January 2004 Western Australia - the Munda Biddi trail

Justin and I rode the trail from Mundaring to Brookton Highway on the 16th Jan 2004 (a total of about 45km on the trail, and then 25km on the Brookton Highway to Kelmscott station).

We left at 8am and the first 10km was a breeze. However, not long after leaving Mundaring Weir we encountered the pea gravel, and from about 12km to 35km it was pretty hard going, especially in the heat. We had to get off and walk a lot, especially on the hills. We thought the profile map was a bit misleading. This was meant to be the "easy" section, but even the hills weren't as difficult to deal with as the gravel.

The signs were mostly good and we only missed a couple of turns and had to backtrack.

I ended up having a big stack at about 27km on a steep slippery, gravely, rutted downhill section. We got in to the Carinyah Campsite at about 1.30pm. At this point we decided to abort the planned trip to Jarrahdale because of the extent of my injuries (huge lump on hip where I hit the deck plus skin off knee and elbow).

It would be useful if you provided a list the distances from place to place and you added the campsites to the profile map, as we had no idea how far it was to Carinyah (turned out it was about 40km).

People should be warned to take extreme care through this section (12km to 35km from Mundaring) as it is very slippery/slidey, especially heavily laden with panniers as I was. I am not sure how inexperienced riders cope...

I think the ride is much harder than is indicated on the Munda Biddi Foundation web site and people should be warned about the conditions so at least they have some idea what to expect (especially if they are coming from outside WA where the earth is mostly hard packed!!).

We will give it another go in a couple of years and hopefully without mishap next time. I certainly learnt the hard way!