The Waugal, protector of fresh water and new life—hiking the Bibbulmun Track

In the final two weeks of December 2024, one of the bastards of the Frisian Coast Trail solo hiked the coastal section of the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia. Naturally, it had to be the coast. This section runs between the towns of Albany and Walpole, with only a brief brush with civilization halfway through, at the town of Denmark. The trail is marked by the Waugal—see featured image—a symbol of the Indigenous First Nations peoples of Australia, representing the guardian of fresh water and new life. During this hike, the bastard experienced a moment when past and present, the personal and professional, coincidence and causality, all seemed to converge. It may sound a bit dreamy or light-headed for a typically level-headed Frisian bastard—but judge for yourself. It is what the path provides, including unforgettable encounters.

On the trail

Even during the planning phase the months before, the bastard was preoccupied with how to manage the crossing of the Wilson Inlet estuary. Seasonally, the sandbar that separates Lake Wilson from the Indian Ocean is breached, and the lake releases its built-up water in one great gush—like pulling the plug from a bathtub. When that happens, hikers must wade across the estuary. The problem, however, is that fording the inlet is not always possible. The water can be too high, the current too strong, and the sand too soft — dangerously close to quicksand. You really do not want to stumble and be flushed out into the sharky waters of the Indian Ocean, notorious for its brutal rips. Serious risk, and not something to take lightly.

Getting reliable and up-to-date information about the situation was also extremely difficult because only the occasional hiker walks the Bibbulmun Track this time of year, commonly shortened to the Bibb. It was summer, and temperatures easily rise to 35 degrees Celsius in the shade, with real risks of bushfires. The only thing the bastard knew for sure was that you had to cross the estuary at low tide. Contrary to the North Sea and Wadden Sea coast, the cycle of the tide is only one high and one low tide daily.

On December 24, the bastard arrived at the camp spot on the peninsula of Nullaki. Like all the days before, the bastard was all alone, except for the many aggressively biting marsh flies, and the occasional kangaroo, emu, tiger snake, or bobtail lizard. You could tell that not many hikers walked this part of the trail anyway, probably to avoid the unpredictable crossing at the Wilson Inlet. From camp spot Nullaki, the next stop would be the town of Denmark, after a week of tramping through the remote bush. At Denmark, the bastard had booked a room at B&B The Windrose, where he had also delivered in advance a parcel with freeze-dried meals for the second leg of the hike, another seven days. Sleeping in a bed at Christmas instead of on an inflatable mattress and in a miniature tent, and a hot shower, was something to look forward to after almost a week of sweating in the sometimes soaring heat.

It would be about five hours walking from camp spot Nullaki to the estuary. The additional difficulty was that low tide would be at 07:00 o’clock in the morning. This would mean the bastard would have to pitch his tent on the shores of the estuary the next day and wait another day for the tide before he could cross the inlet. However, there would be no fresh water at the estuary. In total, the bastard could carry 4 liters of water. That itself would be enough to make it to Denmark, but not if the estuary turned out not to be forded. Then backtracking would be the only option left, back to the fresh water tank at the camp spot Nullaki for refilling his bottles, and additionally circumventing Lake Wilson, too. In total about 50 kilometers. Too much with a heavy pack. The alternative was to stay again the night at Nullaki and circumvent the lake the next day, but that would be a terrible drag. So, what to do? Choices, choices.

The bastard decided to continue hiking during the night, leaving Nullaki at around 01:30. He would be around low tide at the estuary. If things were too dangerous, he would turn back and stay the night at Nullaki anyhow, but at least he did not lose a day. So, an early sleep was in order, and at 08:00 o’clock, the bastard crawled into his tent for some sleep. Barely had he laid down when a hiker showed up in the dark—the first hiker during the hike thus far. Why now? Farewell to sleep. The guy was German and had already been working in Australia for about a year; he wanted to stay here because Europe was becoming a “bad place.” He would not be crossing the estuary but would circumvent the lake right away and hoped to get a lift to Denmark once reaching the highway to town.

Around 01:30, the bastard had packed his bag and slipped into the night, leaving the happily snoring German behind in his tent. On his head, a small flashlight. It was pitch dark—no moon, no stars, no light pollution. The world felt ominous, eerie. The bastard moved alone through the blackness, his beam of light barely enough to follow the trail, which was often faint, overgrown, and far from well-trodden. He lost the path once, costing him a frustrating extra hour.

As if the atmosphere wasn’t unsettling enough, thunder and lightning rolled constantly across the sky during the first hours—though, mercifully, the rain held off. Several times, he heard heavy rustling close by: something large moving through the bush. He couldn’t tell what. Only when dawn finally broke did he see the culprits—kangaroos, leaping off into the distance.

And then there were the snakes. The trail clung to the edges of a swampy lakeshore, forcing him to wade through dense vegetation for hours. It was far too dark to spot anything slithering. He knew the snakes were there—abundant and well hidden—which only added to the tension.

The most uncomfortable and downright creepy part of the night walk was the sheer number of spider webs the bastard ran into—an incalculable barrage. With only a flashlight and a few meters of visibility, there was no way to see them coming. He did his best to sweep them aside with his walking poles, but there were simply too many. Easily over a hundred webs smeared across his face, some with hefty spiders dropping onto the broad rim of his hat. Their six—or was it ten?—eyes glared at him, furious at the destruction of their delicate masterpieces.

After hours of trudging through these sticky snares, the juice of the webs felt almost acidic on his skin. His black Akubra hat had turned ghostly white with silk. They say you can get used to anything—but that is easier said than done.

estuary of the Wilson Inlet near Denmark, West Australia

Around 05:45, the bastard finally emerged from the spooky woods and darkness, reaching the dunes just as morning light revealed the ocean and the dreaded estuary. The scenery was beautiful—and surprisingly far from dreadful. A wide sandplain stretched out before him, exposed by the low tide. A man and woman nearby walked their dog and tossed a frisbee. “What all the fuss was about?” he wondered.

The deepest water he had to ford barely reached below his knees. Fresh, cold seawater soothed his aching feet, blistered from the long trek. Though the weather was grey and windy—hardly summery—the bastard felt a surge of happiness. He had arrived at the town of Denmark, and a day ahead of schedule.

The B&B The Windrose, where the bastard had made reservations for the day after tomorrow and the day after that, was fully booked today, so he settled for one for the Ocean Beach campground instead. At least there was a hot shower and a communal cooking area with a couch to relax on. Sometimes, that is luxury enough.

In the town of Denmark

The bastard posted on Facebook that he was staying at Ocean Beach and that the town of Denmark was still another 9 kilometers away. He had tried to get a taxi, but none operated in the area—not viable, apparently. There was also no public transport, nor were there any bicycles to rent at the campground. He would have loved to head into town for a coffee, maybe a beer, and to do some shopping at the supermarket. But after almost 40 kilometers of hiking in the last 24 hours, another 18 clicks out and back did not sound like fun.

Almost immediately, he received a message from a woman offering him a lift to town. Amazing! Half an hour later, Paula picked him up and drove him into Denmark. After stocking up on groceries at the IGA—including supplies for Christmas the next day, when shops would be closed—the two sat down for coffee and a bite to eat on a terrace. In the distance, the bastard spotted the German guy from camp spot Nullaki stumbling through town. Like a sacred cow, just arrived after a lift. Probably.

Paula, a woman the bastard guessed to be in her mid-sixties, was a hiking enthusiast herself—something she had only taken up relatively recently, but which she had come to enjoy more and more. That is why, when she saw the bastard’s Facebook post, she thought: “Let’s give this wanderer a ride.”

Shortly after they had settled at the terrace, one of Paula’s friends happened to walk by. They exchanged Christmas wishes, and Paula, without giving it much thought, casually explained that she had picked this hiker up on the road.

“Well done, Paula. You go, girl!” her friend said with a loud laugh.

We all laughed.

“A big thing here—there is a major investigation underway,” she said. “Not just because of the conditions in the facilities, but because both kids were Indigenous. They are massively over-represented in the criminal justice system.”

Paula spoke with concern about the bleak prospects facing Indigenous youth in remote desert towns—a future she described as all but hopeless.

Then she turned to the bastard. “And what do you do for work?”

“I inspect juvenile detention centers in the Netherlands,” he answered.

In the city of Perth

A week later, the bastard completed his two-week hike along the coast in the small town of Walpole. There, his Australian cousin picked him up, and he additionally spent a few days at his cousin’s place in the city of Perth. It was the first time the bastard met his family in Australia—relatives who had emigrated after the Second World War from Indonesia to the Netherlands and in the 1960s to Australia.

To mark the occasion, his cousin organized a family dinner, and that is how the bastard came to meet the husband of one of his second cousins. As it turned out, the guy worked as a counsellor for children in a juvenile detention center.

"What are the odds," the bastard thought.

Suddenly, the bastard found himself exchanging work experiences — about overcrowded prisons, staff shortages, and all the familiar issues that lay at the core of his profession. But he also learned from the husband of his second cousin how Indigenous Australian children and youth were almost funnelled into lives of crime, often reoffending and repeatedly ending up back in prison. These prisons were far removed from their hometowns in the far north or deep interior, and once released, they returned to the same toxic, hopeless environments with virtually no chance to change the course of their lives.

The bastard told him about his encounter with Paula in the town of Denmark a week ago and about the deaths of the two young detainees. The husband of his second cousin quietly replied that he had known the boys personally—and had worked with them.

Again the bastard thought, “What are the odds?”

When the bastard went to bed, his thoughts returned to the trail marker of the Bibbulmun Track: the Waugal. The bright yellow triangles bearing the image of the winding serpent—a symbol from the culture of the First Nations people, representing fresh drinking water and new life. But then he wondered: how secure was that 'new life' for the very people it symbolized? How protected were the young lives of Indigenous Australians today? Like fresh water in a scorched and arid land, it seemed just as fragile, just as rare.

“The Waugal does not just guide hikers along the path,” the bastard reflected. “It also serves as a constant reminder to reflect on the fate of Indigenous Australian children.”

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Note 1 — The Bibbulmun Track fits a series of coastal hikes of the Frisian Bastards to experience the regional maritime landscape and culture. Exactly where the Frisia Coast Trail is all about, too. For these reasons the bastards hiked in the south of Turkey (read our blog post The Old Man (and Woman) and the Sea—hiking the Lycian Way), the southwest of Wales (read our blog post Croeso i Gerddwyr—hiking the Pembrokeshire Coast Path), the Andalucian Coast to Coast Walk in the south of Spain (read our blog post Naranjas and Reservoir Dogs—hiking in Andalusia), and the Rota Vicentina annex Fisherman’s Trail in the southwest of Portugal (read our blog post Surf on someone else’s Turf—hiking the Rota Vicentina).

Note 2 — The wilderness of the Bibbulmun Track is to be taken seriously. Not only because being prepared for snake bites, which would be, in fact, a bit unfortunate because the risk is pretty small, but also because of bush fires. The Bibbulmun Track Foundation advices not to hike in summertime, which the bastard did. During the hike, there were two bushfires on the trail. Luckily one in a area where the bastard had passed through already, near Albany, and a small one in the Forest of the Giants that was extinguished quickly.

Then the ocean. Sharks are not an immediate danger, but the rips are. The bastard passed the beach of Conspicuous Cliffs the day after two people had drowned, a girl and her father who had tried to rescue her. A rip had taken them into the ocean. A surfer could rescue only one person. Lastly, temperatures during summer get very high. Dehydration is also a serious risk. Nowhere before experienced the bastard how quick he dehydrated.

Note 3 — For the (twice) daily travel journal of the Bibbulmun Track on Facebook, click here. Pictures of the Bibbulmun Track on Facebook can be found here.

Further reading

Bibbulmun Track Foundation, Guidebook 7 Walpole (2023)

Bibbulmun Track Foundation, Guidebook 8 Denmark/Albany (2023)

Hennessy, A., Another Child Dies in Western Australian Youth Detention (2024)

Litter, R., Two people drown in holiday tragedy at Conspicuous Cliff beach, near Walpole, in WA (2024)

Lonely Planet, Perth & Fremantle (2019)

Lonely Planet, West Coast Australia (2024)

Lonely Planet experience, West Coast Australia (2022)

Wiki Series, Hiking and bushwalking tracks in Australia (2011)