On the way out to Cape Otway to hide a food stash near the GOW campsite, we had a close encounter with that other icon of the Otways - the koala. One of them, with a sense of dramatic flair, decided to wander casually across the road, stopping traffic, before climbing up a tree and posing for the assembled mass of humans beneath!

... for all the silly humans that I stopped

View westward toward Cape Otway

We were now close to our destination and one last steep and steady climb took us up the ridgeline, away from the coast and into the tall trees of the drier forest vegetation. Finally a flatter area to our left signalled our arrival at the Elliott Ridge Campsite - a chance to investigate the Great Ocean Walk campsite design for the first time.

Basically, there is a group area and further on eight individual tent sites scattered in the bush on nicely levelled clay pads. A wooden platform is shared by every two sites, plus there a composting toilet and well-designed 3-sided shelter with table and benches. We were suitably impressed with the facilities and pitched tent, got out the stove and soon had a nice hot coffee brewing. Tonight we had the site to ourselves. The wind was cool, but with the sun shining through the perspex windows of the shelter, life in the Otways bush was comfortable.

Eventually, this track met the Parker Spur Road and we started a gradual descent, turning off onto the narrower and less used Johnson Track and then on to the even less used Blanket Bay Track, all beneath the canopy of the tall Otways forest. Soon we found ourselves passing through an area of tea-tree thickets and into a zone of lower, more gnarly eucalypts with an understorey of flowering wattle. These areas provided rich displays of the diverse flora.

Another junction found us following the Telegraph Track, a single foot track that sloped gently towards the coast through open eucalypt forest - more koala country, with green pellets of koala scat on the path indicating where they had spent the night. One was still grumbling high in a tree above. Finally, we started to hear the sound of the surf and zig-zagged our way steeply down to Blanket Bay, a good spot for some lunch and a rest after almost four hours of walking.

After a quick stop at the boot-brushing station to clean any phytophthora spores from our boots (this tree-killing fungus is the bane of the bush), we headed on. The well-formed earth path led us around the headland to the west of Blanket Bay, through thick coastal heath, before starting a steady climb that took us on a meandering course around the back of a series of small creeks originating in these coastal hills. It was an area of gnarly coastal eucalypts, growing in a carpet of bracken, lomandra and, later, low grass-trees.

There was a low-tide route around the rocks, but the seas were up and the ocean swells were large; our tidal free pass to the rock platforms had expired. On reaching the top of the steps, we gradually lost most of the height gained as the track dropped slowly through dense heath to reach Point Franklin.

On reaching the top of the steps, we gradually lost most of the height gained as the track dropped slowly through dense heath to reach Point Franklin. Here we had our first glimpse of Cape Otway Lighthouse in the distance. Out to sea, the giant container ships droned slowly by on the horizon passing the cape - how different to the passage of the 19th century wooden- or iron-hulled clipper ships, flying full-sailed with the winds of the roaring forties at their back. Still, many of those boats ended up wrecked on the rocky shoals of this unforgiving coastline - we live in safer but duller times.

From Point Frankin, we followed a gravel track northward away from the coast. We were on the edge of the National Park and need to skirt private land before resuming a westward course again. At least there was an explanation for the sudden appearance of hordes of bushflies - cattle contentedly grazing in the green pastures! A now sandy track led us back out onto the Cape Otway road. We crossed the road soon after and then parallelled it along a foot track through tea-trees and low wind-squat manna gums, a favourite of the local koala population. On our way, we spotted four more of these iconic, if somewhat dozy, animals sitting in the trees only a few metres above us.

On reaching the lighthouse, we stopped for a drink, comtemplated the entry fee to the precinct and the dull ache in our feet, and opted to head off the final 600m through the dunes to our campsite in a protected hollow. A close inspection of the historic light house could wait another day.

Unlike at Elliott Ridge, we had company tonight, a young German couple visiting Australia, Philipp and Veronika, with whom we passed a pleasant evening chatting. So much so that we were late to bed - there was barely enough time to wander back up the track and look down over the floodlit lighthouse in the distance before the the clouds obscured the moon and the drizzle started.

We pushed on a little further through the rolling dunes, before descending a wooden boardwalk to the steeply sloping soft sand of Station Beach. We headed westward, passing a small rocky outcrop, to trudge along the soft sand, the wild seas thundering in to our left, the air charged with negative ions, passing the flotsam and jetsam of passing boats; barnacle-covered fishing floats and rope and the sadly inevitable bits of plastic. There is something magic about such isolated stretches of beach, even when you are hunkered down behind a boulder as another squall blows through.

The debris of the ocean on Station Beach


Rain squall approaching from the west

The sun shone brightly but briefly as we left the beach to climb steeply back up to the dune tops and wind our way around the dune heath to eventually reach a point overlooking the mouth of the Aire River, its tannin-stained waters held back by a wide sandbar. To the north, lay Lake Craven and the distant wetlands of the Aire system.

The sandy track now led us northward, through a dense arbor of overhanging shrubs, which provided some shelter from the next squall, before slowly winding down the dunes to the old wooden bridge over the Aire River. On the far side, the track was now a wetland home to a family of croaking frogs - we detoured around and climbed the short steep hill to the GOW campsite, where the shelter provided a good spot for lunch on a day of passing rain squalls.

For 4 km, we wandered up and down the sandy and obscured dune track till finally it dropped down toward the beach to pass under an impressively jagged cliffline.

The long walk in the heath suddenly became worthwhile as a coastal panorama opened up in both directions; eastward back along the rugged shoreline to Cape Otway and westward toward the salt-misted cliffs of Castle Cove, Dinasaur Cove and beyond. The last 2 km of this section were spectacular; the southern coastline never seen in a vehicle.

Eventually, we slowly climbed back up as we wound our way round the steep slope east of Castle Cove to Glenaire. The track now headed westward, but we turned north for another kilometre along the grassy verge of the Great Ocean Road as it climbed steeply into the hills.

Our destination was the Glenaire Cottages and the long tiring climb was worth it when we arrived; a large soft bed, fireplace, food and wine that we had left and a spa on the verandah overlooking the ocean and the lakes of the Aire River wetlands - very, very nice.