
Santi’s 7 Day Gold Bibbulmun Hike
“It has allowed me to gain a better connection with myself and to attain a better understanding of my interactions with the people around me.” – Santi (16)
My gold adventurous journey of hiking on the Bibbulmun track from Northcliffe to Walpole for seven days has been a truly life-changing experience. Even though I had previously hiked on the Bibbulmun and encountered many challenges, this hike was completely different to those before. I had to traverse through many terrains that I had never travelled through and also encountered quite a few adverse weather conditions.
For example, I endured kilometres of flooded paths, was hailed upon, and climbed many sand dunes. Although the difficulty of this hike was still a bit greater than previous hikes that I have embarked on, it has allowed me to challenge myself further and develop my endurance and mental stamina, the effects of which I could observe through my ability to navigate the different sections of the hike over the seven days.
On the first few days, since I had not hiked in a long time, I was adversely affected by the heat, the sun, and the distance. As a result, maintained a poor posture, feeling slightly demotivated, and my mentality was to finish the day simply. However, this was greatly contrasted by my performance on the last few days. Even though the last few days were meant to be the most difficult, involving many sand dunes and climbing Mount Clare, I felt that these few days were the days where I could truly enjoy the scenery and the hike itself and finally feel at one with the environment.
My mentality had completely changed; my motivation was at a high, and traversing over 20km daily seemed like a walk in the park. I now like to joke that Didier would say that climbing that massive hill to get to a location or having to walk another 8+ km to get to a campsite after 5+ hours of walking would be a short journey and the easy part. Subsequently, it has allowed me to realise that my mentality greatly affects my physical and mental performance.
If I were to plan and imagine the difficulties that I would have to endure, I would be able to prepare my mental state for the challenges ahead, and thus, all challenges that I experienced during the day did not feel as extreme and I actually felt as if I was in control. The hike felt like being a soldier soldiering through all the hardships as the terrain greatly reminded me of the environment during wartime, but obviously without all the man-made and artificial aspects that are trying to kill you.
Apart from the personal development during the hike, I also greatly enjoyed the social and team aspects of the journey. Since we were joined by a few girls from New South Wales, I was able to meet many new people and share our personal experiences despite normally being many thousands of kilometres apart and living on opposite sides of Australia. It has allowed me to understand that some things that are normal to us may not be normal to people who are not educated on our normal.
As such, I now can truly comprehend the importance of explaining concepts and ideas in a way such that people who may not be educated in that specific area can still understand. On the other hand, interacting with people who have different goals and personalities has let me realise that a major aspect of my relationship with my friends is just school and study, thus I greatly enjoyed talking about non-school topics with the girls particularly when I was away from my friends.
Surprisingly, I felt that it was quite refreshing that I was able to relate to some of the sports and music activities that the girls partake in, as I normally would not have people around me who enjoy these non-academic activities and would be happy to take conversations away from school topics. Talking to others has also made me more conscious about not placing assumptions on other people, as I have learnt that they all have different life experiences and backgrounds that have led them to where they are right now.
Overall, this hike has been completely different from all the hikes that I have done in the past. It has allowed me to gain a better connection with myself and to attain a better understanding of my interactions with the people around me. Inspired by all the hikes that I have done with Didier, I would love to pursue more hikes in the future by myself and with my friends.