With the promising glimmer of sun through the clouds, I set off from my parents farm in Nirranda South to scuttle off to the Cheeseworld car park to meet one of my two other hiking buddies. After picking up Lauren Holcombe, we raced to Colac to purchase some supplies and meet the third of our merry trio, Jonathan Graham from the Patanga Rover Crew.
We set off on what was to be a very slow and winding trip through the hills of the Otways to make it to Aireys Inlet to drop off Jono’s ute, and then continue snaking our way along the Great Ocean Road to Jan Juc, where we would leave my ute, and start to hoof our way along the Surf Coast Walk.
I was pleasantly surprised with the weight of my pack and how light it felt – the last time I had used this pack was during my travels in South America at the start of the year. During the month I was overseas, I’m almost 100% certain that the weight of my pack did not fall below 20 kilograms!! This walk was the first time that I had used my hybrid pack for hiking, so I was really eager to test it out!
We set off from the car park at the Jan Juc shops at 11:30am, with the fun and excitement of just under 15 kilometres on the agenda for the day. The entire walk between Jan Juc and Eumeralla Scout Camp was well formed walking track and was well sign posted – a pleasant surprise as track logs from other walkers had led me to believe otherwise.
The walk consisted of clearly defined walking tracks, integrating small sections of road and footpaths, and a stretch of beach between Point Addis and the climb to Eumeralla. We made fairly good time to Point Addis, and it wasn’t until then that the trudging took its toll on us! We were on the home stretch to Eumeralla when we started walking on the beach stretch around 3:00pm. We were quite relieved at the end of the beach stretch that we had just made it through in time to avoid the quickly rising tide!
In anticipation of our arrival at Eumeralla, we took a track several turns too early, and ended up winding amongst some old, derelict huts at the back of the park. After having a bit of an explore, we jumped back on the track and made it to the main entrance to Eumeralla from the Surf Coast Walk – right up the hill out near the Lodge. We stumbled into camp, set up and aired out our very weary feet.
Soon enough it was time to start cooking dinner – spaghetti bolognaise – before the darkness set in. We managed to endure the darkness for a couple of hours, chatting about Rovers and other topics of conversation, before heading out to explore the park a little. The highlight of our exploring was the Nature Trail behind where the stage is normally set up for Surfmoot – I didn’t even know it was there, as the stage normally blocks access to the area!!
Sunday, 10th July 2011 - Eumeralla Scout Camp to Aireys Inlet (14.7km)
Before
Sunday even arrived, we had a deadline! Jono had to be back in Colac by 3:00pm
to make the timeslot for his radio show “Afternoon Delight: the OCR FM Lolly
Show”, and given our weary state after the day of walking, we admitted that we
might need a little extra walking time! The sad note here is that over dinner
Saturday evening, we’d set ourselves the goal to depart Eumeralla around
8:30am. Little tough when the first person to roll out of their tent does so at
8:15am!! Slightly behind schedule from the beginning, we set about having some
breakfast and packing up camp and then heading off – only about 15 minutes
after our planned departure in the end.
The
first part of the walk for the day was continuing along the same grade of track
as yesterday. The track wound down from the cliffs upon which Eumeralla is
perched winding through the back of the caravan park and then along the river
banks through the mangroves towards the road bridge crossing. Once crossing
over the road bridge, the path continues along the river bank before reaching a
Rotary park with a fairly decent playground and a BBQ area. Unbeknownst to us,
this park hid a shortcut from us. The road continued further along, then
doubled back along the hill behind the park – we could have just scrambled up
one of the mountain bike tracks to get through to the road behind!
From
this park onwards, we weren’t 100% certain of the combination of tracks and
roads that we should follow – so we did the Rover thing and just walked! After
a while, I had another look in my pack for my misplaced GPS, and instantly
found it – after several looks the previous day and that morning I couldn’t
find my GPS, but there, in out time of need, it finally showed up. After
trudging our way back to the path that we were supposed to be on, we were
greeted by our second challenge for the day – the big hill (Well, at the time
we thought this was the big hill – more later). We reached the top and had a
slight breather.
Commencing
our tramping, we were overtaken by a four wheel drive with two fathers and
their children who roared past us, splashing us quite rudely. Karma most
certainly would not let this unjust go unnoticed. Over the next rise, we were
met with the image of an almighty downhill immediately followed by a sharp rise
to form a fairly abrupt valley for us to conquer. Our splashing four wheel
driver had managed to bog his vehicle to the diffs in deep, sticky clay ruts on
the downhill; turns out our friends were not at all experienced four wheel
drivers and had gotten themselves into a bit of strife. Having our offer for
help declined, we continued our trudge up the hill, bigger than our previous
“big hill”!
The
remainder of the day was smooth sailing, happily walking along the roads
forming the track to Aireys Inlet. We found Jono’s ute on schedule for him to
shuttle me back to Jan Juc and then head on his way back to Colac for the radio
show.
On
our drive home, Lauren and I managed to reach the broadcast area in time to
hear the final sign off for the show, but Jono assures us that we did rate a
mention in his broadcast!!
Thanks
Lauren and Jono for joining me for a fantastic and challenging weekend – I look
forward to doing this again in the not so distant future!
MENU
|
Saturday
|
Sunday
|
Breakfast
|
Cereal (BYO)
| |
Lunch
|
Sandwiches (BYO)
|
Buy in Aireys Inlet
|
Dinner
|
Spaghetti Bolognaise
|
Saturday
| |
0800
|
Meet Lauren @ Cheeseworld
|
0900
|
Shopping in Colac
|
0930
|
Meet Jonathan in Colac
|
1100
|
Arrive in Aireys Inlet (Car shuffle)
|
1130
|
Arrive Jan Juc Shops
|
1145
|
Depart Jan Juc Shops
|
1630
|
Arrive Eumeralla Scout Camp
|
1700
|
Set up camp
|
1730
|
Prepare dinner
|
1800
|
Eat dinner
|
1900
|
Explore campsite
|
2100
|
Bed
|
Sunday
| |
0830
|
Rise, eat breakfast
|
0845
|
Pack up camp
|
0900
|
Depart Eumeralla
|
1300
|
Arrive Aireys Inlet
|
1315
|
Car shuffle to Jan Juc
|
1400
|
Depart Jan Juc
|
1600
|
Arrive Cheeseworld
|
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