One of the few things I'd planned in advance for Australia was a 5 day trek on the Great Ocean Road "track" that runs from Apollo Bay to the famous Twelve Apostles. This is a 100 kilometer trail that I decided to start at a lighthouse point in order to make it work in less than one week. (However, I could have done it in half that time - the estimates for hiking times were pretty slow).
We had to carry food and drinking water was not guaranteed either (intermittent access to roads), or I would have seriously considered running the whole thing instead. Apparently there's an ultramarathon race every year so maybe someday I will return for it!
I had about 12 close snake encounters on the trail so I was glad to have company. I was accompanied by Swiss buddy Marcel and also hiked and camped with an awesome Canadian-Australian family, an American-Australian couple, a German judge, and hippie Andrew from the US who had been living on oatmeal for days and was probably the most entertaining of the group.
On the way to the trailhead I saw my first koalas! Such cute, lazy animals! Also saw "heaps" of wallabies and kangaroos on the trail, some pretty crazy bugs and spiders, and the Echidna anteater.
The first day was really easy/low mileage so I went running once we had set up camp and then explored the beach and ocean/river mouth. Gorgeous area. Ran right into a wallaby (small kangaroo) and we stared into eachothers eyes for awhile, pretty sure I looked right into this animals soul, it was pretty incredible! Kangaroos and wallabies : some of the few animals that cannot walk backwards.
Always moving forward, never looking back...
Absolutely stunning place, seemingly underutillized too, I guess most people just do the drive which misses so much coastline. Definitely one of the highlights of my Australia adventure thus far - I'll break the photos into days :) It will take me months to look at all 2,000+ photos I took on this trail - so here is a random sampling!
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| day 1: here we go |
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| beware of poisonous snakes |
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| Cape Otway Lighthouse |
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| Aire River beach |
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| Aire river |
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| 'Roo footprints! |
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