First, I’d like to start this post by wishing a wonderful 2022 to all readers of this blog! I find so much pleasure in getting feedback from you and from hearing that you enjoy reading my blog, so I want to say thanks for taking the time to read my little stories, and please keep the comments coming 😊 Whilst I usually start the new year with a post reviewing the year prior, this year the review post will have to wait a little until I’m done writing about the beautiful road trip to the south that we just concluded late in 2021. This post will tell you more about the experience we had on the Mamang Trail in the Fitzgerald River National Park, just over 500 km from Perth in Western Australia.
St. Mary’s Inlet Campground
After leaving Skippy Rock campsite in the Stokes National Park and stopping over at a couple of beautiful bays, we arrived at the St. Mary’s Inlet campground on the west end of the Fitzgerald River National Park just after sunset. The national park is divided by a mountain range so you can either access and explore in the east or the west. The east end is a lot easier to access from Hopetoun, whereas to get to St. Mary’s Inlet campground, we had to travel through quite a long stretch (60-odd km) of corrugated road, which was very bumpy and very unpleasant to drive even with the four-wheel drive. We were relieved to make it to the campsite, and even more so when we discovered that there were still a few camp spots left. The campground fee is 11 AUD per adult and per night, fees are payable via an honesty box and spots are allocated on a first come first serve basis. The remoteness of this place means that if you get there late and all spots are taken, the next campsite is quite a drive away.
The camp spots were nice and sheltered by trees, and there aren’t any facilities on the campground aside from a bush loo and a shelter. We set up camp and battled to fight the various bugs that we attracted with our torches. In terms of flies and mosquitos, I’d say that this spot was probably the worst on our trip. There was quite a variety of flies and bugs and some quite large species that I hadn’t encountered before.
As we unpacked, we noticed, to our utter disbelief and shock, that both of our sleeping bags were gone. There we were, in the middle of nowhere, the sun had set already, without sleeping bags. Thankfully it was a relatively warm night, so we’d be ok from that point of view, but this situation would certainly throw a massive spanner into our plans both for the overnight hike we had planned for the next day as well as the remainder of the trip, because we would have had to do a detour to a bigger town to pick up new sleeping gear. Our only explanation was that we must have forgotten to pack them into the car at our previous campsite, as I remembered well wrapping them up and placing them onto a bench so we could load them into the car.
Fuming and cursing ourselves for our negligence and that we didn’t make sure we really got everything before we left, we turned the car upside down and miraculously found one of the sleeping bags wedged in behind the camping drawers in the car boot. We couldn’t believe our luck, but still failed to understand what happened to the other one. We’d always packed them up together, and one missing was even weirder than if the two of them had gone.
We unzipped the bag and used it as a blanket, which was more than alright for the rest of the trip. With this lucky find, we decided that we’d keep pursuing our plan to do the Mamang Trail the next day.
The Mamang Trail
The Fitzgerald River National Park is, due to its size and lack of any widespread habitat degradation, one of the most important conservation areas in Western Australia and the world. There are 62 plant species, which are unique to the 329,882 hectares park, and a further 48 are rarely found elsewhere. There are many hikes in the park, with the Hakea Trail (23 km return) in the east and the Mamang Trail (31 km return) in the west being the longest. Mamang is Noongar (aboriginal language) for whale, because along this trail, there are quite a few whale watching platforms from which to spot southern right whales when in season (June to October each year). The trail provides the option to stay the night at the Fitzgerald River Inlet campsite and hike back the next day. The trail starts at Point Ann, where it leads to the beach and past St. Mary’s Inlet, before ascending into the bushland. There is also an alternative route along the beach to Point Charles, which is slightly shorter (12 km one way instead of 15.5 km one way) and this route is described as the “return route”.
I couldn’t wait to do another overnight hike since I’ve done a couple of those in Canada and absolutely loved them. Liam had never done an overnight hike before, so I should have been on top of the planning here, especially since Liam had planned pretty much the entire trip for us already. Unfortunately, in contrast to how I usually operate, I didn’t do a lot of research about the hike or the campsite, to the point where I didn’t even download a trail description to begin with. This meant we were completely relying on adequate signposting which in hindsight was pretty ignorant and naïve. So it happened that we started the trail as signposted along the beach but missed the first marker where the trail would have led through the dunes and into bushland. This was simply because we didn’t know the orange pole was supposed to be a trail marker. Liam had a tiny bit of reception on his phone, so he managed to download the trail map and description. With the help of this as well as google maps, we noticed that we weren’t anywhere near the trail but on some four-wheel drive (4WD) track in between the trail and the beach instead, which ultimately just led us back onto the beach. To get onto the path we would have had to walk back along the beach for quite a while, so we decided to suck it up and just take the route along the beach to Point Charles, and get onto the trail from there.
The beach route is about 8 km, not taking into account the detour we took walking the 4WD track, and it’s very tedious to walk on the soft sand with the full backpack for this long. As the day progressed, the wind picked up steadily and dark clouds rolled in. We still had no idea if we’d actually find the path once we got to the end of the Charles Beach, and I was contemplating just turning around. But we kept going since we’d already gone so far. As we got to the end of the beach, again there were no markers leading us onto the trail. Thankfully, Liam was once again able to find a way through the dunes and onto the path thanks to his feeble phone reception and google maps. After hours of not knowing exactly if we’d be able to find our way to the campsite, we finally felt somewhat reassured to be at the Charles Junction signpost of the trail, telling us we only had another 5 km to go to the campsite.
As soon as we were on the path, it was very clearly marked and views from Point Charles over Fitzgerald Beach and Fitzgerald River were truly breathtaking. We descended onto the beach and followed the inlet along to the campground, which is 1.8 km from the beach.
The path to the campsite was very overgrown with trees and there were broken branches everywhere. There was a bit of an eerie atmosphere, with the dark clouds in the sky and nothing but ghostly silence surrounding us. When we got to the campsite, my immediate thought was that it would have made a great scenery for another Blair Witch Project movie. It consisted of a pretty full bush loo and a couple of weathered benches and tables with missing screws in front of a non-working, brick barbecue that was filled with rubbish. It was hard to make out designated spots for tents, but we found a larger, flat area where we pitched our tent.
By the time it was 5 pm, we sat on the benches and found it difficult to feel cheerful. There was no sound aside from the morbid trees creaking in the wind. The place depressed me and freaked me out. To make matters worse, we then also discovered that we had completely miscalculated how much water to bring. We only had 3.5 litres between the two of us left for the remainder of that day and the return hike on the next day.
We ate our pre-cooked pasta dinner, which we heated up over the gas cooker, pretending to each other that everything was groovy, and got into the tent by 7:30 pm, for the first time ever, before it was even dark.
I couldn’t wait for the next morning. I was so desperate to get out of this place that I was even contemplating suggesting to Liam that we’d just hike back there and then as I was lying in the tent, trees creaking, and having all sorts of crazy thoughts. I worried about a tree falling onto our tent in the middle of the night, or some mad person appearing out of thin air and killing us in our sleep. I worried about one of us hurting our ankles or backs on the way back, or about not being able to find the trail and getting lost without having enough water. I cursed myself for being so unprepared, I wondered why I thought this was a great idea in the first place, and I prayed that nothing would happen to Liam as a result of my lack of planning. I felt like a total idiot for getting us into a potentially dangerous situation, especially since I’d done this before and should really know better.
After what seemed like an endless night filled with nightmares, I woke up at 4 am, at the crack of dawn, to the buzzing sound of the mosquitos. I woke Liam, we packed up and we were back on the trail before 5 am. By the time we stopped for breakfast, overlooking the gorgeous Fitzgerald River at Point Charles and the wild, Southern Ocean, we were in good spirits again and laughing about the weirdness of it all. All the way back to Point Ann, the trail was very well signposted, and we hiked past varying flora on the trail, which at times was sandy, rocky or boardwalk style. At 10 am, we were back at the car, relieved and grateful that we had made it without any further issues.
In conclusion, I’d like to say that this is a beautiful hike and we would have enjoyed it a lot more with better preparation. There are only a couple of access points from the beach to the trail and unfortunately, they are not very well signposted at all, whereas the remainder of the trail is. We would have found the first marker by simply reading the hike description more carefully. Also, the campsite is fine for crashing for a night but don’t get your hopes up too much – I was disappointed because I expected a nicer little spot due to the closeness to the beach and being next to the inlet. Personally, I wouldn’t stay there again – I don’t think the hike along the inlet or the camping spot is worth it. My recommendation would be to do the hike without staying overnight, whether that be only hiking to Point Charles or Fitzgerald Beach and back the same day, driving along the beach to Charles Junction and hiking to Fitzgerald Beach to take in the views, or getting dropped off and hiking back to Point Ann as this blogger described on his site. Most importantly, carry enough water (3 litres per day). I was spoilt in Canada because I only had to carry a little bit of water (2 litres) plus a water filter, since there are plenty of streams to drink from. We don’t have that luxury in Australia, and even though we could have boiled water from the inlet and drink it, I’m glad we didn’t have to. Last but not least, I’d let people know next time where we’re going. This hike could have easily gone pear shaped and I’ve certainly learnt my lesson, as far as preparing to hike to remote areas in Australia goes.
