Last weekend, having met so many friendly flies the previous weekend, Maggie and I decided to re-acquaint ourselves with some of their myriad cousins a bit further north!
We began our trek from Calingri Rd and headed south along the buffer zone next to the Military Training area. There's a clear trail next to the fence that borders the farm land on the west side of the buffer zone, and walking is pretty easy. If you're into paleontology, there are plenty of skeletal remains to examine - too our untrained amateur eyes, they seemed to be of the marsupial variety!
We made it down almost to half way before we had to return to our car: but the signs are promising.
At the southern end of this track there is a boundary fence on the Dewars Pool Rd stating that entry is only at the permission of the owners: at the northern end, it's open access: another mystery to solve!
IF we can make use of this trail, then we have good track all the way from Chittering Rd to 5ks short of New Norcia and that's so much better than 45kms along the highway!
To see the trail go to:
http://maps.google.co/maps/ms?ie=UTFmsa=0msid=101825537550456146464.0004933225d1540f08dc3
A Heritage Walk linking Perth to country WA
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Another link in the chain
After a productive board meeting recently, Maggie and I set out to have a look at part of an alternative to the Great Northern highway north of Bindoon. The result was very exciting!
Instead of heading up to where Chittering Road meets the Highway, we turned right into Julimar Rd and then into Julimar Forest along the western boundary road: this goes due north, though you would never pick it as it meanders through the edge of the forest and is great to walk.
It crosses Flat Rock Rd and then touches the end of Stephens Rd before turning into Northern Boundary Rd and thence Dewars Pools Road! If we can now walk through the buffer zone alongside the Military area, then we reach the lower end of Old Plain Rd and - hey presto - we're into New Norcia without touching the highway - and the trail that we walked was outstanding: a fantastic complement to the first 4 days.
It does add some kilometers, but they're well worth it!
This just gets better and better: please keep your fingers crossed that the next link in the chain falls into place too!
To see the route go to:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTFmsa=0msid=101825537550456146464.000493321100a9389143d
Instead of heading up to where Chittering Road meets the Highway, we turned right into Julimar Rd and then into Julimar Forest along the western boundary road: this goes due north, though you would never pick it as it meanders through the edge of the forest and is great to walk.
It crosses Flat Rock Rd and then touches the end of Stephens Rd before turning into Northern Boundary Rd and thence Dewars Pools Road! If we can now walk through the buffer zone alongside the Military area, then we reach the lower end of Old Plain Rd and - hey presto - we're into New Norcia without touching the highway - and the trail that we walked was outstanding: a fantastic complement to the first 4 days.
It does add some kilometers, but they're well worth it!
This just gets better and better: please keep your fingers crossed that the next link in the chain falls into place too!
To see the route go to:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTFmsa=0msid=101825537550456146464.000493321100a9389143d
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Lots happening
Since the last Camino walk from St Josephs, there has been a flurry of reporting on the event, and on the trail. Chris Olney wrote an article for the Catholic record which was very professional and very good! That same "organ" of the west Australian catholic press is also serializing a journal that I kept whilst we walked the first Camino this year: next week is week 3! But most exciting of all in the media was Dawn Greens article in the national magazine, Great Walks, for which she wrote an article entitled "Pilgrimage of Passion". It's about her trip along the Pilgrim trail that she organized herself and completed with her husband: it's a wonderful article and well worth a read. But please remember, Dawn was in frequent correspondence with me about the trail, because as of this moment, there is no signage and there is still a vast amount of work to be done to bring it all into fruition. (read on....)
Which leads me onto the realignment of the northern section of the trail. Essentially, we need to get the trail off the Highway between Bindoon and New Norcia: this creates issues of access and also availability to accommodation as the trail will have to move eastward. The good news is that should we succeed then the trail will be even better than before, but you wouldn't believe how many people one has to talk to in order to get things up and walking! The greatest news however is that everyone we talk to is still very positive about the whole concept and very supportive: it's just that crossing those "T's" and dotting those "I's" seems to take forever!! One thing the trail has taught me is patience - everything happens in its own time!
Which leads me onto the realignment of the northern section of the trail. Essentially, we need to get the trail off the Highway between Bindoon and New Norcia: this creates issues of access and also availability to accommodation as the trail will have to move eastward. The good news is that should we succeed then the trail will be even better than before, but you wouldn't believe how many people one has to talk to in order to get things up and walking! The greatest news however is that everyone we talk to is still very positive about the whole concept and very supportive: it's just that crossing those "T's" and dotting those "I's" seems to take forever!! One thing the trail has taught me is patience - everything happens in its own time!
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