Great Ocean Walk for 2 newbies

[Mudmav]

Hi everyone


My Fiancé and I have been doing plenty of day walking the last 12 months and are slowly ticking off most of John Chapman’s day walks Melbourne and day walks Victoria walks. We are having a blast doing it and are really getting an appreciation of the outdoors in the process.

So we had some gift vouchers and money from my works incentive program and also Christmas and have lashed out and brought pretty much everything we need to be self sustaining hikers.

We have been toying with the idea of completing the GOW at the end of April/start of May and this is now locked in with leave booked and we are excited and keen to go. So we have done a few 20-25kms day walks without any issues. What we are wondering is should we take it nice and slow and take the full 8 nights 9 days staying at all GOW hike in camp sites or try the compressed 5 nights 6 days version calling for 24kms on day one and 20-25km on day 2.

I want to enjoy the walk and not feel wrecked or pressured, but at the same time don’t want to walk for 3 hours a day and spend the rest of the time trying to occupy ourselves in camp.

We plan on doing some overnight hikes in the cathedral ranges and also the high country around maroka and howitt in the coming months/weeks as a lead up to the GOW.

Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated as I don’t want it to turn out as a hellish slog and turn the fiancé off forever.

[portlester]

Hi Mudmav

Another option if you want to have less nights without the longer, rushed km to walk is perhaps only do half the GOW. What I did just before Christmas with my son on his first extended walk, was to walk from Castle Cove (the Great Ocean Rd touches the coastline here) and then spend four days walking through to the end of the GOW (staying at Johanna Beach, Ryans Den & finally Devils Kitchen).

Our plan was to drop the car at Princetown and then catch a taxi/lift (approx $70 I've been told) to Castle Cove so we would have our car at the end. Unfortunately my car died the day beforehand and I had to get my better half to drop us off and then drive back down from Geelong again four days later to pick us up (I'm still paying for that service ).

We had an absolute blast and are already planning when we will be going back to do the first half of the GOW, or will it be Feathertop, or Cathedral Ranges, or ...

[Mudmav]

I like the idea but we have 18 days off work, so we have the time to do the entire walk and its a goal to tick it all off in one go. Thanks for the feedback though. Out of interest how hard was the walking and what time of year did you do the walk, Was the weather OK??

[Hallu]

If I had 18 days off of work I would certainly not spend half of it doing the GOW, especially in May when having a swim would probably not be a viable option. Maybe you could start your vacation by doing some 2/3 day walks in Murray-Sunset, Little Desert and Wyperfeld, and exploring Hattah-Kulkyne as well ? Those would be nice training before the GOW, and May is certainly a good time to do it. This region is widely ignored by bushwalkers for some reason (maybe because it's not in Chapman's books, not mountainous or too far away from Melbourne) but with Tasmania, it's my favorite place in Australia.

I've never done the GOW. I only walked the Rainbow Falls section from Cape Otway Lighthouse. I also wanted to do a shipwreck section but it was inaccessible because of high tide : that's something you'll need to check first before going, tide times. Apparently some portions need to be crossed at low tide, and I'm guessing this kind of stuff must be overlooked by a lot of people. Maybe you could have a look at this blog : http://ourhikingblog.com.au it looks like they've done it several times.

[JamesMc]

Take your time and enjoy it. Some of the beaches have quite soft sand so they are tiring to walk on.

JamesMc

[Mudmav]

Thanks for all the feedback guys, keep it coming. We do want to complete the GOW as it's one of our mini life goals along with larapinta. But i will take the other suggestions on board as we are not against the idea of another short 3-4 day trip before returning to work.

Any feedback or ideas on weather at this time of year and what overnight temps we could expect?

Just trying to plan for everything and the more info the better

Thanks again

[portlester]

Out of interest how hard was the walking and what time of year did you do the walk, Was the weather OK??

We did our section of the GOW 20-23 Dec last year and had fantastic weather (apart from the last day where the weather was still fantastic, but also in the very high 30s with no wind for much of the section from Princetown onwards). As I said earlier I took my son (11 year old) on his first extended walk and this was also my first extended walk for several years (and even more kg!).

The walk we did was not hard at all, with any steep uphill sections only being short in length (a km or so max). Some of the walk is on old 4wd tracks and also fire trails, so these sections were usually relatively easy. There are also two beach sections (along Johanna Beach & Wreck Beach) which can be a bit of a slow slog, although with such fantastic views we didn't seem to mind them too much. There are also a couple of sections between Ryans Den and Devils Kitchen where you have to walk through short sections of weed infested gullies, which was probably the most disappointing part of the walk.

The breakdown (distance wise) of the walk was Day 1 (Castle Cove to Johanna Beach) = 8 km; Day 2 (Johanna Beach to Ryans Den) = 14 km; Day 3 (Ryans Den to Devils Kitchen) = 15 km; Day 4 (Devils Kitchen to Glenample) = 13 km. So now great distances to cover.

As for the time of year, I reckon you could do this anytime of the year and be blown away by the views. It can be cold, wet & windy any time of the year down this part of the world, not just in winter (we had friends do the walk in late October and they had the opposite weather to us - but they still loved the walk). All the campsites are protected and very well setup with a shelter, toilet and water tanks ... not to mention the views from them, so at the end of the day you can always get out of the weather if you were unlucky enough to get poor conditions.

I would put the GOW down as one of those walks that you have to do at least once. There are definitely more remote and exciting walks around however the GOW is just a great opportunity to slow down and experience some great views and sounds (you rarely are without the sounds of the ocean surrounding you). If you haven't already make sure you take a look at the info on the Parks Victoria website, particularly the faq link.

[Mudmav]

Any other relevant info or advice guys?

[Mutley]

Did the full GOW walk in November, a few years ago. It was absolutely pissing rain for the first day, then a mixture of sunshine, cloudy days and drizzle for the remaining six days. I still loved the walk, as I was properly prepared for any weather. So make sure you have a good goretex type jacket, solid boots, a hat and gloves and a good quality tent. With the right equipment, no matter the conditions, you will have a great time.

I did the walk in 7 days, with a long day from Blanket Bay to Aire river. If I did it again, I would split this into 2 days, spending the night in the accommodation at Cape Otway Lighthouse.

For me the highlights were: the approach to Aire river; johanna beach campsite; Ryan's Den campsite; most of the single track through coastal forest; the grunting koalas that sounded like razorbacks, (scared the crap out of me the first night) and the great people I met along the way.

With the right gear, you will have a blast.

Like you, i am fairly new to multi day hikes. I have now done the Overland Track in Tassie twice and am doing the Larapinta this year. If you haven't done the Overland yet, make sure this is your next walk. You will love it. And I have heard the Lara' is one of the best walks on Oz. but what about NZ and Canada and America......too many walks, too few holidays..

[tcatchy]

Hi! I did the GOW last year around this time and it took my friend and I 5 days/4 nights. It was quite hard especially on the days where the weather was above 30. We ended up breaking camp at 5:30am at the end to avoid the heat of the day but arriving quite early to many campsites. Its definitely achievable to do it in 5 days:
Night 1: Blanket Bay
Night 2: Aire River
Night 3: Johanna Beach
Night 4: Ryans Den
Its the longest hike I have done to date and I loved it!

[BushwalkerTony]

I did the GOW in October last year. I used this map of the Great Otway national park as it had all the info I needed: http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/__data/assets ... P-West.pdf

I took the V/line to the Apollo Bay information centre and from there walked to Marengo. From there you can walk along the beach and then take the stairs up onto higher land and there on marks your official start to the GOW It's not clearly obvious that you have to take the stairs in land a bit and walk along a track with houses on the right. But luckily there were some locals walking along the beach that helped me in the right direction. Anyway the way I did it was:

Day 1: Apollo bay info centre - blanket bay

Day 2: Blanket bay - Johanna Beach (I was meant to stay at Aire River but when I arrived I discovered that they were putting in new water tanks and there was no water there. So I decided to continue on and after walking up a steep hill I actually found the campsite for hikers at Aire River which had a full water tank, but I decided to push on anyway ) Oh and the campsite to Johanna beach was a bit difficult to find. You will go up stairs from walking along the beach to a caravan campsite, thinking the campsite for hikers must be around somewhere I panicked a little struggling to find it haha. Well anyway, you continue past the campsite along the road and take a 4wd track up and around a hill where the campsite is perched beautifully overlooking Johanna beach.

Day 3: Johanna Beach - Devil's Kitchen (There's two ways to do this now, you either take the inland route or take the route down along Wreck beach. The inland route will take you to Devil's Kitchen along some nice new board walks or the route along Wreck Beach will take you to a walk similar to Johanna Beach, passing the historic anchors and then having to climb all the way back up to the top a couple hundred metres where Devil's kitchen is. Don't take the Wreck Beach route if it's high tide, it can be dangerous. You can always go see the anchors having reached Devil's kitchen after taking the inland route, it's not far from the campsite and you'll be glad you didnt have to climb up the cliff with packs on if you were to take the Wreck Beach route.

Day 4: Devil's Kitchen - The Twelve Apostles, right from leaving Devil's kitchen, you again have two routes, you can take the 4wd track to princetown or take a new trail. I recommend the trail When you're nearly at princetown, you'll notice a long board walk through a swamp leading you into town. Not much there. Where the start of that board walk, a trail going up a hill which takes you walking high up and open towards the Twelve Apostles, also on this trail is the place where there's the metal sign on the flow reading Great Ocean Walk, making a great spot for a picture

I did it in 4 days, sometimes reaching camp around 7pm having left camp around 9am. Having one extra day, staying at Aire River would have made the whole thing a lot more easy going. You can plan to do this however way you want and allow yourself to be flexible, choosing to keep walking or make camp. You'll find that it is a pretty easy walk. Just keep to the rule that people mostly cover 4kms an hour and you can adjust you're itinerary. Only do Blanket Bay - Johanna if you're feeling fit at Aire River I've never walked so much with a full pack on before.

My Photos: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 387ddcf004

[Franco]

A couple of mates and myself did it in 5 days 5 nights at a pretty leisurely pace.
We started from Apollo Bay at around 1 PM (arrived there via V Line) and finished at the 12 Apostles reception center mid day six days later .
So we did , from memory, a couple of 25 km (or so days) but always finished early in the afternoon.
My load with water was about 12kg, my mates a bit higher but only a few kg.
Great walk when the weather is nice as it was for us (rained one day)
Not much water at all between campsites

[BushwalkerTony]

Not much water at all between campsites

On the contrary I actually found that there was plenty of water in the tanks at each campsite. There wasn't many on the trail so maybe that was it.

[melfriskie]

I too am attempting the GOW in 2 weeks and the thing i am interested in knowing is how long is the tide out... ive checked with BOM and if it says its low tide at 8am, then how long is it low tide???

[Mudmav]

Thanks for all the info and advice guys feel free to keep it coming we are booked in and ready to go at end of april start of may, were going to take our time and do it over 7 nights. Any feedback on the weather and how much rain to expect/ track conditions at this time of year