The coast-hugging Great Ocean Walk has sea views in abundance, and covers 110 kilometres from Apollo Bay to the Twelve Apostles.
Time and tide wait for no person, and this afternoon, it’s the tide we’re timing. Lunch is at the Blanket Bay campground, such a sublime spot on Victoria’s southern coast we could just as well while away the hours here, exploring its clear rock pools and empty beaches. But we have our walking shoes on and it’s the Great Ocean Walk we’re about to taste on the first day of our Great Ocean Road long weekend.
We continue along, and beneath us are the remains of the timber cargo ship, Eric the Red, wrecked here in September 1880. Barclay explains that its cargo and wreckage were spread from Cape Otway to Apollo Bay, much of it scooped up by the locals. Houses in Apollo Bay were said to have been built from it. The sand above its remnants comes and goes – sometimes the beams of its hull show through, like a set of ghostly old ribs, but for us, they’re hidden.
Back for a dinner of southern rock lobster from the nearby Apollo Bay Fisherman’s Co-Op. It’s fresh and delicious – Femino doesn’t unduly interfere with the catch, finishing it with a lemon and garlic crumb. Ingredients are local wherever possible – including cheese, milk and yoghurt from Schulz Organic Dairy, over the hills in the dairy country of south-west Victoria.Breakfast comes with that Schulz bounty, as well as fresh fruit, then scrambled eggs and mushrooms – fuel for the day ahead.
There’s one huge rusty anchor sticking out of the sand like a sculpture and the hint of another one nearby. These are the remnants of the wrecked Marie Gabrielle and the Fiji . It’s a wild and unforgiving coast.On we go, a few shorebirds regarding us curiously and the waves breaking over rocky shelves, flushing the rock pools clean with every roll, seaweed swinging this way and that.
Maybe the separation made us all fonder, but the group is getting along pretty well, chatting easily to whoever you might end up walking alongside, or playing trivia in the bus.It gets better. Back at the lodge, we take a seat on the long bench, cool drink in hand and our foot baths are filled with salts and minerals and hot water to soothe the day away. That, I suspect, is only part of their purpose – they actually lock you into position to once again enjoy the buzz and hum of the group.
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