Great Ocean Walk - Day 3

Day 3 Cape Otway Lighthouse – Aire River Campsite

Onwards!

Day 3 was one of the shorter days and looked to be fairly straight forward. After making use of the shelter to dry our damp tent and packing our gear we moved off for the next day. 

Hard going along Station Beach

The track makes its way past the cemetery and along the cliff top, before heading down to Station Beach. The path was pretty overgrown and we were careful to make lots of noise along the path to ensure any snakes knew we were coming. From the cliff tops station beach looked pretty nice, but once we were down on the beach it was a different story. The wind down on the beach was howling against us, making it a very long kilometre and a half, with the packs on our backs and the steep incline to the beach, the wind and the soft sand made it feel like 5kms! From station beach we stopped for a short break as it looked like it was going to throw it down, it didn’t, before heading up a short steep cliff, to the top of the Aire River Estuary. 

The path from Station Beach to Aire River was totally over grown, making it very hard going. However the path soon led down to the river side, and to the Aire River Camping ground. On either side of the river are drive in camping grounds, that I can imagine are pretty crazy in the summer holidays, as it is a lovely spot with nearly 80 sites on either side of the river. The walk in site is away from the river at the top of the hill on the West side of the river. The toilets are shared with the Aire River West campground, and are down the hill about 100m from the site. 

Camping in the trees at Aire River

Again the pitches are lovely and sheltered, the shelter is in the trees where you can watch loads of little birds! The GOW path runs straight through the site so you can get going straight away! Again we were the only ones on the site. The noise from the sites at the bottom of the hill, can be heard as clear as day, up at the site.

More pictures can be found on Flickr - Australianminiadventure