Today took us from Portland on bus, train, and bus again to Apollo Bay, where we began the Great Ocean Walk.
Up at 5 am, we quickly finished packing and left our hotel in Portland, heading to the bus stop we first arrived in town at two weeks ago to start the Great South West Walk.
We caught a bus at 6 am to take us to the train station in Warrnambool. From there, we took the train to Waurn Ponds, on the outskirts of Geelong. An uber shortly across town got us on another bus, which took us first to Torquay, and then along the Great Ocean Road to Apollo Bay.
It was a long and exhausting trip to get there — almost five and a half hours. And we have no clear plan for how to get back to Melbourne when we’re done! Two days ago, when we were in Portland after completing the GSWW, we weren’t able to get bus tickets back to Melbourne from the Twelve Apostles, at the end of the Great Ocean Walk, because we’ll be finishing on a Thursday, and public transport from Twelve Apostles only runs on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. (We couldn’t change our completion date; we had to pre-book campsites, and there aren’t sufficient campsites for when we’d need to adjust our schedule.)
We checked in at the information center, like we did in Portland for the GSWW, but apparently this was unnecessary. The person at the information desk tried to sell us guidebooks (we declined since we already had a trail guide), and gave us a tide table, but otherwise wasn’t very helpful with concrete information on what the trail is like when the tides are in. Which was somewhat annoying since we were going to get to a beach section of trail today around high tide. And also because it seemed to reflect a much lower level of interest or engagement with the Great Ocean Walk than we encountered with the information center in Portland for the Great South West Walk.
We started at a sign that seemed to indicate the start of the Great Ocean Walk, followed pathways for maybe 30 seconds, and stopped for a lunch break at Apollo Bay Bakery.
The town was loud and bustling with activity, much to CareFree’s displeasure. But after the long transit from Portland, I needed something substantial to eat, and I also wanted to kill a little time since we had beach crossings and warnings about them potentially being unsafe or impassable at high tide, and the tide was still coming in. (I reasoned, better to wait in the shade in town, than in full sunlight on a beach.)
After we left the cafe, we followed paths in a park between the buildings and the ocean, then turned away from the ocean to follow a sidewalk through a neighborhood.
Coincidentally, as we stopped to put on sun block, a koala emerged on the other side of the street, walking along the top of a fence, and a small crowd of people gathered to gawk at it. After making it across the fence, it climbed down, crossed the road, and walked up the sidewalk, directly past me, before ambling through someone’s side yard and out of sight.
After a few kilometers on the sidewalk, the trail took us on a brief walk through a holiday park, along the road between campsites, which felt a little weird. But then, we were quickly on a grassy trail, paralleling the coast, between the ocean and fancy houses inland and uphill a bit.
Eventually, the trail brought us out to a beach, where our trail guide (and signs on the beach) warned that there was no inland route, and that we’d have to take care along the beach. Hazards included unexpected waves, slippery rocks, and submerged trail from the tides.
But, even though it was now shortly after high tide, there was ample space to walk between the ocean and the cliffs. Possibly this would have been an actual concern if high tide had been higher, or if there had been strong winds blowing in from the ocean, but it felt like the trail guide (and the signs) were being alarmist in the face of no actual danger. This became a repeated theme on the several other beach crossings this afternoon: there was more than enough space to easily make it from the end of one inland track to the start of the next. (Perhaps if the guide provided some kind of quantifiable measure, such as, “not advised if the tide is over 2.0 meters; impassable if the tide is over 2.5 meters”, then it would be easy to tell if a stretch would be hard or not from tide tables and knowing what the wind is doing.)
In any case, the waves along the ocean when we could see them continued to be rough, and the beaches had both sand and rocky portions.
The flies along this stretch were relentless. There weren’t many biting flies, but the regular flies just wouldn’t stay out of my face.
We stopped for a break in the shade at a small creek as the trail left the beach for the last time of the day.
As we continued, we found the (very) tall eucalyptus trees the Great South West Walk seemed to have been advertising in its “tall forests” section in the Cobboboonee Forest. These were proper tall (and thick) trees. And, it was fairly humid as well. Presumably proximity to the ocean provided these trees much more water to grow than the trees in the GSWW’s forests, somewhat further inland. Occasionally, we got a view out to the ocean.
After a bit of an uphill climb, we reached our first campsite at Elliott Ridge. A bit larger and more spaced out than the GSWW’s campsites, this had separate small tenting areas (rather than one large area), a two-and-a-half sided shelter with benches and a table, and several smaller tables spaced throughout the campground. The privy, besides having copious amounts of toilet paper, had a solar panel powering a light, making it much more convenient at night.
When we arrived, there were four other hikers (in three groups) that we saw, and at least a couple of others that had already set up tents or hammocks who we never saw.
Almost immediately, we saw more koala, including one that was climbing a very tall tree, and later, a mother and joey nestled on a branch high up near our campsite.
We had a nice dinner chat with two of the hikers, one from the UK, and another from Melbourne, who coincidentally is finishing the trail the same day as us and might be able to give us a ride back to Melbourne. (As always, the trail provides!)
Later, a group of guys arrived, though we didn’t have a chance to talk with them.
Tomorrow is going to be a short (12.5 km!) day to Blanket Bay, on the ocean. We’re not setting an alarm.