Great Ocean Run

2 gals, 3 days, 105km and 12-14L packs… Can weekend shenanigans get any crazier?

We arrived in Apollo Bay on Friday full of excitement and a little trepidation (will we make it?). Saturday morning saw us starting out in spitting rain and I couldn’t blame my mate who dropped us off (thanks!) for thinking we were crazy.

Apollo Bay: The start of the Great Ocean Walk

We celebrated the first and second kms. Just over 100 to go!

The drizzle abated soon after and by the afternoon we had sunshine.

The forest section was stunning, and although we failed at spotting them, we ran to the sounds of koalas (grunt snore grunt!).

We made super time and pulled into Cape Otway approximately 35 km later, absolutely drooling over all the things we planned to eat (we’d studied the Cape Otway Cafe menu before leaving home).

Alas the cafe was fortified (!) and would costs $20pp to enter the tourist trap that encircled it. My stomach rumbled as it realised there would be no hot chips, quiche or scones with jam & cream :( Bugger, that was our (early) dinner plan…

Always with a Plan B, we knew we’d find *something* to eat at the Bimbi Park Caravan Park kiosk. With shopping basket in hand, we polished off a drink whilst trying to decide how best we could feed ourselves from a wall of chocolate and a random assortment of other stuff. (Minstrone soup, with chilli-flavoured tuna and rice anyone?)

Post-dinner, with ice cream in hand, we finally earned our koala-spotting badge.

The next day I got out of bed rather tentatively, unsure how my legs would feel having never run so far before. They were fine :)

The dilemma of breakfast (should we buy the giant bag of muesli and litre of milk?) was solved by adding salted caramel GU to one of those Pancake mixes !

We enjoyed the increase in coastal sections of the track and the constant changes in vegetation, as compared with day one.

We closed the day by taking off our shoes and having a nice long walk through the water along Johanna Beach.

Here a highlight of some of the wildlife we saw on the trail.

And we were two very excited ladies to be picked up from the track by our AirBnB hosts to have a little farm stay and a *delicious* roast dinner.

What a view to wake up to – Yuulong, Australia

Day 3 was our toughest day of this *Great Ocean Run Run Walk Run Walk Walk Run Run*.

We had 40kms to cover, our legs were sore and it was hard to get into a rhythm with the track going steeply down then up then down then up… Not to mention we were trying to hit Wreck Beach before the tide came in and Apostle Bay in time to make our evening flight from Melbourne. It was time to dig deep and prove we had some mental fitness in us!