Stop looking at the trees

March 30, 2024

Donnelly River to Manjimup

Munda Biddi is a Noongar word meaning path through the forest. And that is essentially where we’ve been for the past 2 weeks.

Donnelly River was a great place to stay. Really friendly people and a great little cafe to fuel us up for the morning. Stupidly we forgot to buy sandwiches for lunch which we only realised an hour down the track.

Skippy attracted to Pete’s 2 day old riding socks

We must have got lost 4 or 5 times today for which I cannot blame Pete entirely. Surely by now he should know that when I say “I’m sure it’s this way” really means “There’s a 50% chance I’m correct”, unless it’s a crossroad where my success rate drops markedly. The other issue is that we spend so much time looking up we miss the trail markers.

The King Karri, just outside Donnelly river is the 4th biggest Karri on the WA tree register. 76 metres tall, 200 years old and contains 100 cubic metres of timber.

With our constant rerouting to get back on the trail it turned into a pretty big day of riding. Mostly single track and occasional dirt roads, it was rarely flat with long sweeping downhills and tight switch back laden uphills necessitating lots of pushing.

Pete sends me a photo that tells me he’s getting the shits with my directional bravado

Lunch comes after a long steep climb. We always carry an emergency stash of food just in case we get stranded or just forget something as we did today. I delve into the deepest darkest recesses of my pannier and fish out a salami, an aged Parmesan and 3 fragmented wraps. Pete finds 1 tomato of unknown origin and some mushrooms. The Parmesan has aged beautifully in the past week and would not be out of place on a charcuterie board in a fancy restaurant (in Pyongyang). My wrap fragments as I try to roll it up but I demolish it anyway.

John and his wife kindly donated $50 to the cause.

It was almost 5pm by the time we made it into Manjimup and settled for a chocolate milk before snavelling the last remaining room in the Manjimup Hotel.

The first rider we’ve seen going south to north, with a trail runner thrown in for a bit of extra effect

Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 641 km (398 miles)

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