Munda Biddi Trail (WA) - Carinyah to Wungong

The second day of the Munda Biddi Trail, this section takes cyclists from Carinyah to Wungong campsite. Starting as a fun descent to Brookton Hwy, the trail goes through a mix of uninspiring scrappy Jarrah with some nice views of granite formations as it goes up and down the hills to Gleneagle before a nice easy roll into Wungong. A mixed second day of the trail

Distance: 34.63 km (one way)

Gradient: Mostly downhill to Brookton Hwy, then very undulating with some steep ascents/descents to Albany Hwy. Easy moderately downhill run to Wungong Hut 

Quality of Path: Mostly vehicle tracks with some single track. Some sections with very loose pea gravel 

Quality of Signage: Well signed at almost all trail junctions

Experience Required: Mountain Biking experience recommended

Time: 3-4 Hours

Steps: None, this is a bike trail

Best Time to Visit: All Year; but the South West of WA is always best from August-October
Date(s) Completed: 2th April, 2020 (Carinyah to Brookton Hwy), 9th May, 2020 (Brookton Hwy to Wungong), 27th June, 2020 (Boulder Rock)
Entry Fee: No

Getting There: No direct access to Carinyah or Wungong Huts. Car access points can be located at Brookton Hwy, Albany Hwy and Jarrahdale Rd

Reaching Carinyah Campsite was the first major milestone of my sectional End to End of the Munda Biddi as it represented the completion of the first regular town to hut section of the track, however it was not the end of the day's cycling. Having written the Bibbulmun Track up based on the actual days walked from point to point, I thought I'd try something a bit different with the Munda Biddi by telling the trail's narrative in a hut to hut fashion, meaning there will often be overlaps in days between sections. Having picked up the trail at Walnut Rd and given I wasn't staying overnight, I would be continuing on through the first seven kilometres of the next hut to hut section to the pickup point at Brookton Hwy.

From Carinyah campsite, the cycling to Brookton Hwy is easy going as it is a fairly gentle downhill run to the highway crossing. At the time of my ride, the rains from two days earlier had made the pea gravel less slippery than it would have been after the Summer dry spell, and I found it a very enjoyable, easy ride through pleasant enough Jarrah forest.

While I'd crossed a culvert in the previous section, this stretch featured the first appearance of the classic metal footbridges common to the Munda Biddi and Bibbulmun Tracks as they pass over ephemeral creeks. Given it was late April and the rains from two days earlier were the first significant rain for some time, Kangaroo Creek was basically bone dry at the time of my visit. My experience with the Bibb is that these creeks rarely flow except after a serious downpour in late August or early September, and I suspect the same could be said about this crossing.

Serving as a bit of a taster of what would come on the other side of Brookton Hwy, the Munda Biddi skirts the edge of a broad, granite expanse before taking a sharp turn left to run parallel to the road and eventually reaching the crossing point.

At Brookton Hwy, the Munda Biddi turns left onto the highway to cross a road bridge over Death Adder Creek, and this is where Alissa arrived to pick me up. Having increased my speed significantly from my first day of riding given it is mostly downhill from Walnut Rd to Brookton Hwy, I'd beaten Alissa to the pick up point, and it made me have to reassess my estimated times for future pick ups.

As an aside - we need to talk about Boulder Rock. An odd quirk of the Munda Biddi is that it passes relatively close to the very neglected granite feature along Brookton Hwy. It is located two kilometres uphill from the Munda Biddi Brookton Hwy crossing, however according to the map can be reached on vehicle tracks much more easily from a junction on the Munda Biddi before it crosses the road.

After checking out the new alignment in the Helena Valley of the first section of the trail in June, Mark and I drove to Boulder Rock and I have to say the fact it is not visited by the Munda Biddi feels like a seriously missed opportunity. Considering we keep getting boring, utilitarian walk trails along vehicle tracks in nondescript scrappy forest while an area like this is completely ignored is a real shame. Given there are already vehicle tracks going to Boulder Rock, it would be great if the Munda Biddi could have a signed, marked side trail for cyclists to follow to check this area out, as it appears to currently be visited mostly by graffiti vandals and people lighting illegal bonfires.

But I digress; back to the End to End itself. While it would have made sense to have picked up the Munda Biddi again from the Brookton Hwy crossing for my third day ride on the trail, the next section of the Munda Biddi that I would tackle was from Jarrahdale Rd into Jarrahdale. This was partly because it made it easier for Alissa to pick me on a day when she had to decorate a birthday cake in the evening, but also because this next section technically featured 250 metres of trail that enters the Wheatbelt region. With regional boundaries closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I wasn't sure if this 250 metre incursion was going to get me into trouble, however after the Munda Biddi Foundation published some guidelines that confirmed it was okay to ride the trail from Mundaring all the way to the end of the Peel region south of Lane Poole Reserve, Alissa dropped me back off at Brookton Hwy the Saturday after completing the ride into Jarrahdale.

Over the week since Jarrahdale, there had been a serious storm that blew through Perth, with 120 kilometre wind gusts knocking down part of our fence at home and leaving 40,000 homes without power over the day - particularly bad at a time when a lot of people were working from home. As is to be expected, the trail had a few fallen trees across it, with the first significant signs of storm damage appearing within the first kilometre.

Overall, storm damage was the least of my issues with this section. The area had been quite significantly burnt by a prescribed burn in the recent past, and the overall scrappy nature of the regrowth forest coupled with the blackened trunks is exactly the kind of ugly Jarrah forest that I really don't enjoy. 

To make matters worse, I could hear an awful lot of dirt bike noise along this early stretch. I would learn from Alissa that she witnessed 50 dirt bikes turn onto the same Munda Biddi access point I had turned down not long after I had departed. Thankfully, they must have taken a different dirt road to the one the Munda Biddi follows as while I certainly heard them, they didn't pass me. At the same time, my friend Bonny was camping overnight at Waalegh campsite on the Bibbulmun Track and reported hearing a lot of dirt bikes through the area, quite possibly the same group.

These disappointing moments aside, there was some worthwhile scenery through this section, with the track passing by a lot of large granite flats and domes over the course of the day. This part of the Munda Biddi is not far from Abyssinia Rock, and it became obvious to me that there were probably a large number of these types of formations through this area besides Abyssinia and the aforementioned Boulder Rock.

Continuing along the track, I came across another much larger tree fall blocking the road. Signs indicated that this was either a much earlier fall or that there had been a decent amount of traffic through here over the week as there was a clear goat trail running around it to the right.

Following what seemed like an old railway form, the trail passes by some cool looking granite boulders. While using the old form makes sense, it was a shame the trail hadn't veered a bit closer to the rocks as they were one of most distinctive geographical features of the day's ride.

A few metres up from the granite boulders, the track crosses an old wooden bridge that looked like it was beginning to fall into disrepair. This was probably one of the first bridges built for the Munda Biddi and looks similar to the original wooden bridges found on the Bibbulmun Track. These certainly have a nicer, rustic appearance, but ultimately are far more susceptible to fire and water damage that the Soviet-looking utilitarian metal and concrete bridges. It was at this point that I realised I'd cycled about 7 kilometres from the start without my helmet, and that Alissa was long gone for me to cycle back and pick it up. Having had a painful accident on the bike that you'll read about in the next section, I was already feeling a bit more paranoid about crashing again. Not having a helmet made me all the more cautious, and I resolved to take it a lot easier to minimise the risk.

Luckily, the rain from the week had again made the trail surfaces less slippery than they would be after a dry spell, with even long sandy stretches being relatively straightforward cycling.

The trail continued to pass by large granite expanses, with the track even passing over part of one. At one point, I could see glimpses of even larger rocks just beyond the trail, and it made me want to come back and explore the area more thoroughly on foot some other time.

Having been disappointed by very ordinary Jarrah forest closer to Brookton Hwy, I was glad to see some pockets of fairly mature lush forest that had seemed to have escaped the worst of the last prescribed burn.

Sadly, this would not last; skirting around the edge of Water Corp-managed lands that were restricted from access, the trail rises up some mildly eroded trails through scrappy, burnt Jarrah forest that was far from inspiring cycling.

Something I'd wondered about the Munda Biddi was how it dealt with Disease Risk Areas given the Bibbulmun Track has brush down stations for boots, and I would imagine a bike would be an even greater risk and far harder to clean. A partial answer was provided as the track I was riding on abruptly ended at a gate protecting the forests beyond, with the Munda Biddi taking a sharp left around the protected forest.

This next section is one that really made me miss my helmet as it made its way down a rocky stretch of laterite that would have been fun to ride at full speed, but was instead tackled with a lot more caution.

Less fun and a whole lot more scary, the descent became much steeper and more eroded as it rushed towards the Canning River. Concentrating on not crashing and not paying as much attention to markers, I began to worry that I'd perhaps taken the wrong turn. I was thus very glad to see a Munda Biddi marker when I got to the bottom. It would not have been much fun pushing the bike back up if it had been the wrong way!

Less than a kilometre from the steep drop off, the trail reaches Kinsella Road. Bibbulmun Track sectional hikers will know Kinsella Road well, as it provides a shortcut between Brookton and Albany Hwys, as well as access to Marginata Road which can be used as midpoint access route for car shuffle day walks in the area.

The trail runs down Kinsella Rd for about a kilometre, making use of the road's bridge over the Canning River to get to the other side.

After the bridge crossing, the trail turns right and heads uphill in a direction that doesn't make any sense. While I understand the idea here is to take cyclists off a nearly six kilometre uphill on Kinsella Road, this section felt needlessly circuitous and I question whether the scenery was really worth the detour. Given I'm a stickler for following the official route to get that End to End certificate, I dutifully took the turn off, but I wonder how many cyclists stick to the road and just grind out the kilometres in a more straightforward direction rather than taking the longer, official loop.

Given I'd cycled this before the realignment which now passes a Mitsubishi Colt near the Dell, I'd been waiting with giddy anticipation for my first official burnt our car wreck of the trail. Throughout the day I'd been thoroughly surprised at the lack of car wrecks given they can be quite common in these parts, and then the Munda Biddi finally delivered in spectacular fashion. Not only was this a classic iconic burnt out rust bucket in the tradition of many a walk in the Perth Hills, it had also been recently used for a bit of target practice as the entire area was littered with shotgun shells! It may have taken longer than expected, but this first burnt out, bullet-ridden car was a masterpiece of the Bogan Car Dumping genre. Truly one for the ages, or as Mark put it when I showed him the photo, 'Shire of Kalamunda quality'. 

After a somewhat steep blue-graded climb from the burnt out car, the trail has some easy cruising downhill towards one of the pine plantations commonly seen along Albany Hwy.

This first encounter with the pine plantation is fairly brief. Upon reaching the corner of the plantation, the trail quickly returns back into the bush.

The blue graded section and the seemingly pointless nature of this loop had made me a little fatigued, to the point that the next somewhat minor ascent felt a lot worse and a lot more tiring than it really was. Having gone slower than usual also had played into my mental state, as I began to be concerned that my late arrival at the pick up point would make Alissa worry that something had happened to me.

Trail conditions improved as the track ran along the service track separating the plantation from the native forest. Black cockatoos are a common sight throughout this stretch. These birds have adapted to eat pine cones given much of their preferred native food sources are in decline due to deforestation. 

A major highlight of this stretch of the track that almost made the extended loop worthwhile (almost) is a section of track that passes by a large granite mound. While not exactly Sullivan, Boulder or Abyssinia Rocks, it was lovely to see a gnamma pool filled with water and green moss growing so early in the season.

After the granite mound, I was relieved to be at the crossing of Kinsella Rd as the Munda Biddi headed into the Gleneagle Picnic Area.

Alissa and I have probably driven past Gleneagle over one hundred times in our regular trips down to the Great Southern, but we've never stopped in to check it out. A popular rest spot and picnic area along the highway, Gleneagle used to be a small town until the Jarrahdale fires of 1960-1961 saw a major decline in the town's fortunes and its eventual closure. For true crime fans, the nearby Gleneagle Forest is also famous for being where David and Catherine Birnie buried the bodies of their murder victims.

From Gleneagle, the trail crosses Albany Hwy. Given that regional travel bans were still in place, the road was far less busy than it usually is, and made for a very easy crossing.

After some ups and downs over the day, the trail from Albany Hwy to Wungong Campsite was an absolute pleasure, being a gently downhill run almost all the way to the hut. Along the way, I saw quite a few temporary Bibbulmun Track markers that were in place due to the prescribed burn DBCA were undertaking through Monadnocks Conservation Park at the time. This was quite a detour; with 9.4 kilometres of the Bibbulmun closed the deviation was a whopping 21 kilometres and meant walkers would not be able to do the traverse over Mts Cuthbert and Vincent - one of the absolute best parts of the entire track!

Given the long kilometres to be walked, the spur into Wungong campsite would be quite a demoralising shock to walkers akin to Long Point's long walk in, but on a bike was a fairly easy side trip. The hut here is basically identical to the first one at Carinyah, however it has been reversed to better accentuate the campsite's best features.

Where Carinyah had its benches and tables at the front of the hut, Wungong has the bench seating located at the front instead.

The tables were obviously at the front of Carinyah hut as it made sense given the campsite's more open appearance, however the tables located at the back of Wungong provide a lovely view of the bush. It is nice to see that the builders of the trail put some thought into how to best lay out the huts rather than just doing a carbon copy job, and there would be even more site-based customisation further along the trail. 

Interestingly, this hut had a few places for bikes to be stored under the main shelter itself as well as the bike only shelter adjacent. Unlike Carinyah, the bike racks are more open-ended U-shaped structures rather than Carinyah's tyre slots that have been criticised as being outdated given they favour the older 26" wheel mountain bike standard and don't cater for fat bikes.

To be honest, Carinyah to Wungong was a bit of a mixed day on the trail. The ride from Carinyah to Brookton Hwy was an enjoyable downhill, with the undulating riding from Brookton to Albany Hwy more of a mixed bag of burnt, scrappy Jarrah, some nice granite scenery and some tougher blue-graded sections, with the latter part off Kinsella Rd being of questionable value. The section did end strong however, with the riding from Gleneagle onward to the campsite being very enjoyable and the campsite itself being idyllic in spite of being so close to Albany Hwy. Overall, I still had an enjoyable ride, however I think it says a lot that I encountered no other cyclists between Brookton Hwy and Albany Hwy while they are much more common closer to Mundaring and Jarrahadle , which suggests it is really only worth a look in for those aiming to complete an End to End.