May

We booked the Great Ocean Road Long Weekend Walk with the Australian Walking Company for 16, 17 and 18 February 2025. Our very friendly guides Joe and Jodie collected us from the Mercure and our small group of 8 had a very pleasant journey to Blanket Bay, stopping at a delightful cafe with awesome food, along the way.

Day 1 Blanket Bay to Cape Otway - We commenced the walk at Blanket Bay and were delighted to see plenty of wildlife on the trail including several koalas, echidnas and a swamp wallaby with a Joey visible in its pouch. Due to tides we were unable to continue along the beach and took the high road with 350 steps, however this was very preferable to being swept out to sea!! After checking out the Otway Bay Lighthouse and hearing a history talk we were then driven to the amazing Twelve Apostles Lodge where we had an extremely warm welcome from lovely Em who had prepared a beautiful food platter and cracked open champagne for us, followed by soothing foot baths. The Lodge is in a gorgeous setting with its very own nature walk and the rooms were private and extremely luxurious with an enormous ensuite bathroom. The aircon had the room cosy within minutes. We were very impressed with the high standard of food and the ambience in the shared Lodge Living/Dining Room, it was a great place to sit and discuss the day.

Day 2 Moonlight Head to Wreck Beach - after a delicious breakfast we drove to the start of the trail. The walk was incredibly varied, from native bush down through the beach and coastline, where thanks to a low tide we were able to walk along the beach. Beautiful scenery and interesting stories from our guide about shipwrecks in the 19th century. Off the beach we walked up the track to the Devil's Kitchen where we stopped for the healthy, supplied lunches. After lunch another interesting bushwalk back to the vehicle which had been relocated by one of our guides.

Day 3 Princetown to the Twelve Apostles - after another superb breakfast, we drove to Princetown where we commenced the walk to the Twelve Apostles and spent some time at the viewing lookout. We then took a scenic route to Timboon and had a most delicious lunch at Schulz Organic Dairy, followed by a further stop for boutique ice cream and then the drive back to Melbourne.