Jonathon Palmer (Jonathon Palmer)

Track Towns and Supplies

• Did you have any issues finding food/supplies? Yes
• Donnelly River - insufficient, not useful and very expensive food options. People should be advised to send 100% resupplies here and not rely on the store, even for snacks. Peaceful Bay - No food resupply options. People should be advised to send 100% resupplies here and not rely on the store, even for snacks. Waplole - The visitors center was close on 2 consecutive days so could not pick up food parcel on the sunday I arrived and would have had to take 2 rest days to wait until it opened. I shopped at the Local IGA, which was great, but had to have my food parcel thrown out by the center as I could not get it.

Particular Track Towns that you would return to:

• Donnelly River Village
• Walpole
• Denmark

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Your Story or Advice for Others

General Comments
While track towns do provide good resources there is limited services catering to walkers as there are much more travelling walkers. You may have to buy more food in towns with good stores as smaller towns have very limited or no ability to resupply from (Donnelly River, Peaceful Bay). Avoid arriving in town on Sundays as shops and visistors centers tend to be closed. Sent food parcels to accommodation providers not visitors centers as you will not have issues with opening days/hours stopping you from getting them.

Your Best Equipment
Durston X-mid 1 tent

Your Worst Equipment
Heavy Head torch. Unless planing on walking at night, or in winter, get a small form factor head torch as it much easier to use.

Advice for Others
Have simple expectations, my only aim was to enjoy myself, and by being open to being flexible to how that happened allowed me to stay very positive through my whole walk.

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Trip Details

How you completed the Bibbulmun Track:

• All at once

• How many days did it take you to complete the Track? 48
• Who did you complete the Track with? Solo (primarily)
• Was undertaking your hike the PRIMARY/MAIN purpose of your TRAVEL from where you currently live? Yes
• What first prompted you to walk the Bibbulmun Track? Word of mouth/friends
  

What did you use to navigate the Track?

• App (please specify)
• - Farout

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Your Experience

• Availability of information: Good - There could be more information about navigation using other sources that are not maps. I understand that the maps are a revenue source for the foundation and that phones can have battery issues. But the BTF needs to accept that the majority of walkers use their pohone to navigate, so providing some resource would really assist walkers, and provided a much safer experience if they can recommend multiple navigation options.
• Amount of Wildlife Encountered: Great - Echidnas

Favourite Section
Donnelly River to Pemberton

Highlight of your trip
Waking up to bird song in the mornings and being able to have breakfast in my tent looking out at the trees. The calm that bought was the most wonderful way to start a day.

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