Day 6 - Great Ocean Walk

Date: 15/12

Melbourne was a bit of a break from the countryside, involving a lot of eating and drinking and trying not to get washed away in the rains. Yesterday I made my way to Apollo Bay and organized myself for the walk. All of that is to say that you didn't miss much.

This morning I finally set out on the Great Ocean Walk. The forecast was for a lot of rainy weather, clearing a bit in the afternoon.

Rain meant I didn't want to take my camera out so it was a (largely) camera free day, which is too bad since the first few kms produced a seal on the beaches around Marengo. I've seen seals before, but I've never been 20m from one just lounging on a rock. After that the walk entered the forests, which were pretty, but in the unphotogenic way that characterizes grey wet days in the forest. I met a few hikers, including a large, supported tour group that is camping with me for the first three nights.

This guy hung out eating in the trees on our campground.

But the highlight of the day, no doubt, was seeing my very first, second, third, fourth, and fifth koalas in the wild! This included one misty silhouette of a koala high in the trees grunting at the other koalas around, and one mother with her joey on her back.

I can finally check koala off the list of Australian wildlife to see.

I had to do 22km today, and wasn't sure how long that would take. Between that and the rains, it was a pretty business-like day of hiking and I found myself at camp around 1pm. This was way too much time to spend at camp, so from now on I'll be taking it much easier. Fortunately there were a number of koala around to stare at for ridiculous amounts of time, much to the amusement of the Aussies who are used to them.

Anyone know what this is? Angler fish? Puffer fish?

Camp was nice and near a beach (which produced this puffer? angler? fish), but pretty foggy. An earlier campsite had not had any suitable trees for hanging a hammock, so I was a bit worried that I had set myself up for a very uncomfortable few nights. Fortunately, this campground had lots of spots for hammocks and so it was all good.

Since I'd decided to carry my heavier camera gear, I had also decided not to bring a stove or pots in order to save space and weight. This means that all of my dinners will consist of wraps with cheese and sausage*, or peanut butter and granola. Under normal circumstances, this would be fine, but tonight it seemed a bit underwhelming next to the tour group's catered dinner of sausage curry stew.

But even a boring meal can't ruin the feeling of sitting on a beach watching the surf come in while I write this.

* I would really have preferred tuna, but it's hard to find the soft foil packets of tuna in Australia. This also means I won't be revisiting Blueberry Crisp's preferred meal of a tuna and peanut butter wrap. Stop making that face. It's much tastier than you think.