After the weird year now coming to a close, and the trip we'd planned to go walking in Scotland in July not happening, we were in need of some time off again. To where? The state borders are open again but there is no guarantee that they will stay that way. So on looking around Victoria the place we thought we'd go to was the far south-west. So Alison did the tour planning that she is so good at, and found a "supported" walk on parts of the Great South-West Walk, a 250km loop walking track out of Portland.

We've never done a supported walk before, but it seemed like a good idea to me. And it was! We only walked about half the total distance - leaving out the less interesting sections - carrying a day pack only and staying in B&B's every night; almost all our meals provided, including lunches to take with us. All we had to do was walk....

The first two days were walking through National Park along the Glenelg River (which is Victoria's longest navigable river, though not may people know about it). The weather we got here wasn't perfect (quite heavy rain the first day, and showers on and off the second) but nonetheless a very pleasant walk, seeing lots of birds, kangaroos, koalas; and more echidna diggings than I've ever seen before, but we never saw an echidna there.

(A wet walk is much more enjoyable when you know there's a hot shower and a warm bed with a roof over it coming at the end of the day.)

Next day, it was out of the bush and a walk mainly along the long beach of Discovery Bay, with a diversion over two rocky headlands. We had the beach entirely to ourselves, as we'd had the bush entirely to ourselves; it was sunny but not too hot; a perfect day for walking, and the beach was perfect for walking on, with firm non-sticky sand. We saw two large flocks of the endangered hooded plover skittering along the beach, and walked through the largest Aboriginal shell midden I've ever seen.

And then we skipped a section of the track, and spent three days walking along the coastline around Cape Bridgewater and Cape Nelson. Mostly on the top of sea cliffs, but interspersed with more beach walking as well. We saw the "petrified forest" which I've often heard of but never seen; blowholes; Australia's largest mainland seal colony and gannet colony; and glorious views. (Though also, we saw other people here as well. We had been so used to having just everything to ourselves!)

And, it was all mostly in glorious weather as well (though the last day went off a bit.)

It was a great way to spend the week before Christmas, and I have no doubt that we'll be doing things like this again.

Simon's Journal