Great Ocean Walk

Name: Greg Locock
Posted on: 12/10/2011
This is a fairly easy walk, running from Apollo Bay to Cape Otway to the 12 Apostles, in Victoria. Mostly it runs on or above the beaches and cliffs, but there are occasional deviations inland.

There are many campsites along the walk, but there are also dedicated campsites set aside for walkers. These need to be booked. They have tent pads, a cooking shelter, composting toilets, pack tables, and rainwater tanks. No fires. A couple of them have the most spectacular views on the walk. Various companies will taxi you to and from real accomodation with showers etc if you don't want to carry a tent and food.

The start, at Apollo Bay, is a bit dull, but after an hour or so you drop onto the beach, and are faced with the first of many Decision Points, rather ominously presented boards describing the way ahead along the beach. Specifically they are concerned with people being swept off by waves, falling off rocks, being eaten by giant octopii etc. The alternative inland routes are not as much fun as the beach walks, in my opinion. The beach routes are viable in low tides and if there isn't much swell , but the rock platforms that form much of the beaches can be fairly exciting places in big swells, whatever the state of the tide.

For some reason we skipped the Lighthouse campsite, making for a very long day, but I survived. Not recommended. The days are a bit variable, to my mind the second half of the walk is more impressive, but the first half certainly has some very good bits.

Name: Anonymous
Posted on: 12/12/2011

I did this 100 km walk last week. "Amazing", in a word. should be in the top hundred. I've done Petra, Wadi Rum and many of the Peru walks you mention in the top 100. The Great Ocean Walk ranks as good.

See http://www.theage.com.au/tv/show/the-art-of-walking-20110930-1l1gr.html

Name: MsRJ
Posted on: 19/03/2013
I did this walk 3 years ago and it is world class. The views are spectacular, each hill, cliff top, beach providing jaw dropping scenery. The 12 Apostles at the end are amazing. It's not a hard walk by any account. Approximately 100km over 5 days, we walked east to west and found day 4 the most challenging. We decided on the B&B option for overnight accommodation, also we hired a local company to provide daily pickup and drop offs. It is very easy to organise with a little Internet research. As noticed that the camping grounds were quite nice along the way.