The Great Ocean Walk - Apollo Bay to Elliot Ridge - Day 1

Cameron, Jason, Pete and Ulysses left Melbourne earlyish to meet up with John, John and Ian at Apollo Bay at around midday. After distribution of food, decanting of wines in the wine bladders and a general re-packing of packs we got going at around 1.30pm. Our day was fairly short in that we only had 10km to walk in easy to medium difficulty terrain.

We had planned to leave Melbourne by 9am but instead got away at 10am, driving to Apollo Bay via Geelong and and Colac along the B114.

The walk to Elliot Ridge Camp site was uneventfull. There some really amazing homes/holiday homes perched on the hills sides along the walking trail offering their owners what would have been stunning views across Bass Strait and the surrounding areas. The track itself was very well marked and impossible to miss. There were sign posts along the way that were decision points and were based on what the tide was doing. Some of the track - and this would become a feature of the walk - would cover areas that could become inundated with the tidal flow and ebb.

In typical Dodgey fashion we lost half the party before we even left Apollo Bay - Cam forgot a memory card for his camera and returned back to Apollo bay shops to buy one, taking JB, Ian, Pete and Jas with him leaving JM and I to wonder what the hell had happened.

The walk included some beach walking where the waves looked great if you were a surfer - not looking to be too dumpy with the swell between 1 and 2 meters. The walk off the beach was then into some temperate rain forest  were we eventually reached our camp site at 5.15pm. The camp site was pretty nice and we shared the site with 1 other couple. Dinner was done by 6.30pm and dessert by 9pm. We washed dinner down with some nice red wine - as we did every other night. It was some Zema Estate Cab Sav. We were done and in bed by 9.30pm.