To Cape Otway and back again
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Home sweet home! Back to our surprisingly warm and welcoming abode. Amazing what a few days of camping will do to your feelings about solid walls and warm showers! Holidays started on Friday after 9 long weeks of semester so thought i'd take a a break and get out of the city to recharge... This time after the bushfires in our usual choice of Wilson's Prom, we headed westwards to Cape Otway, via the Royal Melbourne Show. The Show was good, though despite it's moniker as the 'Greatest Show Ever', i was rather disappointed! For those not from Melbourne, the Royal Show is a sort-of carnival cross rural expo. There's dog shows, livestock displays, rural produce sales, fairground rides, games, motorcross displays, woodchopping competions (much cooler than it sounds) and showbags. Thing is this year they seem to have fallen more on the side of carnival then rural expo. Tons of fairground rides and games (at extortionate prices) and showbag sales at every corner. Still weather was good and got to indulge in my vet stuff at the cattle ring and dog shows. Apparently there was also a 'Rocketman' but i missed him. Bugger.
Anyways left the show early and headed to Apollo Bay to meet with Lisa and Stribley who were having their own more civilised getaway in a apartment in Apollo Bay. Dinner was great and it was a struggle to drag ourselves away from good company, wine and a logfire to go and set up camp in the rain! And what a drama that was. Yours truly showing phenomenal map reading skills had set the aptly named 'Shelly Beach' as our first campsite. Except that there's no camping at Shelly beach... Bear in mind that it's currently 10pm and raining. So we headed for the nearest actual campsite only to find we'd be charged $22 dollars for one night at an unpowered site! Not a chance. So shh... don't tell anyone... back to Shelly Beach for a slightly illegal camp! New tent (thanks parents!) coped very well with the quick set-up in the rain though!
The plan (despite the initial set-back, which will no longer be spoken of) was to do a section of the newly updated Great Ocean Walk which runs for 90 kms (or will run) from Apollo bay to the 12 Apostles (a highly over-rated Victorian tourist attraction). We were due to cover about 20km of it over a couple of days. So day one of the Great Ocean Walk: Shelly Beach to Blanket Bay, 14kms away. Except, after our breakfast on the beach, we didn't see the ocean till we reached Blanket bay five hours later. Yup, the first leg of the Great Ocean walk not only didn't involve ocean but was tedious beyond belief. Picture the scene: Take one towering eucalypt forest. Cut a a bloody great swathe of forest down to create a 10 m wide corridor. Add vehicle tracks. Allow grass and weeds to grow in space. Liberally sprinkle deep patches of mud. Provide the occasional gentle incline upward and downward. Repeat for three hours worth of walking. Admittedly the solitude meant plenty of time for philosphical thought (How long have we been walking? If a tree falls in this forest will this walk become more interesting?) and hell, it was better than the city, but give me Wilson's Prom anyday! To cut this short, we got to Blanket Bay and met with Kirsten and Dru who had trekked from the opposite direction, set up camp and spent a nice evening on the beach, playing cards, and stargazing.
Hot chocolate by starlight out in the bush is an experience i highly recommendLazy start on day 2 and a short 1 hour walk to Parker Estuary [above: © copyright 2003 slugu@yahoo.com] for lunch (i said lazy start!) with an interesting river crossing at high tide and then back to K&D's car for a lift back to ours still parked at Shelly Beach. Finally a bit of beach combing and rock pooling as the tide receeded making a nice finale to a relaxing few days away. And Louie didn't complain once! Even if she did steal my sleeping bag.
Now back in Melbourne, i really should get on with some work!
1 Comments
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at 11:13 pm
rambles... Good stuff - just to let you know someone checked it out.
ryrs
Dad