the hills

yes, perth has hills. no, it is nothing like the reality show of the same name (not that i really know though, i don't watch it) and last weekend, my friend gill, her friend steve, and i went hiking in "the hills". more accurately, we headed to kalamunda.

it was a gorgeous spring day. warm and sunny, but not too hot. we gathered our things and drove about 40 mins due east from the city. john and i have been to kalamunda before, but neither gill nor steve had. it's quite a quaint little town up in the hills. trendy enough to have cafes, nice restaurants and hotels, but small enough to be cute. in fact, if i didn't live in australia, i could live in a place like kalamunda (but since i'm in australia, i live near the beach).

the hike we chose was a short, 5km jaunt. it claimed to be a "level 5" hike in the guide book, which meant steep inclines and hard going. we were stoked. you don't often get hard going trails in perth. often times, hiking in WA is often a bit of a misnomer. as a canadian, i would describe it more as "trail walking" or "bush walking" at best. this short hike should maybe have been classified as a level 3 (4 at best). yes, it had steep climbs, even steeper descents on what looked to be a dry river bed of soft, loose ground. (one false slip would've sent you sliding down the mountain)  but they were all pretty short in duration. and it was only 5km. (we all thought that with some snow cover, it would be a sweet toboggan trail). we ran into a few other hikers, mostly at the cross points on the trail. naturally, this trail was poorly signed (it is australia, after all. why would you want to know where you're going?) but we managed to find our way quite well.

the guide book told us to plan for a 2-2.5 hour hike. i'd like to know how they time this! do they follow the slowest people on the trail? or do they get some very old, seriously out of shape people who are also intense bird watchers? it took us 1.15 hours at best. and that was including a few stops while steve answered work calls (yes, on the trail. i'm amazed he even had reception!)

sadly, we saw no 'roos. not a one. this country is apparently over-run with 'roos. farmers get a quota that they have to kill every year. but nope. not a one. stupid 'roos! 

overall, it was a nice afternoon. the guide book has about 50 "walks" in the region. hopefully john and i will start to chip away at them. we'll keep you posted (pun intended)

xo