A Dangerous Business

Ok, so we’re doing this…

-Aaron Burr, Hamilton

I’ve barely had time to breathe since getting home from Carnarvon Gorge, and now I’m on the cusp of starting another trail. First things first, where am I going? Well, I’m going [snickers] southward!

…I’ll see myself out…

Ok ok, serious answer: I’m heading down to Victoria for the Great Ocean Walk. I’m sure most of you have heard of the Great Ocean Road around the south-west coast, well that’s also where the trail happens to be. Starting in Apollo Bay, the track heads south through Great Otway National Park to Cape Otway, then turning north and finishing at the Twelve Apostles. It’s roughly 105 km long and I plan on taking 5 days to complete it.

So why this track in particular? Was Carnarvon not enough? My thinking when I planned these trips a few months ago was that I’d need to do a couple multi-dayers to prepare myself and my pack set-up for Te Araroa. In hindsight, Carnarvon was sufficient in helping me with the latter of these, but not so much the former, particularly in the podiatry department.

Regarding my choice to do this track, I had actually planned to do this one before I decided to do the Carnarvon Great Walk. I spent quite a bit of time browsing tracks around Australia that were 1: could be completed comfortably within a week, 2: would be accessible during the winter months (sorry Tasmania), and 3: the trailhead/s could be reached using public transport or some sort of bookabke shuttle. This third criteria eliminated a tonne of tracks right off the bat, which makes sense. Most areas that you find long distance trails are remote and thereby require a car to get to. The Larapinta Trail in the Northern Territory does have a good system of shuttles in place, but the fastest I could conceivably complete it in is 12 days, and that would be pushing it (which I have since learnt is not always a smart thing to do). I did look at doing a 2 day track in Royal National Park in NSW, but it’s partly shut due to rockfalls and there wasn’t a concrete timeline for when it would be open again.

Then I stumbled across the Great Ocean Walk. It’s long (Parks Victoria recommends an 8 day itinerary to complete it, walking between 10 and 15 km per day), but doable within a week. Victoria can get chilly during winter, but as I’ll be on the coast I won’t see snow. Most importantly, because Victoria seems to be the only state investing in regional public transport, both ends can be accessed without needing a car. From Melbourne, I’ll take a V/Line train to Geelong, transferring onto a coach to Apollo Bay. On the way back, I’ll pick up a coach at the Twelve Apostles to take me to Warrnambool, followed by a train back to Melbourne. As an added bonus, from what I’ve seen on other blogs and vlogs, the track is in a pretty decent condition and is well signposted.

So, I need to get to Melbourne, and this time I actually did the smart thing and flew down. I flirted with the idea of taking the train, but that would be monumentally stupid for reasons that I won’t get into right now. But of course, being me, I had to quirkify the journey somehow, which I did through my choice of airline. I didn’t pick Qantas or Virgin Australia or Jetstar. No, I went with Rex. For the longest time, Rex was solely a regional airline (Rex is short for Regional Express), but in the aftermath of the pandemic-that-shall-not-be-named, they made the decision to enter the mainline route market. They snapped up a handful of ex-Virgin Australia jets that were sold when it went into receivership and began offering flights between the eastern capitals. Being the avgeek that I am, I wanted to see what they were like. In short, they’re pretty good. About what I would expect for a short-haul domestic flight.

One SkyBus ride later and I was at Southern Cross station with 3 hours to kill before I could check in. My chosen method to kill said time was to dump my pack in a locker and zoom around the free tram zone. Because trams are cool and the success of the Melbourne tram network shows just how short-sighted Australia’s other major cities were in the late 50’s and 60’s when they dismantled theirs and replaced them all with stinky, stinky buses because they were too carbrained to understand the benefits trams have over them and-

Ahem, sorry about that. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, fast forward a couple hours and I grabbed my pack and hopped onboard yet another tram for Selina St Kilda, a rather bohemian backpackers situated in a bright turquoise building. My 4 bunk shared room was lovely, each bed containing a locker and a privacy curtain which gave it a kind of Japanese capsule hotel vibe. The rest of the amenities could use a bit of work, however. Bathrooms and showers had seemingly been littered randomly around the hostel and they didn’t look very well maintained; I found loose taps in at least 3 of them.

It didn’t really bother me that much. Once I got settled in, I went for a walk down to St Kilda Beach. No swimming for me today, not because I hadn’t packed any swimmers but because it was 12 degrees outside. Lest I forget that Victoria gets a proper winter…

Apart from that, I had a pretty quite evening, turning down for the night listening to the sounds of a beer pong tournament happening at the bar downstairs.

The following day was a lot of errand-running and city-exploring, starting with a jaunt to the local Macpac to pick up a fuel canister for the walk. The issue is, the smallest cans are 3.9 oz of fuel, and based on my usage on Carnarvon, there is no way I’m gonna need all of it. I obviously can’t take it on the plane with me (otherwise I would’ve just brought my big can from home), and you aren’t allowed to throw it in the garbage or recycling unless it’s empty. To my knowledge, there isn’t any option to return partly full canisters either, meaning I’ll likely be stuck with approximately 1-2 oz of fuel and nowhere to put it. My current plan if I can’t palm it off to any fellow hikers is to just let it burn off on my final morning and then recycle the container. I hate that it’s so wasteful, but I don’t think there’s any alternative.

Once I dropped the fuel back at the hostel, I grabbed lunch from Woolies and headed up to Royal Park via a tram and train. The train station is at the northern part of the park near Melbourne Zoo. I followed the path around it’s perimeter until I reached a large clearing of native grassland which felt oddly out of place in the middle of what is now the largest city in Australia.

Not wanting to head back to St Kilda in any sort of hurry, I had a look for a highly rated coffee shop in Melbourne’s CBD. Coffee is half of this city’s personality, after all. I found a place in an alleyway near Melbourne Central, took a tram there, walked to the alley… and entered the wrong shop… not realising it was the wrong shop until I had already ordered and paid a frankly exorbitant amount for a flat white (thanks, weekend surcharges). It was a pretty good flat white though.

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful, just chilling in my bed until dinnertime. Being my last full night in Melbourne, I wanted to go somewhere special. That place turned out to be Belles Hot Chicken, which sells Nashville-style hot chicken. As best as I understand it, the chicken is deep-fried as you would do normally, with the added step of being doused in some of the oil from the fryer after being removed. The end result: a very tasty piece of chicken.

Followed up by a scoop of gelato, it was time to head back to the hostel and begin making preparations for my journey the following day. One of my roommates was already in bed by the time I got home, so I tried to make as little noise a possible – key word being tried. Look, when everything’s kept in plastic bags, it’s pretty hard to pack silently. My thinking was that it’d be more considerate to get as much packing done now than trying to do it all in the morning when I intend on leaving before 8am. Knowing the crowd here, I expect the rest of my roomies will be up late and therefore waking up late the following day. When all was said and done, I was tucked in, curtains drawn around 10pm, feeling a lot more confident compared to how I was feeling the night before Carnarvon. Now I’ve gotta find out whether that confidence is misplaced or not…