunners were there but on their way. P had predicted ice-creams and he was right. Had lunch then, I had ice-cream sandwich (3.5/5, P had plain heart (4/5). Had machine coffee (NMC: Not much chop – 2/5: See other Cafe Ratings), then had our oranges: delicious.
Sandi wrote:
Emptied rubbish, so pleased we remembered. Bought Chilli Peanut Brittle and WA Wild Flowers Honey & Ginger to share tonight.
Perry wrote:
Didn't do the Tree Top walk in the end (we'd done it a couple of years ago) – maybe another day when we haven't been immersed in them?
Sandi wrote:
Day walkers [the Wilderness Tour that arrived at Frankland this morning] arrived so a lot of chatting, quite neat what they were doing.
Perry wrote:
A lady from the Wilderness Tour said our boots were wearing down – and it's scary to see how worn the tread is – but it looks like they're going to last the time.
Sandi wrote:
Eventually headed the quick 30 minute walk to the hut.
We'd had the most glorious 2 hours at the Tree Top, soaking up the sun and moving the FUSE around to get it charging. Most reluctantly, we decided we'd better head off to camp.
We passed Sandie coming the other way, back to the shop to buy a coffee. I think she was looking for some space as she mentioned the large number of people in the campsite; also a couple of large Tiger Snakes on the track: we didn't see the snakes, but we did see the large number of people. :(
German Julia and Kevin had doubled but 2 blokes, going the other way, were there too, plus Leo (interesting guy). Toffee and Brittle very yummy. Quite a convivial night. Leo did part of 'Man from Ironbar': Pretty neat. Kiwi's did Sunday morning request songs! Crazy.
Perry wrote:
It's very odd having so many people in the hut... Having 7 adds a lot of funny dynamics to what I'd hoped would be simple hut life. I think I'd be very disappointed it they hutted with us all the way to Albany!! In fact, we prayed today for some space.
Perry wrote:
Was really wonderful walking through the forest today – very strong sense of forest!! When the understory is a tree (e.g. Casuarina) it means it's possible to look through.
Perry wrote:
Giants is nestled in a majestic forest of Karri, Tingle and Sheoak. The sun disappeared quickly, a lot of the tent sites are slope-y or stony, or both – but we found one that was great: level and soil. The campsite has a nice dynamic with tables and levels, and although a few people doesn't feel crowded (apart from all the people!).
Perry wrote:
We've miscalculated the breakfast: there is only one day left, which means the extra we ate at Coalmine was NOT extra. Not sure how that happened, or if it was an error in the spreadsheet?? We get to have one of our emergency dehydrated meals for breakfast on Saturday before walking into Peaceful Bay.
Yep: it was an error in the spreadsheet. We made a late change to the itinerary around Rest Point and Coalmine Beach, taking an extra day through Walpole, and the extra breakfast was not added in :( What's funny is that the planned breakfast at Rest Point was superseded by our Walpole Plan to have breakfast in town, so our thinking was right: we did have an extra one, it's just that extra one was cancelled out by the error :( This was not the first time I missed my calculation sheets on the walk...
Perry wrote:
The walk has been in two halves:
1st Half 2nd Half Lots of women Lots of men Lots of sunny days Lots of rain Only walkers (not many) Lots of tourists Lots of unshared huts Lots of shared huts
So after what was a pretty relaxed day, we headed up the hill to our wee tent, leaving the snorers to the shelter :)
Distance | Time | Hours | Speed | ||||||||
Section | Daily | Total | Arrive | Depart | H:M | Daily | Total | Km/h | Daily | Total | |
Frankland Campsite | 0.0 | 9:33 AM | 0:00 | 0.0 | |||||||
Frankland River | 2.9 | 2.9 | 841.4 | 10:15 AM | 0:42 | 0:42 | 238.4 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 3.5 | |
Twin Creek Road | 5.2 | 8.1 | 846.6 | 12:06 PM | 1:51 | 2:33 | 240.2 | 2.8 | 3.2 | 3.5 | |
Valley of the Giants | 5.0 | 13.1 | 851.6 | 1:15 PM | 3:13 PM | 1:09 | 3:42 | 241.4 | 4.3 | 3.5 | 3.5 |
Giants Campsite | 2.2 | 15.3 | 853.7 | 3:42 PM | 0:29 | 4:11 | 241.9 | 4.5 | 3.6 | 3.5 |
- 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: | 14.7 |
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Created by perry • Last edit by perry on November 23rd, 2018
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