NOONGAR Dreaming tells how during the Nyitting (the ‘cold time’, most likely the end of the last glacial maximum) the Waugal rose from Mount Eliza at the eastern end of the Kings Park escarpment and formed the Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan) and Djarlgarro Beeliar (Canning) rivers. As the Waugal slithered across the landscape it created the sand dunes and river courses of the south-west corner of Western Australia, and it now lies along its length in the form of the Darling escarpment.
The Bibbulmun Track is a world class walking trail that runs along the Darling escarpment from Kalamunda in the north to D’Entrecasteaux in the south, before heading east along the south coast of WA to Albany, a distance of just over 1000km, guided by way markers depicting the Waugal. I first walked on the Bibbulmun in the early 1990s, through the tingle forests of the Walpole-Nornalup NP. In the Walpole Visitor Centre, I had picked up a copy of the then recently published and found several stretches that could be done as day hikes. I
