Day 2 - Sapphire Coast and Victoria

Grabbed breakfast in Batemans Bay and settled on getting to Binn Beach campground in the northern part of the Victoria coast. Was just about to leave when I noticed that there might be some good shots of the bridge available so off I went to the foreshore. Before turning my eye to the bridge though, I saw a bunch of pelicans and below them in the water, stingrays!! Huge stingrays, and these are the first I've seen in the wild. Took piles of photos, and then headed out.

Did not take pictures of the bridge.

Wild stingray!

Most of the rest of the day was just driving, but I did pop into a nostalgic favourite, Eden. I rang in New Year's 2014 with friends in this little town, and it's still one of my best memories of my time in Sydney.

Farmland

On the way to Victoria I jetted out to Green Cape to see the lighthouse. Lighthouses always make me think of the aunt who once hosted me and 7 of my friends on our way into and out of a canoe trip in Northern Ontario. My friends still talk about the full turkey dinner we arrived to after a long week of canoeing.

Green Cape Lighthouse

My campsite tonight is much more what I had in mind. It's a little spot near the ocean, and I can hear the surf battering the beach across the dunes. I spent a few minutes on the beach near sunset, but the wind has the sand whipping around a little too much for my liking. Still, it'll be nice to have a quiet night lulled to sleep by ocean sounds.

I guess this is why they make those machines.

Sunset/Moonrise at Binn Beach

Day 1 - NSW Southern Highlands and South Coast

Today is mostly going to be treading old ground. To get to Melbourne in 3 days I only need to do about 300kms per day, and I've been to most regions that close to Sydney already. Between orienteering, obstacle races and bushwalking, it's all familiar. The only difference is that I usually have a specific destination in mind and end up racing past a lot of places while thinking "I really need to come back here and look around a bit more."

The Sea Cliff Bridge is one of those places. I've probably driven it a dozen times in each direction, and have always wanted to come and take a closer look. Today, I finally got the chance. Though I left a bit later than planned, I had lots of time to make camp before dark so I could afford to stop and enjoy the views from Bald Hill and walk the bridge a little bit. I even managed to suss out a small hidden track to a higher vantage point and get some more interesting angles. I don't think I'd previously noticed the remnants of the old road still clinging to the cliff edge, while the new one snaked its way around further out over the water.

 

Sea Cliff Bridge, NSW

Other than that, there isn't much to note. My first planned campsite seemed like a beautiful spot overlooking the ocean, but turned out to be full even on a Monday. I scrambled to find another option and ended up at a small campsite along the Clyde River. It doesn't have the majesty of North Head Campground, but it offers that other thing I love most when camping: solitude. There are only two other couples here and both of them are in vans so I have the tent area all to my lonesome. So here I am, swaying gently in my hammock, writing blog posts, on the other side of the planet from where I wrote my final posts on the AT barely two years ago.

It's an ok life I'm leading.

NSW and Victoria Adventure

For some administrative reasons, I had to take a lot of my annual leave in December this year, which left me with most of the month off. To fill the couple of weeks before Xmas, I've set out to hike the Great Ocean Walk, a 100+ km coastal walk near Melbourne.

The plan is to take three days to drive the NSW and Victoria coasts before stopping to visit friends in Melbourne for a couple of days. Then I'll head to the start of the GOW, and spend 5 days hiking the beaches, forests, and rivers, terminating at The 12 Apostles. A bus ride back to my car and I'll head back to Sydney, but crossing through country Victoria and the NSW interior.

As with the AT, I'll post each day in sequence. Like a lot my travel these days, I'm treating it as a bit of a photo expedition (see my 500px profile for a recent trip to Vietnam, or follow my Instagram). I've brought my DSLR and will be hauling it along everywhere with some others gear.

I don't have my laptop to deal with the photos so you're probably seeing all of these posts after I've completed. Which means there's no need to panic no matter what I post. If you're seeing these, it all turned out fine.

Onwards!