Great Ocean Walk - Day 1

Day 1, Marengo to Blanket Bay

Looking Back at Apollo Bay

We set off early, not knowing what our pace would be, or the terrain or anything really so thought we would get off early on what was to be our longest day. Starting at Marengo, meant we started right on the beach. (We stayed at the Marengo Motel, a perfect starting point.) The path actually seems to go along the fields next to the beach, but we pretty much walked along the beach all the way to Shelly Beach, except for three creeks beach where we walked across the undulating hills. The shore line was lovely, with empty beaches and rocky scrambles. It was low tide so we had no problems getting over the rocks, some of which were quite difficult. One of the scrambles required us to take off our packs, but I forgot about my camera bag on the waist belt, and it dropped onto the rocks, about 1.5m, fortunately all was ok, including the filters! But I started to hook the draw cord in my chest strap from then on! 

A taste of things to come!

We had Lunch at Shelly Bay, by this point we were past anywhere that was tidal, so we knew we were safe to stop. The climb out of Shelly Beach is long and steep, to Elliot Ridge Campsite, it was a bit of a shock to the system after walking along the beaches. After Elliot Ridge the track heads off into the forest, along 4X4 tracks, undulating and going on for what seemed like forever. The track through the Eucalypt forest was muddy and rocky. Finally we started to hear the sound of the waves, but even then the track turned away from the campsite as it went down the hill towards the beach, to finally turn in the right direction. The track leads across the beach and across a small creek to the campsite.

Blanket Bay - The Campsite is just behind the trees to the left, the path leads down the hill directly in front.

Andy putting up the tent at Blanket Bay

Blanket Beach walk in site is right next to the drive in campsite and right on the beach. The site has 8 pitches, a group site, a rainwater tank and a shelter. The toilets were at the drive in Site, about 150m away. It was a Saturday night so the drive in site was busy, there was a group of Venture Scouts and one other couple at the walk in site. 

Blanket Bay was our first experience of a great ocean walk campsite and to be honest they are pretty decent. They are well laid out, each site is well spaced, small but generally flat, usually covered by trees, so pretty sheltered and some had a nice wide bench for laying your stuff out on. As someone that has always been told to never camp under trees it took some getting used to, as trees are a general theme of the GOW sites, with many shoehorned onto remote sites. 

 I am glad we missed Elliot Ridge, as it would have made day 2 pretty boring and added another day to our trip. It was also good to get the longest day out the way when we had the energy!

More pictures can be found on Flickr - Australianminiadventure