Around Perth and Beyond: Jarrahwood to Nannup

Friday afternoon Steve and Nola collected us for our drive to Busselton. The traffic on the Kwinana Freeway was quite heavy heading South. The extension of the Freeway to bypass Mandurah certainly made the journey more pleasant than going through Mandurah. On our arrival in Bunbury we had dinner at the Indian Ocean Lounge, an Indian Restaurant. We drove onto Busselton to the Schifferli beach house (my sister and her husband's place)very comfortable accommodation for one night.

Before heading off to Jarrahwood Saturday morning Steve and I made a quick walk to Coles to collect a few supplies for the day. On the way back we came across Damien. He expressed some interest in joining us for the Cape to Cape walk in October.

We arrived at Jarrahwood at about 9:45am. The plan is for Kathryn and Nola to meet us some time after 3.00pm in Nannup. The trail has been created by following the old railway line between Jarrahwod and Nannup. Most of the sleepers have been removed. It is very easy to walk along, except the first section only has a narrow walking section, which makes it difficult to walk two abreast.
The weather was cool with the occasional misty rainfall, no flies, and some of the wildflowers are just getting ready to emerge. Being an old railway line mean the track is very level. There is in some sections a gradual incline or decline. The most senic sections was where the trail crosses St John Brook and the last couple of kilometres leading into Nannup.

The map we had didn’t show enough detail about where we were, based on roads we crossed over. We easily found Cambray Siding, but two other sidings on the track we did not notice that we had passed. We stopped at about 2.00pm for lunch. All up we walked for approximately 5 hours, with 30 minutes added for a few stops and lunch. So we were making about 5 kilomtres and hour. So our walk from Cape to Cape should be based on a similar pace.

The final approach into Nannup is very nice as the old railway bridge passes over the top of the Blackwood River. the water flow was fairly ordinary for this time of the year. We enjoyed using the ablution block built with money from the Royalties for Regions fund. The wooden totems were also quite interesting, depicting various.

Next weekend is the flower festival in Nannup, so there were some nice displays of tulips and daffodils in the main street. We found Kathryn and Nola in one of the local cafes. After have drink we made our way back to Perth via visiting my Aunty Jean at Cundinup. She is 85 this year and looked quite well. We stayed for about 45 minutes and headed off to Perth at 5.00pm. We arrived home at approximately 7.30pm. The leg muscles were quite stiff from the walk, but the feet went well.