Day 10 - The 12 Apostles

Date: 19/12

There wasn't much to see between Devil's Kitchen and the end of the trail at the 12 Apostles. About 7km from the end, I left most of my gear at the hostel I'd be staying at which made for light walking. There was also a nice little wetlands boardwalk between the track and the hostel.

Wetlands near Princetown, Victoria

My first glimpse of the Apostles

The Apostles were interesting, but even mid-afternoon on a Wednesday they are overrun with tourists. I managed a few photos, and then headed off to the visitor centre to get a coffee and something warm to eat for the first time in 5 days.

Well, that's me done then.

Two of the 8 remaining Apostles. There were never 12. 

A few more apostles. One collapsed a few years back.

While snacking on a sausage roll at the end of the trail, I chatted with a family from California and a German woman with a lot of walking under her boots. We talked about great hikes we'd done and I managed to show her an echidna just before she left Australia to return to Europe (no good pics, sadly).

The hostel (The 13th Apostle, in Princetown) was great. The hosts were incredibly helpful and friendly, and the whole thing reminded me a lot of the better hostels along the AT. After 5 days of walking, I wasn't all that social so I mostly just headed to the local tavern for a pizza and some beer and then crawled into bed. It was a busy hostel, and the young'uns were up to party though, so thank God for ear plugs. (Actually, they were loud right up to almost exactly 11pm and then immediately went silent, so it was one of the more considerate backpacker groups I've encountered.)

I did (finally) manage to get a sunset here. Not quite the rugged coastal setting I would have liked, but it will do.

Oh sure, NOW the sky lights up like a painting.

In the end, the Great Ocean Walk was terrifically rewarding. I'd recommend it for anyone looking to do 5-7 days. It's not too challenging, and there is tonnes of natural beauty to keep you going. Altogether a great way to kick off my holidays.

Tomorrow, I shuttle back to my car and head home.

Day 9 - Wreck Beach

Date: 18/12

Well they weren't kidding. The trail did get a lot more challenging today, and I did some damage to my Snickers supply at dinner.

As usual, my early start meant a lot of kangaroos:

Roos in the Mist

How many roos can you see?

At one point, I felt like I was back in Tennessee on the AT.

Déjà vu

The original roos.

Most of the walking was steep descents and then steep ascents. The rewards were non-stop though. Every point I climbed over offered stunning coastal views, and every descent yielded beautiful rainforest like growth and beaches.

Some of the wildlife was exciting, in the sense that I almost stepped on what appeared to be a mulga snake, which is odd because they aren't typical this far south. Just another Queenslander escaping the humidity for a holiday on the south coast I guess. Still, nothing gets your heart pumping faster than one of Australia's native people-killers rearing up into a strike position. I looked into its eyes and there was nothing but darkness there. I guess I backed off far enough to make it happy though, since it eventually just slithered its little soul-less self across the path and out of (my) harm's way.

"Please don't kill me please don't kill me please don't kill me"
(looking closer, I think it's an Eastern Brown)

There were also some more benign encounters.

The rest of the day was less eventful. I managed to hit Wreck Beach just after low tide which meant I could explore it a bit. The ruined anchors and machinery from destroyed ships are a nice reminder of why I don't fuck with the ocean. I made sure to get past any narrow bits long before the tides rolled in and made camp around 5pm.

Pretty sure this one didn't actually land like this.

I swear I'm not just downloading Google Images.

Devil's Kitchen Campground should be renamed Dunnyview, because the toilet block has an absolutely stunning view. If there had been a decent sunset, this is where I would have come to see it. Sadly the clouds ruined my sunset once again, but not before I snapped some beautiful shots of Wreck Beach in the golden light.

'Waiter, could you seat me near a window?"

"Will this do?"

Once again, looking away from the sunset paid off.

Final day tomorrow, which means both the 12 Apostles, and a meal that isn't made of wraps or ramen. To the finish!

Day 8 - Johanna Beach

Date: 17/12

As usual, I'd planned to get up for sunrise. Luckily (?) I woke to the sound of rain drops on the tarp over my tent, which told me there was no sunrise to see. Combined with a short hiking day, there was no reason to get up.

Even with a bit of a lie-in, I headed out around 8 under misty rains. This meant keeping the camera hidden for the most part which means I didn't get a lot of shots. It was a beautiful walking day nonetheless, and I still managed to take more than a few pictures. One of the advantages of leaving earlier than everyone else is that I usually get dibs on the wildlife along the track, like these dark black kangaroos I'd never seen before.

The early bird catches the roo. The early bird also gets to walk
into all of the spider webs that have been made across the track.

The highlight of the day, though, was 2 kms of beach walking to get to our campsite. Just as I finished the beach, the clouds were lifting and the rain stopped. The result has been a really nice afternoon at by far the most beautiful campground on the walk. Johanna campground overlooks Johanna beach and the Johanna River. The name isn't hard to remember.

Hard to beat this view for a campsite.

Not far from the campground is a hang gliding launch site and from there, more views of the coast but also views of the farmland that is on the other side of the dunes and ridges.

Farm valleys behind Johanna Campground

Not a bad way to end a relaxing day. This is definitely the campground of choice of you're planning to spend a few days on the walk. A bit of a hill to get between the beaches and the camping, but well worth the effort.

Tomorrow is my longest day of hiking: 27km to Devil's Kitchen. Everyone keeps warning me that this section is much more difficult than what I've done to date so I guess I'll be earning my Snickers tomorrow.

Day 7 - Cape Otway Lighthouse

Date: 16/12

Today was finally the warm, beautiful sunny day I'd been hoping for. After arriving at camp so early yesterday, I set out planning to take my time and maybe steal a hot lunch at the Cape Otway Lighthouse. On my way to the promised café I was treated to beautiful beaches, and tempted by the crystal clear flat waters of Crayfish Bay for a swim, but decided it was too early in the day yet.

You can see Cape Otway Lighthouse in the distance.

Crayfish Bay looks great for snorkelling

I also came across a tiger snake, one of Australia's more deadly critters. I snapped a few shots and then crept around it while trying to telepathically send the most unthreatening thoughts I could imagine.

"I'm just a friendly wind, breezing past you quietly and unthreateningly."

When I finally made it to the lighthouse, unbathed but also unbitten, it turned out the café was only accessible if you paid the $20 fee to see the lighthouse grounds. I know it's Australia's Most Significant Lighthouse (whatever that's supposed to mean*), but I wasn't paying for the privilege to pay for an overpriced coffee.

Instead I headed to the nearby campsite for a 20 minute nap. 90mins later, I woke up and continued my way to the next campsite. I opted for a somewhat longer route that would include Rainbow Beach, and even added the 2 extra kms of beach walking to get to rainbow falls. Not sure it was worth it, but it wasn't not worth it.

There are falls in there somewhere.

Camp was on the banks of the Aire River, a murky brown river teeming with bird life finding meals among the reeds and fish. I had a quick dip there to rinse the hiker off (really should have made the trek down to Crayfish Beach) and spent a delightful evening watching the birds.

There were also more koala about and while the sunset was marred by incoming rain clouds, there were some stunning landscapes to shoot. Sometimes the best sunset shots are behind you.

Aire River at sunset

Koala in golden light

Tomorrow is a short day to Johanna campground which is supposed to be stunning. We also have a 2km beach walk. Here's hoping for good weather.

*Apparently it was Australia's first lighthouse, and also was the first one European ships would see when coming around from the west.

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.

Day 3 - Coast to City

Date: 12/12

This morning began with one of the most beautiful sunrises these eyes have ever seen. Sometimes it's really worth getting up when the alarm goes off.

There weren't any cafes nearby and those that were didn't open until 8, so I made it an hour to Orbost by the time I had time to plan my day. There were a few options but most of them involved adding several hours to my already long driving day. One that seemed like it might be worth a quick detour was the Noojee Trestle Bridge.

It turns out that this meant driving through the stunning Gippsland region and into the Yarra Valley. Winding roads took me through valleys of farmland for hours before plunging me into lush river valleys that had even narrower winding roads with the added fun of trying not to be crushed by logging trucks.

This is especially hard when every 3 seconds you're trying to get a glance at the scenery.

Somehow I managed and even found a few places where I could pull out safely and take some photos. I'm really glad I told Google Maps to avoid highways.

After a few false turns, I managed to find my way to the Trestle Bridge. This is not just your average Trestle Bridge. It is an enormous, towering Trestle Bridge. It also seems a bit pointless, since there are easy walking tracks to either end from below, but still. It makes for a hell of a photo setting. I was there alone and it seemed like not many people could be bothered to trek out to it. I was happily taking a pile of photos when suddenly the car park was overrun with other visitors including a large bike club. It seems all my detours worked to give me the bridge to myself for a half hour.

I'm up there at the top

After the trestle bridge and a spot of lunch in Yarra Junction, I motored my way to the city again. I'll be staying with friends for a couple of days while I get myself together for the Great Ocean Walk.

Tomorrow will probably be a silent day, since I'll mainly be focused on logistics. Even glamorous lifestyle icons like me sometimes just need a day to book hotels and buy toothpaste.

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!

Photo Gear Test

One of the things I always regretted a little bit about my AT hike was that I didn't have good camera with me. Like most hikers, I relied mostly on the camera in my phone which led to some decent shots but mostly pretty low quality stuff - particularly in the low light that often makes for the most beautiful images.

After that trip, I'd decided I would find a way to bring some quality gear with me on hiking treks to give myself better options. A couple of weeks ago, a friend invited me to join a group on a 30km (18mile) hike along the coast in New South Wales (The Coast Track, in the Royal National Park). This seemed like just the excuse I needed to buy some stuff and see what works. Discussion of the gear follows these pics.


For the gear heads, I have a Canon T6i (750D) DSLR with the standard kit lens (18-55mm). At some point I want a wider range zoom, and either a wide-angle prime lens or a portrait prime lens (I'll decide when I figure out what kinds of photos I tend to take more).  Before upgrading the lens, I wanted to figure out ways to carry stuff, so the first two things I wanted was a way to pack camera gear into a bag, and a way to carry the camera around that would keep it secured but also very accessible. I don't want to have to open my bag every time I want to take a shot, and I also don't want to have it dangling around my neck swinging while I walk.

Storage

f-stop's Small Shallow ICU

For the last hike along the Six Foot Track, I had a standard Lowepro bag. It's great for wandering cities and day-to-day, but I could never really get it to be convenient with a pack and poles. I'm not looking to carry a full pro rig or anything, so I settled on f-stop's small shallow ICU insert.  It's still too big for what I own but down the road I'll want to have spare batteries and a charger, filters, memory cards, and probably two lenses.

In the end I didn't really make much use of the insert except on the way to and from the track. The weather was beautiful and dry, and the track has no really technical bits. There were some beach walks where sand concerned me a bit, but never enough to make me hide the camera. I'll have to report back after I've taken it on a longer hike where I need to hide the camera more often (rock scrambles and weather), or have access to more options.

Accessibility

Doubles as a perfect bracket
for shooting your feet.

On the Six Foot, I had to constantly open my Lowepro bag and take the camera out whenever I wanted a shot, then return it to the bag when I was ready to walk again. For this trek, I picked up a Capture Clip from Peak Design. This clip attaches to your shoulder strap and allows you to suspend the camera (lens down) from the pack directly at chest level. A little release button is all it takes to pop the camera up and start shooting.

I loved it! The camera was always either in my hands or on the clip. It was super quick and easy to go from hands free to shooting. I did have to be a bit more cautious when putting the bag down, but that wasn't hard to remember since the camera was in my face.

Stability

Is that an MYOG monopod in your pocket,
 or...?

One final problem I need to solve is how to get a tripod without carrying a tripod. As a hiker, I generally dislike carrying anything that has only one purpose if I can avoid it, and a tripod does not have many other uses. I had seen some people talking about turning their trekking poles into monopods as a compromise. This also had the added appeal of being my very first make-your-own-gear project! I ran off to the local hardware store and picked up a small 1/4" thread bolt and two matching nuts, along with some epoxy. Half an hour with a drill and I had what I needed - thread the camera onto the protruding bolt at the top of the pole et voilà: Monopod! I was surprised at just how strong it was - most people are using them with small point-and-shoots, not DSLRs. My camera was solidly attached.

Cost: $4.

It was a very bright day, so there was no call for a monopod. I tried to force it a bit but any time I used a slow shutter speed, the shot came out badly overexposed. My sense was that the poles I'm currently using (Black Diamond adjustable poles) don't really provide the stability that I'd need with a heavier camera. I'll have to test it more fully when I get a better opportunity. I also don't love that I have to remove the Capture Clip baseplate before affixing the monopod. If this is going to work as a monopod, I might invest in some sort of mount for the top of the pole to avoid that minor irritant.

In the end the Capture Clip is my favourite thing ever, and I'm pretty sure the f-stop insert will be just right for my purposes. The monopod is still a work in progress. But gear aside, I had a great walk with a really eclectic mix of people (we were 17, including a Swedish former tennis pro, an American teaching English in Hong Kong, and a Welsh doctor).

For more of my photos, look at the following:

• @serjepedia: I'm least picky about photos on Instagram. Pretty much anything could end up here, but usually only one or two related to any event. More of a "this is what I did today" thing than a photography thing.
• Flickr/dimthoughts: Most of my good shots end up here. Lots of pics othat are good, but probably not of interest to people who don't know me or weren't involved in the events. The amount of post-processing varies a lot.
• 500px/kryptych: My best stuff goes here, usually after some more serious time in Lightroom/Photoshop. So if you want a small set of more highly curated photos, this is the place to go.