2014 Trip Note

Pack Carry: 21-23 March 2014 - 12 Apostles Pack Carry

Contributor: Cassandra Pace

Source: "The News", May 2014

Photogallery: 12 Apostles Pack Carry

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This pack carry completed the Great Ocean Walk (GOW) series walk leader Bob Oxlade commenced in 2011 and covered the last 30km of the GOW to the 12 Apostles. This was my first pack carry and I choose it because a) it seemed easier than others on the program b) I hadn’t seen the 12 Apostles. I carpooled with Deb, Fang and Deborah and we were the last to arrive at the Loves Creek Picnic Area, Karwarren about 8pm on Friday. It was freezing, wet and dark and thankfully Philip had the same tent as the one I hired from the club and helped to put it up. We all went to bed early. Not a great start to the trip!

Fortunately the rain had stopped in the morning but it was a slow start to the day due to car shuffle arrangements. We started walking about 10:30am from Ryans Den and had to give up a side trip due to the late start. The terrain was more ‘undulating’ than expected but generally enjoyable with lunch and breaks at lookouts with amazing views. The last 4km of the 16km today was on a rather dull car track and we realised later that we could have by-passed this as a new track had been built recently.

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View of Wreck Beach

We camped the night at Devils Kitchen, which has good facilities including drinkable water, a shelter, and the most incredible view over Wreck Beach from the toilet! The 14 of us and two young Swiss men jostled for space in the shelter to cook dinner. The Swiss guys were walking the whole GOW and their dinner involved a full sized cooking pot and giant stove, half a packet of rice, and half a jar of tomato sauce! Most of us had a BackCountry meal for dinner and tips were swapped about which meals tasted better – the Thai Chicken Curry wasn’t bad. Dessert included a bottle of Rose (thanks Leila) and pretzel M&Ms from the U.S. (thanks Geoff) shared among the group.

Breakfast the next morning was interrupted by a group of local runners, which was quite a surprise! We set off around 9am and started by exploring the beautiful rock pools at Wreck Beach for about an hour. Today’s walk was much better than the day before due to easier terrain, better weather and more coastal views. We had lunch at Gellibrand River and left our packs in the cars and waited while more car shuffling took place. We re-grouped then set off for the last part of the GOW with each passing kilometer providing another fantastic view of the 12 Apostles. The day before we had the track mostly to ourselves but today was much busier, particularly in the last 3-5km. The GOW finishes about 400m before the 12 Apostles Visitor Centre where we met most of the cars. The Visitor Centre was teeming with tourists and we didn’t stay too long – it all seemed a bit overwhelming after the quiet of the last couple of days. We all stopped at Colac to have a pub meal for dinner on the way home, which was a nice way to end the trip.