Great Ocean Walk – Days 4 – 6 Johanna Beach – The 12 Apostles (30 March 2017)

Day 4 – Johanna Beach – Ryan’s Den

It wasn’t yet daylight when the 7am alarm sounded. I spent ages packing the 2 bags leaving behind quite a lot of gear. It was surprising how little kit was needed for the last three days after some harsh decisions. Wilson was wearing a llama jacket in the cooler morning conditions, which looked familiar to me – he’d purchased it from a market in Cuenca, Ecuador.

We lingered admiring the spectacular view from Johanna Beach with our morning cuppas, and finally departed at 9.20. This was our record for lateness and we left with some trepidation. Day 4, though only 16km, was supposed to be the worst day for exertion according to Kathy’s colleague.

Ascending from the campsite, we saw herds of kangaroos grazing on the rolling grassed hills.  An architecturally interesting house was visible in the valley of Johanna River. We kept climbing for an extended period walking first on a road, then toiling along a forest track.

We stopped for a break just before a free water sign and sea captain figure positioned to attract customers for home-made marmalade. A nasty looking snake was spotted soon afterwards sunning itself on the track. The two Americans ahead of us were pretty unconcerned. However, the snake had a wide body and tapering tail, and was maybe 4 feet in length and we gave it a wide berth. It looked potentially dangerous (probably a copperhead snake) and we walked past at speed. We continued through eucalypt forest before descending to Milanesia Beach.

We stopped for lunch just before reaching the beach on an expansive grass area. The school group turned up subsequently and stopped at the same spot. We left them in peace. We always seemed to get in first to take the good dining spots, monopolising the campground shelters etc. Mind you, they were participating in the Duke of Edinburgh program so were supposed to be hardy and challenged.

After lunch, the short hiking section along the beach was a pleasant change of walking terrain. The GOW path headed uphill at the far end of the beach. Ascending from the beach, signs of echidna burrowing near the path were seen and we kept looking for animals, inspecting scats or markings on the path. We continued up a hill avoiding a further beach section.

A sizeable striped snake-like reptile (that may have had legs when subsequently seen to move) was spotted adjacent to the path. It was probably a blue tongue (though possibly a tiger snake looking at photos afterwards given it looked longer than the 50cm maximum size described for blue tongues).

We then undulated travelling up and down over a series of low coastal cliffs, sometimes on wooden stairs or steps formed by planks for an extended period.

The long climb up stairs to Ryan’s Den was the end of the day’s walking. The campsite seemed a bit overrated, with the big ascent at the end and coastal views only from the single location on the headland. I preferred the previous night’s position at Johanna Beach with its glorious, expansive views. We sat around in the shelter shed and recovered from our days’ labour. There was another composting toilet with a window framing a view of the surrounding bush and featuring a hewn wooden door handle. The architectural design of these structures was excellent providing a functional facility and the glazing provided light inside (helpful for looking for insects and creatures) and a charming outlook for users. Beef fried rice was provided for dinner. The noise of the crashing waves was loud in the camping area though way below us. The shuffling’s of a few animals were heard during the night.

Day 5 – Ryan’s Den – Devil’s Playground

A pink glow was visible in the distance at wake-up time, a ‘sailors warning’ for bad weather. Wilson reported rain was forecast at 2pm but it could however, be a few hours either side. It was a 14km day. We had to collect our drinking water down the track as Wilson provided an extra plastic water container for us. He’d wheel barrowed in all the slimmed-down bags from his parked vehicle. We followed his path downhill for about ten minutes so he’d had a big slog with the gear. We all filled up with water and headed off on our day’s undulating path.

We passed a few signs of echidna burrowing activity adjacent to the path like the previous day with no sightings. Dull green parrots with blue heads with a fleck of red on the head and red under the tails were seen flying overhead (Blue Bonnets or purple crowned lorikeets perhaps) and in trees in the distance. A snack stop was taken at an attractive viewpoint of the ocean at Moonlight Head. There were distant views of Cape Otway though we couldn’t make out the lighthouse. We’d walked a long way.

Heading inland past a Devondale signed farm on private land, cleared farmland was an unwelcome abrupt vegetation change from the natural coastal vegetation. At an adjacent car park we interrupted an older lady visitor’s ablutions. When we saw her group later on, a man jovially said ‘hello again’ and people smiled very warmly at our group with a sheepish looking woman at the rear avoiding eye contact.

Attractive and changing forest vegetation (eucalypts with a bracken understorey, eucalypts with dark stringy bark) featured before the path returned to the coast. Heath vegetation then dominated with areas of grass trees, and sections of dense coastal heath species and tea trees.

We settled on a lunch spot at the first lookout close to Wreck Beach – Gables Lookout, which didn’t have a view. I had a nice Vegan frittata for lunch (which I thought needed more egg) and everyone else found theirs’ a bit dry. There was no prospect of walking on Wreck Beach and seeing any wreck remnants due to the rough sea conditions, though it was low tide.

There were lots of wildflowers after lunch and several boot dips to try to control cinnamon fungus.

Our last 3.5km was through eucalypt forest with a distance on a boardwalk. Kathy nearly came a cropper at the end of the boardwalk but fortunately did not badly twist her ankle.

It had been a long and arduous day. Tracey was tired too and had discomfort from her knee. Susan had blisters from the previous day’s exertions too so we were all a bit worse for wear. There weren’t too many uphill sections visible on the map showing the next day of 16km – our last. We made it to camp by 2pm, fortunately ahead of the rain. The school group appeared by 3pm.

Fiona and I had a rather exposed campsite up on the cliff edge overlooking the Devil’s Kitchen, an inaccessible bowl valley fronting its own secluded private cove way below. The campsite toilet was the same design as the last two with a spectacular view out over the Devil’s Kitchen. The weather was starting to turn and I retreated to my tent until 5.30. The howling winds early in the storm were particularly strong due to the exposed cliff-top location. There was wind, rain and the sound of raging waves outside.

The two adults of the school group were in the shelter with the students cooking food elsewhere when I emerged. Some students ended up joining us in the shelter. As it was so crowded Wilson heated our dinner for us, which was lovely. Jenny and Tracey (needing gluten free) had rice with their sauce but the rest of us had pasta with the sauce heated by Wilson. He spoke about his time in South America having spent three months in Columbia doing some WOOFing, including work on a recycled building project. We heard some more about the perky volunteer’s doings including sailing projects and there was also an incident with the other guy using a fork to clean his nails and then serving marmalade off it !! Ooo.

Thursday 30 March – Devil’s Kitchen – Twelve Apostles

I woke up properly at 6.50 when the alarm sounded, though I actually woke earlier. Fiona could be heard getting organized. She was very efficient and left for breakfast way before me. I wandered down to make sure everyone was awake. Kathy was already up. It was dark still and raining outside.

I didn’t even look at the spectacular view from the clifftop close to my tent before going down to breakfast nor afterwards. I did savour the view from the toilet though. The Devil’s Kitchen toilet has the best facility view I have ever seen.

We had our last muesli and banana breakfast and tea and coffee plus juice. Heading off by 8.40, we achieved the earliest start we’ve managed so far. It was attractive scenery walking up and down some small slopes but nothing too dramatic.

There were quite a few snake signs and no views of any Apostles until quite soon before we arrived. We heard about the torrential downpour in Brisbane in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie and became aware of the potential for problems for folks travelling south.

We saw several yellow tailed black cockatoos and kangaroos.

After 9km of our 16km day, we reached an inlet where the settlement of Princetown was situated.

After the initial disappointment of the toilet being locked at the Princetown cricket club, we headed to a picnic table at the intersection of the path with the town boardwalk and ate our lunch. There were more vegetable slices for lunch which had turned out to be an excellent option for a walker’s lunch.

Walking along the coastal cliffs after lunch the vegetation was really varied from high dense coastal rosemary’s and casuarinas to areas devoid of plants. These exposed conditions were so tough no plants could survive.

Just before Gibson Steps and the end of our walk and after we’d seen our first Apostle in the distance, an echidna was spotted by Tracey. She heard the animal before spotting it. The location seemed improbable. The ground conditions looked very solid and tough for digging. After days of looking, it was so exciting and rewarding to see the echidna. He curled up into a textbook ball and presumably hoped we would go away. We soon left him in peace.

At the Gibson Steps some crazy folk were down at the bottom in the water with waves crashed over them. It looked very dangerous. Jenny and I just turned away hoping nobody would get swept away and need rescuing.

We proceeded onto the 12 Apostles and visited the highly desirable toilets (with their flushing mechanisms, sweet smelling soap, pressured water taps and hand dryers) before going out to the viewing areas. This was a bit of a confrontation with mass tourism and Asian tourist ‘etiquette’. There were some Asian tourists doing poses for photos (including one particularly outrageous woman pouting, repositioning in the array of model poses etc.) plus a guy climbing over a fence to get a photo!! His worried looking wife held onto his leg. That could end well! It all looked very inadvisable. The Apostles were spectacular and a fitting end to our journey and efforts. The weather was also kind to us greeting us with sunshine on the Apostles.

We were all very pleased to have made it to the end. We met up with Wilson and Fiona was already waiting when we arrived. The return journey to Apollo Bay took an hour. The drive went quickly. Feedback from Wilson about our group was he’d had a good week (a plus), we weren’t too needy !!, he’d thought we’d looked anxious on the first day and he’d never had a group that asked so many questions about poo (scats)!! We sounded like model guests!

Reflections

In my mind, I would commend my fellow walkers on the following

• Jenny – for her good sense in regard to snakes;
• Susan – fortitude for continuing with feet issues;
• Kathy – persistence for hill ascending and the training regime of the preceding months;
• Tracey – for hill descending due to knee problems making this a big challenge plus echidna work and
• I was pleased not to have lost any of Wilson’s maps!