Deb & Jen

Thanks Mark & Team on the Great Ocean Walk

Our walk was terrific as was accommodation, meals and shuttle drivers…

We heard about Walk 91 on the internet via google search and in Vic Tourism Great Ocean Walk brochure.  Thanks very much for putting together our 5 day self-guided Great Ocean Walk itinerary. It was great.

Walk 91 organisation was excellent & we could not fault, including supplying walking poles and EPIRB. Everything went to plan and the accommodation was perfect. What a treat to arrive at these lovely places after a hard days walking.

We thought the itinerary was very well laid out and planned and appreciated the attention to detail for each day in regards to the grading of the walk, distance, drop off and collection points, accommodation for each night and catering. The Great Ocean Walk pre-walk briefing covered all necessary details & we really appreciated use of walking poles and not having to bring ours on airplane. The extra benefit of the emergency location beacon personal Locator Beacons (PLB) / EPIRBs was beneficial even though not needed as sections of the walk are very isolated.

We appreciated the flexibility of the shuttle pick-up drivers as we opted to start earlier due to warm weather. Additional benefit was more birds and wallabies on the track for first few hours. We would recommend is that the pickups  be at 8am rather than 8.30am and likewise 7.30am instead of 8 am during daylight saving months especially.

We found the walking notes and map a great reference each day on the walk.  These were very well used each day. We found the meeting spots easily using the walking notes and especially the Parks Victoria map and Mark’s pre-walk talk.

The accommodation providers made us very welcome and we enjoyed the packed lunches, and both places were very considerate of vegetarian requirements.  We opted not to camp and did a B&B package.  It was excellent – with very good accommodation and food (vegetarian) and lunch packs.

While there was not distance markers we could gauge how we were tracking in relation to making the pickup times. And map was easy to read and navigate with. Also having mobile coverage was great assistance just to text location.

The Great Ocean Walk was wonderful and has left a big impression on us – especially on reflection back at home. The walk was great – challenging in parts, especially day 4, graded hard in the notes at 16km with all the steep uphill and downhill did seem endless around midday but it was an unexpectedly hotter day. We were always rewarded with fantastic views of the landscape and ocean.

The walk was a very varied each day in vegetation, landscapes and views. Each day was unique and contrasted.

The track is very well defined and has some great rest & lookout areas. There appears to be a lot of regular maintenance of the track.

The scenery, vegetation and wildlife we encountered were stunning and the route is easy to follow being very well marked and maintained.

tips for future walkers are:

For December the weather was very kind but we would recommend take more than 2 litres of water if doing 5 day itinerary. (Suggest 2.5 or 3 litres)  We only saw one school group for about an hour on one of our days otherwise no one for the 5 days so there is a real sense of solitude.

Remind people to pack compression bandage i.e. Setopress and whistle. Obvious items but I did not pack!!!