A Dangerous Business

Date: 13th September 2023

Start: Cape Otway Campsite

End: Johanna Beach Campsite

Distance Travelled: 24 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: It Must Have Been Love by Roxette

Boot Status: a bit moist

Have I mentioned how I suck at getting up on cold mornings? Because I suck at getting up on cold mornings. I was hoping to get away from camp at 8am, the best I could manage was 8:30. Not to matter, regardless of when I set off I would be in for a lengthy day. It’s only 1 km longer than yesterday but there would be a few more hills in the way, albeit with less mud.

No matter, I got going after a short stop at the cemetery for the lightstation keepers and victims of various shipwrecks around here.

Between the cape and the next campsite at Aire River, the track skirts over the cliffs above the ocean. It’s also rather exposed to the sun, the bushes only coming up as high as me. Helps in the lookout department, not so much when it comes to shade. It didn’t matter as much at this point of the day, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be out here later on, or in summer for that matter.

This first stint, although it’s only 10 km, went by surprisingly fast. I’d estimated it’d take me 3 hours to reach Aire River, but I’d shaved half an hour off that. I didn’t feel like I was rushing, in fact I found my pace to be fairly comfortable. As a result, I took a longer break at Aire River than I intended. One of the changes I’ve made since Carnarvon is I’m forcing myself to stop for at least half an hour at the campsite I’m skipping. That way I can eat a proper lunch, refill my water bladder, and most importantly give my feet a break. The blisters I acquired on Carnarvon are healing well, although I’m still needing to cover them whilst I’m walking. To help with that, I’ve been using Hikers Wool, which has been a massive gamechanger, really mitigating the pain around my heels and any other hot spots.

From Aire River, the track rises onto the clifftops and sidles along the coastline basically the entire way to Johanna Beach, making for some pretty sweet views.

This part was pretty exposed, so even though the air temperature was only in the low 20s, having the sun constantly beating down on me was draining. That continued until I reached Castle Cove, which shares a lookout with the Great Ocean Road.

From then until Johanna Beach, there wasn’t a great lot that happened. I just kept following the coast over the hills that cover this part of the walk. Before long, I began descending steeply down to Johanna Beach, which I then had to cross for 2 km.

My strategy that I had concocted on the approach to the beach was to beeline for the wet sand near the water’s edge thinking that it’d be firmer down there. It was not firmer down there. On the contrary, it was softer. With every step, my feet sank lower into the sand. Reluctantly, I headed away from the waves and accepted my fate for the next half hour or so, labouring over each step as I inched closer to the exit point. However, in between me and that point was the Johanna River. It wasn’t very wide, nor wasn’t very deep, but it was deep enough that if I didn’t pick my path across correctly, I would end up with wet boots. I don’t want wet boots.

So, I reached the river, scouted potential crossing locations, and found a route across where as long as I stepped at the right points, my feet would stay dry. It started well, following the shallow sandbanks across the river’s inlet. Then a wave came. Not a big one, but it still flowed a fair ways up the river, so much so that part of it flowed into my boots. Well damn. Plan’s out the window, get out of the river. Yep, my feet are soaked. This is the one flaw with the school of thought of keeping one’s feet dry at all costs. Once they do get wet, they tend to stay wet for a while. Knowing this soured my mood a lot and I still had a kilometre to go until camp. And it was all uphill. What I’m getting at is that I arrived at the campsite in a pretty mad state. It had already been a long day and how I had to frantically figure out a way of getting both my socks and shoes as dry as possible before I put them on again tomorrow. There was one thing that did cheer me up, however: this view.

Now onto the subject of drying articles of clothing when you have very little sunlight left and no dryer. Well, I happen to have one source of heat that might help. What I did was during dinner, I placed my socks around the outside of my stove. Is it a bit risky? Probably, but I wanted to have dry feet. It seemed to work, albeit with localised dry spots where it was closest to the flame.

My friend (whose name I really should get) from last night was also as camp. As we watched the sun set, we talked about our experiences at university, on trail, and just life in general. To me, this is what solo hiking is all about. You may walk by yourself, but you get to talk with other people when you reach your destination. Not like on Carnarvon where you’re just fully isolated from the outside world. Once twilight had farewelled us, we made our way to our respective tents and fell asleep listening to the waves crashing into Johanna Beach below us.