Great Ocean Walk Day 4

Journal Entry: Wednesday 1/12/10

This morning was a much less glamorous section of the hike.  It started well, with pastoral hills dotted with cows that very much reminded me of Ireland.  The sun was peeking out through the clouds and I was sweating going up the first hill.  At the top I turned to Sytske and said, “I don’t want to jinx it, but if it’s this warm this early, it’s gonna be a hot one.”  Pretty soon the wind picked up, clouds descended, and the mist came in.  I was even more reminded of Ireland.

The trail ahead.

The entire walk before lunch (~10 km) was on dirt road past the occasional home.  One house left out water and had marmalade for sale.  Sytske bought a jar.  We finally made it down to the beach where we stopped for lunch. 

We saw them in real life, too.

As we were eating a group of four ladies walked by.  As we packed up and started walking further down the beach they were coming back towards us.  One of them, the short round one, was soaking wet.  “You can’t go that way,” they said.  “It’s too dangerous.”  We told them we would check it out and, yes, with the tide coming in we did have to scramble a bit, but we made it.

Past the scramble.

There was an extremely helpful rock formation that left round stones poking out of the rock face, providing perfect foot and hand holds and we may not have made it without those.  From the beach we ascended through short jungle-like scrub with magnificent views of the cliffs below.  The afternoon definitely made up for the dull morning.  I had to remind myself to enjoy the view not through my camera, but in person.  A few times we spotted a black wallaby bounding up the trail ahead of us.

Afternoon's views. 

A shorter day than the rest, we reached Ryan’s Den Campsite a little past 3 PM.  Deserted.  There was a great lookout at the top of the camp site that we sat and enjoyed for a while then we played cards until the school group showed up at maybe 4:30.  I beat Sytske at every card game we played: Spit, Speed, and an epic game of Egyptian Rat Screw.  After the school group no one else showed up at the campsite so we claimed a spot and set up.

We shared the shelter/kitchen with the school group and their leader and talked and told stories for a few hours.  They had just finished Year 12 and were from Brisbane.  It was fun to watch the banter between them.  We’re staying at the same campsite tomorrow too…