Days 46 and 47: Mt Cooke Plantation to North Bannister

Sat 25 Jul (Day 46): Powerline Road to Narang

Waaay back in October 2017 there was a diversion around North Bannister due to prescribed burning. I was looking at a gruelling double-hut (including the challenging climb over Mt Cooke) plus an annoying diversion route that involved turning around at Narang camp and heading back pretty much the way I came. Instead I left the track halfway between Mt Cooke and Narang and followed Powerline Rd for a couple of kilometres to arrive on Albany Hwy just past the Mt Cooke Pine Plantation. A week later I returned to this location and headed off towards Dwellingup, bypassing Narang campsite and North Bannister. Since I want to complete my end-to-end when I arrive in Albany I need to return to this section to fill in the gap.

The entire trip – 1.5km up Powerline Rd to rejoin the Track, then about 7km to Narang camp, then 16.5km to Gringer camp and then a 1km spur to the North Bannister Roadhouse comes to about 26km and the grade is pretty gentle so I did consider doing it as a day walk. Pros: I would only need to carry a day pack. Cons: I haven’t done any real exercise this year (let’s blame it on Covid-19). In the end I decide to make it an overnight trip and ease back into it. I phoned the roadhouse yesterday to check whether it is okay to leave the Subaru there overnight. The guy who took the call said people do that quite often and they haven’t had any security problems.

Around lunchtime Ness and I both head off in separate cars and meet up at the North Bannister Roadhouse about an hour later. The roadhouse is SNAFU: the tavern is boarded up and there are no toilets or hot food but at least the service station is open. I talk to the guy in the servo and he advises me to leave the Subaru in the carpark right in front of the servo where he will be able to see it on the video camera. Nice guy. Crap job.

I transfer my gear to the Suzuki and we both head back down the highway about 18km to Powerline Rd. Ness drops me off and I make a start at about 2:15pm. It is only about 12 or 13km to camp so I am not worried about the late start.

Half an hour later I reach the point where the track crosses Powerline Rd and I am back on the bibbulmun.

The bush here is light regrowth, mostly jarrah. Most of the trees have regrown from the root (presumably following the 2003 bushfires) so they are smallish trees in clusters of 2 or 3 trunks. The grade is gentle, easy going if not particularly interesting. It is a bit early for wildflowers. It looks like it might rain but all I get is a little spitting.

I arrive at Narang camp at about 4:30pm. There are two hikers here already, which is always a bit disappointing for a misanthropist like myself, but as it turns out they both have tents and I don’t even meet one of them until the morning. The guy I do meet had already lit the fire but he was letting it burn down since it looked like it was going to rain anyway. I give it a bit of resuscitation and collect some firewood while it is still light. It is nice to be back in territory where campfires are allowed – the camp sites South of Mt Chance are all designated “no-fire”.

Dinner tonight is my usual first-night meal: sausages and mash. On this occasion the sausages are a smoked, vacuum-sealed offering from Aldi because they had to sit in my pack all day and I left it too late to freeze normal sausages. The mash is instant potato (better than you might think) and the peas are dried. I boil the peas first, then remove from the heat and add the instant potatoes. After a few minutes I add the sausages, onions and tomatoes which I have cooked on the hot plate. It isn’t too bad if you like your sausages crunchy. Okay, the fire was probably a bit hot (is charcoal really carcinogenic?).

The rain comes in fairly heavy but without much wind about 10 or 11pm and continues for a couple of hours. I have a truly crap night – depending on how I lie I have painful hips, painful shoulders, numb hands or chronic snoring. I am very glad no one is sharing the hut because I wake myself with my snoring several times. I don’t think I get more than 2 or 3 hours sleep.

Sun 26 Jul (Day 47): Narang to North Bannister

I am up around 7:30am and chat for a while with the hiker I met last night. He is from Yorkshire originally and walked the lakelands in his youth. He asks whether I enjoy walking the bibbulmun and I tell him not particularly – painful boring and uncomfortable on the whole. He admits that he doesn’t technically enjoy the hiking all that much, he just likes the change and getting away from normal life. I suspect a lot of hikers feel like this but there is a conspiracy of denial. He left his car at Sullivan Rock and hiked over Mt Cooke yesterday. He will be returning to Sullivan Rock today. The other hiker appears briefly and heads off southwards ahead of me. She left her car at Warne Rd (just shy of Gringer Camp). We never exchange names – this is more common than not on the track, I have no idea why.

I head off at about 8:30am. The track is pretty flat, vegetation similar to yesterday but with wandoo gradually replacing the jarrah. The soil is mostly gravel with the odd stretch of sand.

At about 11am I reach the mighty Serpentine River and cross it on about a dozen small concrete pipes which serve as a bridge. This is about as picturesque as it is going to get so I stop for lunch.

No significant change to the terrain apart from the odd granite outcrop. After about an hour I spot a pair of garden shears sitting on a stump beside the track. We are several kilometres from the nearest road so I can only assume that someone on a track maintenance crew put them down and forgot them. After some thought I decide to take them home. Nice shears.

I arrive at Gringer camp just after 1pm. From the camp there is a 1km spur leading to the North Bannister Roadhouse.

As I approach North Bannister I hear a strange screaming noise coming over the hill ahead of me. At first it think it might be a magpie but it is too loud. Cresting the hill I look down on the carpark next to the roadhouse and see three guys standing around a baby goat that is carrying on something fierce. Turns out they are taking it home and stopped to give the goat a toilet break and some milk.

The Subaru is still where I left it. I buy an iced coffee at the servo and thank the guy there for keeping an eye on the car before heading home.

The only remaining gap is a 12km stretch along the railway just north of Dwellingup. Then back to Denmark. Parry beach to Albany is 6 campsites which I will probably do in two stages.