Great Ocean Walk - Day 2

Day 2 Blanket Bay – Cape Otway Lighthouse

At the bottom of the steps - Parker Inlet

After an evening watching a group of Venture Scouts try to make dinner on Trangia’s and a surprising good night’s sleep on our ¾ length Ultralight Thermarests. We got on our way at about 8am. The path made it along the beach for about 100m, before heading to a disinfectant station and along the cliff top.  The track led up through rainforest and past the Parker Hill Campground, before heading along the cliff top. The path led from the rainforest down to Parker Inlet, which you cross behind the cliff edge, then you make you way up some really steep steps, which go for ever to the campground. After walking along the tops of the cliffs, you start heading towards the lighthouse.  In the stretch along the watch out for Koala’s we saw the princely sum of zero. We saw lots of birds and 3 little Brown Snakes, but no Koala’s! 

At the top of the steps!

It was along this stretch we met a lovely German couple who were doing a few day walks along the route.

The path then heads alongside the road, through some overgrown bushes for what seems like forever, with vista’s across the headland and out to sea. The campsite is about 600m from the back of the carpark, in a lovely spot. There is no drive in site nearby, and we were the first to get there. The site is like every other with pit toilets, a shelter, 8 individual sites (under trees again) and in a sheltered position, on the side of a small valley. We picked a nice spot in the middle of the site. Again everything was lovely and in the end we were the only ones on the site. We had both sunshine and torrential rain, with storms coming through the site. But by the time we went to bed the rain had stopped and the snails were out! We also saw our 4^th snake of the day by the toilets, a lovely, what looked to be a copperhead, it certainly made us very careful walking around the site and from then on, we always carried a walking pole. 

Although there were no other people on the site, there was a pair of Koalas who were noisily enjoying each other’s company in trees all night long! At one point they were so loud they sounded like they were right outside the tent.

Campsite Shelter

Resident Koala

If you have never heard the sound of a Koala, just imagine the noises you would expect a wild boar to make!

More pictures can be found on Flickr - Australianminiadventure