Great South West Walk - Day 008 - Tarragal Camp to Trewalla Camp

Day: 008

Date: Tuesday, 13 November 2018

Start: Tarragal Camp

Finish: Trewalla Camp

Daily Kilometres: 28.9

Total GSWW Kilometres: 218.5

Weather: Mild, humid and mostly overcast

Accommodation: Tent

Nutrition:

    Breakfast: Muesli

    Lunch: Trail mix

    Dinner: Rehydrated beef and pasta hotpot

Aches: None really.

Highlight: The walk around Cape Bridgewater, the highest sea cliffs in Victoria was spectacular

Lowlight: I was walking in a swarm of little black flies most of the day, with a couple of kilos (I reckon) of them hitchhiking on my pack.

Pictures: Click here

Map:  Click here for Google Map

Journal:

I slept in a little, but packed up hastily under attack from mosquitoes and was walking by 7:30am. The first hour was through forest and I soon met a brown snake straddling the trail. I couldn’t get it to move, so ended up walking gingerly around its tail. As it turned out it was the last snake for the day, though I’m sure they were about.

From the forest, the trail walked directly across a large stretch of high grazing land in a straight line back to the coast. Rarely for the GSWW, markings were sparse and I had to consult my GPS to confirm I was on the correct trail. When I reached the coast, there was some thick scrub behind the dunes to pass through, and I startled a couple of emus. They are a comic sight running flat out to get away.

After the scrub, the trail climbed high on to the cliffs and there were great views to the west along the sweeping ocean beach. For the next five hours, the trail hugged the cliff edge giving spectacular vistas over the southern ocean, and I spotted a couple of seals wallowing in the surf pounding on the black rocks, and a few container ships passing offshore.

I was now walking around Cape Bridgewater, which is apparently an old volcanic island (by Australian standards, south east Victoria is recently volcanic) which eventually became joined to the mainland by a sand spit. The rocks of the cliffs did look very volcanic and there were various lookout points along the trail giving some great views. A tourist road gave easy access to the area and there were a few tourists around.

Further along, I was on my own again and eventually rounded the Cape and had an excellent view of a seal colony lounging on a rock shelf, or wallowing in the water nearby. From there the trail descended to the tiny holiday town of Cape Bridgewater on its vast white sand beach, and I stopped into the sole cafe there for a welcome milkshake and piece of cheesecake.

From there the trail walked most of the length of the beautiful beach before climbing up to lower cliffs and an hour later the Trewalla Camp where I arrived at 5pm. Once again I had the place to myself, and this time no mosquitoes. I have a 36k day back to my car in Portland tomorrow but my pack will be relatively light (no food) and the scenery good.