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The Great Ocean Walk is a great backpacking route along a beautiful stretch of Victoria coastline – 100 km from Apollo Bay to the Twelve Apostles. After landing in Melbourne, we headed straight to meet our friend Nat in Ballarat, who with her friend Mouse, had been kind enough to organize everything for us to do the GOW. Mouse in particular had devised a gourmet backpacking menu – the weight was worth it. We supplied the duty free gin.
Despite the summer sunshine, we quickly realized that Victoria is actually quite chilly at this time of year and did a bit of panic warm clothes shopping before heading to Apollo Bay. A pleasant evening of fish a chips (is flake really shark?) and a few pints in the local pub set us up for an early morning start.
Officially, the east to west route is 7 nights, but Nat had planned to shave one day off this because otherwise some of the days are really short. Perhaps Aussies are not as sporty as they claim – it would have been easy to cut one more day off the hike.
For our first day, we decided to get some kilometers under our belt and hiked 23 km from Apollo Bay to Blanket Bay, having lunch at the Elliot Ridge campsite. This was a day for feeling the pain from the weight of the feast of food that Mouse had prepared (and the G&T slushy that is Nat’s famous hiking invention). We arrived with plenty of time for G&T on the lovely beach and “veggie cottage pie” topped with classy Deb mashed potato. Choco-bananas for dessert! We were also successful in our first Aussie animal sighting – a family of koalas in a tree in the campsite.
Our second day was a much shorter, 11.4 km from Blanket Bay to Cape Otway, where the campsite is on the hill above the lighthouse. We arrived pretty early and hoped that cold beer could be obtained from the lighthouse shop (alas not – this should surely be a Visit Victoria priority!). Dinner was a very pleasant combo of falafel with pasta with sundried tomatoes and olives with parmesan. Maple pancakes for dessert (with lemon and sugar!) We had some torrential rain in the night, but woke to another clear morning.
Our third day was a nice short 10 km hike to Aire River, where the estuary and beach are really beautiful. We took a much needed swim/bathe in the river to clean off the sweat and suncream. The main problem with Aire River is that the campsite is a bit dark and gloomy in the trees and the estuary produces large numbers of giant Mosquitos. We enjoyed another fine meal of mushroom and zucchini risotto with parmesan. Cadbury’s chocolate for dessert.
The hiking and scenery really become fantastic as day four leads to Johanna Beach, a hike of 15 km. The last part of the day is more than 2 km along the spectacular beach – unfortunately for us the fairly soft sand made hiking hard work and the fierce headwind made this the hardest part of the whole hike. Fortunately, the incentive was meeting up with Anna and Nick and their car full of gin and wine and new food supplies. On the path up toward the campsite we saw three echidna – the very cool hedgehog type animal (part of the monotreme order of egg-laying mammals). Mouse unfortunately had to leave us to head back to Melbourne, but Anna, Robbie (age 8 ) and Alex (age 5) were joining us for the final 2.5 days. Without Mouse, dinner was a slight debacle, but that may have been the wine and G&Ts.
Day five started with the kids being ready well before us – wearing their daypacks and “practicing.” When we finally set off, the reality of hiking was perhaps a bit cruel since the first of the 15 km is a climb up a track and inland to avoid a deep coastal valley. However, once this section was navigated, the trail took us finally down to the beach where we had lunch. It was pretty hot but the kids found the energy to play in the river. Officially, the route along the beach was “impassable” but to avoid the steep climb up the hill again, Nat scoped out that there had been a minor rockfall covering part of the beach. But at low tide this was and easy fun scramble that a 5 year old can do. First evidence of Australia turned into a nanny state. Day five ended with a fairly long climb up and down and up to the fabulous Ryan’s Den campsite. We had the place to ourselves and got the great pitches right on the headland. Dinner was Japanese fresh veggie/tofu curry and rice. In our opinion, this is the hardest day of the standard hike itinerary.
From Ryan’s Den day six was another great coastal hike with superb views, 15 km to Devils Kitchen. The hike follows a cliff top trail up and down along the cliff tops, finally emerging at a farm where the trail follows the edge of the fields before dropping down towards the beach. On the long, gentle forested trail to the beach, Andy, Gill and 5 year old Alex were out in front engrossed in a game of “what animal am I….” Alex leading suddenly let out a yelp and as Andy looked ahead he was a right next to a large brown snake that had reared up from its coil on the path in defense (attack?) position. Alex was promptly yanked from harm’s way by one arm. After continuing to balance on one leg for a minute, Alex recovered well enough to agree that he had scared the snake more than the other way around. After this, we only allowed adults to walk at the front! Finally, we arrived on the famous wreck beach where there are remnants of a few lost ships from the late 1800s. The geology and rock pools here are also fascinating. After the kids, Anna, and Nat built a giant “sand-ta” and rudolph to celebrate Christmas, we climbed up to the fabulous campsite. The composting toilet here must win a prize for best toilet view? We enjoyed a final dinner of pasta, pesto and peas (kids favorite) with pancakes for dessert.
The final and seventh day was a half day hike – 8 km for the kids to be picked up in Princetown and 14 km for Nat, Andy, and Gill to complete the entire GOW. We had to really leg-it since we had a shuttle pick up waiting at the Twelve Apostles and a bus to catch from Appolo Bay to Geelong and then train to Melbourne. The last day felt like a bit of a slog, but the final section to the Twelve Apostles is great with fabulous beaches and views west to these beautiful sea stacks. It’s obvious that the park authorities are still improving the hike, since the last section is along the main road itself. There is also a distinct lack of congratulatory signage at end – the car loads of sunburnt tourists strolling to the viewpoint must have wondered what why we smelled so bad.
The GOW was a fantastic introduction to Victoria – some really special sections of coastline. Thanks to Nat for organizing the hike and Mouse for the food. Parks Victoria need make it easier to book your campsites online, since without Nat it would have been harder. Also, most fit walkers could do the hike in 5 nights and six days.
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