Great Ocean Walk Day 1

For the next six posts I am typing up the journal entries I wrote while on the Great Ocean Walk, with only minor edits.  I did the walk with one other person—Sytske, a fellow American—who I had met once before.  We had a mutual friend who was supposed to come with us but dropped out, leaving just her and me.  Here’s the first entry…

Journal Entry: Sunday 28/11/10

Woke up pretty early (~7:30 AM) to get to Southern Cross train station.  Met up with Sytske and took a train and a bus to Apollo Bay, and arrived around 12:45 PM.   After lunch we got on the trail (which was actually a sidewalk) and pretty soon lost the path, even though we were still in the town.  We eventually found we had gone down the wrong street and picked up the correct sidewalk again.  After walking through some developments we finally got onto the beach.

I should mention all the way down from Melbourne it was raining off and on but when we started hiking it cleared to party cloudy—I got to wear my new hat, even though it threatened to blow off multiple times.  The trail switched between beach and inland and at a few decision points we chose to walk inland because the tide was on its way in.  Then we got to Decision Point 4, where the trail either turned way inland or went along a stretch of rock shore.

Inland section of the track.

It was about 3:45 and high tide was at 4:30 PM.  The safe choice would have been to take the inland route, but we were adventurous and skipped across the rocks.  It got tricky at times and a wave washed into my boot at least once.  Another time I had to wade barefoot because the water had reached the rock wall and covered the footholds.

The camp shelter/kitchen. One at every site.

But we made it up to the Elliot Ridge campsite without too much trouble.  It was deserted except for about eight people in the group site and father and son Allen and Aiden.  As we were setting up our tent we started to hear something that sounded like the oinking of a pig.  I was expecting a wild boar to crash through the underbrush at any moment but it turned out to be a koala up in a tree making the racket.  He is up there doing it now (mating call?) as I write this.  After dinner we played cards with Allen and Aiden.  I lost pretty badly in a version of Kings.  Sytske won.  Time for bed because it’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.