June 13 2021

Days km: 18.9km
Total km: 82.4km

I went to bed way too early last night and my hips felt pretty sore this morning. After 12 hours on my sleeping mat I just start aching and can’t get comfortable. I got going before the scouts got started on breakfast, but it was still not as early as I would have liked. I was awake before dawn, but I can’t recall what I did with the time.

Within 10 minutes I bumped into Gilly. 73 and nearly done an end to end. Very bloody impressive! I passed on Bruce’s greeting. She mentioned there were 27 people at the Brookton shelter last night and she had left really early to get to the shelter before the crowd.

Brookton was deserted when I got there an hour or so later and I didn’t encounter anyone else in the trail heading north. The trail was fairly flat and uneventful, though I did cross my first proper road at Brookton highway. Alas there were no service stations or the like to grab a drink.

I arrived at Canning campsite at 3pm, and I had it all to myself. I wasn’t too fussed with this shelter for some reason, not sure why, I just didn’t like the vibe. But it was a little too late to push on so I set up for the night and attempted to get a fire going. I couldn’t find enough firewood though so it died down just as it was getting dark.

Was feeling a little low and not relishing a night in my own.

But over the course of the next hour 4 more hikers turned up. 18 year old boys who were competing their e2e heading to Kalamunda.
They were nice lads. They got the fire roaring again and we had a pleasant night chatting around the fire.