Deb and I have had a brilliant time doing the Great Ocean Walk over autumn and winter, in between Melbourne lockdowns – which is quite an achievement in itself as we now carry the dubious title of ‘Longest Locked Down City in the World’ and still going strong. We’ve been pining for some open vistas and dirt tracks, but at least have had the actual writing and editing of the book to keep us entertained. We’re both pretty excited with the final product and hope that you are also. It’s the first ever independent guidebook to this iconic 100km walk along Victoria’s wild southern coastline.
The guidebook is available now in bookstores and directly via our publishers, Sydney-based Woodslane Press website – if you use this link and enter JULIEM15 at check out, you will receive a 15% discount on this and any of my guidebooks.
It’s lightweight enough to carry in your pack, but with enough pictures and information to help inspire and plan your adventure to come. It provides a number of options for different ways of tackling the Walk – as a series of day walks, or a through-walk, camping or staying in accommodation, and with options for a variety of distances, from 4 to 9 days. We have also included information about local history, including the many shipwrecks, environment, geology, wildlife, flowers and fungi to be found along the way. the maps are clear and easy to follow, and there are also histograms, showing the altitude gain and loss each day. There is lots of information about planning the walk, what to pack, how to get there, and contact details for accommodation, transportation and guided options. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed walking it! Let us know what you think 🙂
OK, I have to admit to NOT being a fair weather bushwalker: my main disincentive there is getting up close and personal with Australia’s delightful and numerous collection of venomous snakes, but I also don’t like walking in the heat – as those who walked in the high 30’s with me on the day before the Kangaroo Island bushfires in December 2019 can attest (!!). But with the right kit, and plenty of layers, autumn and winter walking is my thang! Except for wind. High wind and tall trees are not a great mix in the bush as you can see on our recent winter walking along the Great Ocean Walk after a night of hail and high winds…
Apart from that fairly major consideration, cold mornings and wet conditions make for wonderful conditions for …. leeches (yes, yuk!) …. and also the most amazing funghi along the way, here’s a few from the last couple of stretches walking between Ryan’s Den and Wreck Beach, along the Otway Coast. I have no idea what most of them are, though am currently researching them, so I work on the assumption they are all poisonous (tragically, we’ve had a number of deaths in Victoria in the last decade from people misidentifying and eating mushrooms) and just admire them from a distance. They are always unexpected and quite magical, and a real treat of winter walking.
After all the fantastic funghi, Deb and I have now completed our walking research (the fun part!) for the Great Ocean Walk Guidebook now, though we’re following up on a fascinating lost shipwreck memorial with historian, Alan Maclean, as we pull together the book itself ready to send to our editors. From there it’s a good few months to go through editing, design, cartography before it gets to printing, so we’re aiming for a November release for this one. We’ve loved doing the Great Ocean Walk – it’s wild, woolly, wonderful …. and wet! Hope you’ll enjoy it too when it gets to the shelves.
Through the misty stringy bark forests of Day 2 of the Great Ocean Walk in March 2021
Finally! Deb and I are back out on the track and the Great Ocean Walk Guidebook is underway. It’s been a long time between multi-day walks and it makes us both very-very-very happy to be out there, rain, sun, basking snakes (!) and wind notwithstanding. It was great to bump into other walkers doing the whole route in one go, and others stringing together days here and there – it’s such a versatile track in this respect, and just stunning whichever way it is done.
Both the Great Ocean Walk Guidebook and the Grampians Peaks Trail Guidebook will be different to our usual collection of day walks in our previous books, covering: the range of walking options/alternatives (including different daily distance options), accommodation, transport options, camping etc.
We are also planning to include more information than usual on history, geology, local facts and figures, flora and fauna. We are keen to make them as useful and interesting as possible, though with a mind to keeping the weight down as well – most important! Is there anything in particular you’d to see in your multi-day walk guides? We see it as supplementing the existing excellent detailed GOW map, but it will of course include sectional map and topographic profiles (just so you can anticipate that next big hill!!) for each day.
Is there anything else you’d like to see included as we finalise the write-up for the Great Ocean Walk Guidebook and embark on the Grampians Peaks Trail Guidebook? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or by answering our poll. Thanks so much!
Day 2 of the KI Wilderness Walk – our second last day as it turned out….
Well, this year hasn’t exactly gone to plan, has it? In April, I was to have set off on a long-held plan: a 1000km walk in Italy along the Via Francigena – meeting friends along the way for a few weeks at a time. My start date came, and my finish date went, and here I was, sat in Melbourne. In December, along with another little posse of friends, we had to abandon our Kangaroo Island Wilderness Walk midway, evacuating safely as the KI bushfires broke out and devastated that beautiful island and its extraordinary wildlife. And this week I was due to be walking with my trusty co-author Deb, in the Grampians, starting work on our Grampians Peaks Trail guidebook, but not so now, as we hunker down in Melbourne, trying to get on top of the COVID-19 second wave. So my planned big year walking sabbatical is not quite, yet instead I am blessed to have my health and time to wonder (instead of wander) and plan some more. I have a fridge magnet that says: ‘After all, daydreaming is a form of planning‘, so that will have to be my 2020 mantra! And yes, it would be a fair thing to suggest, perhaps a good idea not to book your walking trips with me if you actually want to get there!! 🙂
Conversely – and delightfully – however, the localisation of the lockdowns has caused a massive increase in Australian-based hiking and walking, as people’s wings are clipped and new-to-bushwalking people discover the delights of our incredibly diverse Aussie urban and bush walks. Which means that while I am somewhat homebound (And yes, making sourdough like the rest of Australia!), planning is afoot and I have just started working on the background research for both the Grampians Peaks Trail (now due mid 2021, as the work on the track is delayed a little) and a new Guide for the Great Ocean Walk (due Spring 2021), which will be published with Australian Geographic and Woodslane Press. Yay!
View across Shelley beach from Three Creeks Section of Great Ocean Walk
It’s been a few years since I walked the Great Ocean Walk and it has been realigned somewhat since then, so I can’t wait to get back to it, as soon as we can. In the meantime, I’ll be researching a slightly new format for these multi-day through-walks, with more details on local history, fauna and flora notes, along with the walk notes themselves. Let me know what you’d particularly like to see in them: would love to hear from you!
Deb, Andrew and Gus observing social distance at Tower Hill in the Grampians.
So, life is changing daily at the moment, with new restrictions on movement being announced daily to cope with COVID-19. My planned 1000km walk adventure on the via Francigena in Italy, leaving on 6th April, has been shelves, while my heart cries for Italy, and for the rest of the world. It seems to me though that getting out into the bush solo or in small groups (keeping at least a walking pole apart!), might very well be good for our mental health and wellbeing, and stop us from being overwhelmed. So that’s my plan, and I can hear the bush calling. The bonus is Deb and I have another book to research and walk: the Grampians Peaks Trail, so you know where I will be as soon as the wrigglers have disappeared back under the rocks at the end of autumn. In the meantime, closer tracts of fresh air and bush await. The You Yangs are a favourite go to for great views from the East West Track, and I love the RJ Hamer Aboretum in the Dandenongs. But there are lots of less-frequented places everywhere: Lerdederg State Park is a favourite, and on the weekend I stopped by Nigretta Falls in SW Victoria, which was absolutely deserted and picture perfect.
So many beautiful places close to home to renew our sense of wellbeing and normalcy. Where are you heading to clear the head? Please take care of yourselves and those around you I these messy times, but do take time to breathe and know that ‘this too shall pass’. xxx
OK, so Deb and I are not at all excited that our newest guidebook arrived in the post today. OK, I’m a lier. I am VERY excited – my 6th book in and it still feels like getting a new puppy every time the real book arrives in my hot little hands. This one may well have been my favourite one to walk/research – it gave me an excuse to get out from behind the desk and into the beautiful bush of the Gariwerd-Grampians, which are just simply world class walking, and to do so with my great friend, Deb Heyes. We even had hiking legend Greg from @hikingfiasco come for a day out, sore knees and all. How good is that? This one is just under $1 a walk, I guess – 28 walks for $24.99 and will be available in all good bookshops (online and in-store) and lots of outlets in and around the Grampians themselves, like Outdoor Adventures in Halls Gap. Could there be a better Christmas stocking filler??? Inspiring photos, great maps and clear waypoints, and this time co-badged with Australian Geographic: all you need to bring is your legs and lungs!
It’s the first new guidebook for very many years in the Grampians, and includes many realigned walks ranging from 1-12km and easy to tough, with some multi-day walks for the more adventurous as well. Here’s the hit-list, from North to South.
Mura Mura / Mt Zero
Guingalg / Mt Stapylton
Wudjub Guyan / Hollow Mountain
Gulgurn / Manja Shelter
Beehive Falls / Briggs Bluff
Wonderland Loop (of course – so spectacular!)
Grand Canyon, Silent Street and the Pinnacle
Venus Baths
Bim / Chatauqua Peak & Clematis Falls
The Balconies & Reed Lookout
MacKenzie Falls to Zumsteins
Barri Yalug / Fyans Creek Loop
Boronia Peak
Mt Rosea Loop (perhaps one of the best circuit day walks ever)
Tower Hill (the last walk we did for the book, and a cracker)
Silverband Falls
Sundial Loop (Greg’s guest entry)
Paddy Castle
Mt Wurgarri / Mt Sturgeon
Bainggug / The Picanniny)
Mt Murdadjoog / Mt Abrupt
Larni bunja / The Chimney Pots
Bilimina Shelter
Duwil / Mt William
Mafeking Historic Walk
Grampians Peak Trail – Central Circuit (3 days)
Major Mitchell Plateau (3 days)
Victoria Range Circuit (3 days)
We’re going to be doing a companion guide for the new Grampians Peaks Trail when it opens next year too. Any excuse to keep walking there! Let us know what you think as you walk the ones in this book – we’d love to hear back from you.
My goodness, it’s been a very long time between blog posts – mostly because my co-conspirator Deb (that’s her above walking south from Mt Rosea) and I have been busy researching, walking, writing and now editing our next guidebook, Best Walks of the Gariwed – Grampians National Park, which will hit the shelves in December 2019. If you haven’t had the chance to walk in the Grampians, just 3 hours west of Melbourne, or even if you have and want another reason to fall in love with it all over again, get yourself west with your boots and backpack. What a place – it offers everything: rugged sandstone ranges, whacky rock formations, ridge-walking, heart-stopping scrambling, waterfalls, lakes and gentle creekside ambles, spectacular wildflowers, serenity, and more wildlife than you have ever seen in one place. There’s controversy at the moment too of course, as long time users of the National Park navigate their way through changes to its use. There is also a lot of track realignment going on at the moment, as work to complete the long distance Grampians Peaks Trail continues. None of this detracts from the walking experience, and winter/spring is a brilliant time to get up there, before the crowds and heat arrive in summer.
Well, perhaps explaining my absence here somewhat, I am very happy to announce the publication of my latest walking guidebook: Melbourne’s Best River, Bay and Lakeside Walks (Woodslane Press, 2018), which I have walked and written in conjunction with my favourite walking companion, Deb Heyes (for those of you who have had my previous guidebooks, she has very often been my patient photographic model – now turned author herself!), which has been a great deal of fun.
Walk 16: Solomon’s Ford Walk
The new book is the first of a new 2-volume set for Melbourne – the original Melbourne’s Best Walks, has now sold some 10,000 copies, and we have decided to split it into 2 new books – one with a focus on water (this one) and the other on the bush, parklands and city (coming later this year). We have re-walked the original walks from the first book, and added 40 new ones. There are some real gems in the Water book – as always, Melbourne never ceases to surprise me with all sorts of hidden nooks and crannies. I hope you enjoy discovering them too!
You will find the book (hard copy and e-book) available in all good local bookstores and online at places like Dymocks online or Angus and Robertson as well. Let me know what you think when you get on the trail? And since we are only about half way through the second one, let me know in the comments section if you have any ideas for fabulous walks you would like to see included.
After the two Melbourne ones, we are heading further afield for the Grampians – watch this space for up dates!
OK. So it is mad that it has taken me over a year to write up my 3 weeks of wandering in Patagonia, but as I am shortly to set off on this year’s big wander – the West Highland Way – I thought I ought to finally sign off with my final instalment – finally! If you’ve read my earlier posts, you will realise that we are slowly heading south. In fact, so south that you can’t go any further unless you go on a boat. And I don’t mean Ushuaia – fabulous frontier town – and Argentina’s self-titled Fin del Monde (End of the World). Which, by the way, is definitely worth a visit. Unless you are British. Because the Marianas are still a sticking point, as per this sign on the Naval Docks:
‘No entry to British pirates’ (roughly translated!)
That aside – Ushuaia, at the very tip of Argentina, is the main port of call for all those Antarctic cruise ships heading south for iceberg adventures, and it definitely has the feel of a pioneer town – the Government attracts people to live here with massive tax breaks to compensate for its isolation. You can easily spend a few days here, though it is pretty expensive, wandering the shops, and up and down the hills (great for the walking legs and lungs!). A hire car will take you out and about to the national parks, lakes, the penguin island (in part 3), and the End of the World narrow gauge tourist train (which travels at less than walking pace, so it’s a good place to take in the National Park it travels through and zen out, but not a good place if you are in a hurry). My tip: try to avoid the first couple of trains of the day when in season, as you will be competing for your narrow gauge seat with the bussed out cruise ship folk on day trips.
We were soon headed for our main goal – a cross-border zodiac crossing of the Beagle Channel (weather dependent) to make landfall on Chile’s Isle de Navarino – the southernmost-inhabited chunk of land in the world, unless you are aiming for an Antarctic base station: and the focus of much argy-bargy between the Argentinians and the Chileans – the good pope had to intervene at one stage to calm things down a little. Once we got through an unenthusiastic passport control at the port, the zodiac was a hoot – full up with a hoary sea-captain and 9 random travellers & hikers (including a couple of intrepid cyclists), and even though the weather was clear and still, the waves were impressive. Arriving on the island itself was surreal and beautiful – we were handed off and wandered over a dodgy gang plank to the only buildings we could see, and all hung about somewhat awkwardly amongst the cow pats, waiting for something to happen. After almost an hour, a minibus came roaring up the dirt road, and out jumped Mr Customs, who proceeded to check our backpacks most diligently, then pile us (and the bikes) into the minivan for a 40 minute drive to the tiny naval township of Puerto Williams. Another stop where we all handed over our passports and watched them disappear into a nondescript building, only to emerge faithfully another 30 minutes later, and we had officially arrived in Chile.
We loved Puerto Williams and the Isle with a passion – it really is a tiny, quirky frontier place with an absulutely fascinating indigenous history, and a fantastic museum. The most southerly trek in the world is also here – the Dientes del (teeth of) Navarino – a week long, rugged, self supporting circuit, of which we did part – climbing up to the top of the mountain about the port, to see the cheekily wagging flag aimed pointedly across the Channel towards Argentina. There are very few people here, and very few facilities beyond the – you guessed it – most southerly yacht club in the world, which services the ocean going yachts about to head around the Cape of Good Horn – you can buy a ride on one or sometimes even pick up some work if you have good sea legs and some serious skills (and a very sturdy stomach!). Staying here was a total treat because we got to stay as the first customers at the magnificent Errante Eco-Lodge, quietly sitting in the landscape a few miles from town, looking across teh Beagle Channel, built by two passionate and incredible young Chileans, Constanze and Jorge, who make you never want to leave – or determined to come back. What a way to end a trip. x
The view from the Eco Lodge – north to Argentina. Not hard to wake up to….
Puerto Williams Yacht Club – officially the most southerly in the world
Some creative woodworking along the trail up the hill – using the fallen trees where they lay to make bridges!
No, I wasn’t drunk – the trees just get blown out of shape!
Looking back down to Puerto Williams and across the Beagle Channel
The Chilean navy replace the flag once a year – it’s big and it shouts, ‘we’re here!’
More freely wandering horses than people in Puerto Willaims
Looking NORTH, towards the end of the world – Argentina’s ‘Fin del Mundo’, from ‘Beyond the End of the World’ – Isle de Navarino, Chile – it’s a sore point!
So here’s a quick and cheeky little post to cheer your day – our next stop on the Patagonian Express was at Ushuaia, at the very bottom of Argentina – its Tierra del Fuego (‘the End of the Earth’). Despite its claims to be the southernmost town on earth, my next post will fill you in on the Chile-Argentina argy-bargy over that claim to fame. But in the meantime, Ushuaia was a great stop-off for us to find our inner Attenborough and get up close and personal with some – well, a lot of – penguins.
This was the one paid day tour we did on the trip and it was worth every single penny. the island is part of a private ranch, Estancia Harberton, a research station where they collect and study washed up marine skeletons (think whales and dolphin skeletons which apparently all end up circling the currents around this bottom end of the world like some big bone graveyard, and end up washed up on the ranch’s beaches!). Two small groups of tourists are allowed to visit the penguin colony each day, via a zodiac boat. then you get to just hang out with the thousands of Magellanic, a few rare gentoo and even a pair of emperor penguins, all of whom just ignore you and do their own thing. What an experience.
OK, beyond cute, seriously.
When your kids are bigger than you are, time to help them leave the nest – literally?
This gentoo penguin (the orange beaked sleepy one) clearly feels like I do after a long day’s walk
Oh – and PS, we visited some champion dog-sledding huskies before leaving Ushuaia as well. That was about my full dose of cuteness for the whole year.
OK, so Deb and I are not at all excited that our newest guidebook arrived in the post today. OK, I’m a lier. I am VERY excited – my 6th book in and it still feels like getting a new puppy every time the real book arrives in my hot little hands. This one may well have been my favourite one to walk/research – it gave me an excuse to get out from behind the desk and into the beautiful bush of the Gariwerd-Grampians, which are just simply world class walking, and to do so with my great friend, Deb Heyes. We even had hiking legend Greg from @hikingfiasco come for a day out, sore knees and all. How good is that? This one is just under $1 a walk, I guess – 28 walks for $24.99 and will be available in all good bookshops (online and in-store) and lots of outlets in and around the Grampians themselves, like Outdoor Adventures in Halls Gap. Could there be a better Christmas stocking filler??? Inspiring photos, great maps and clear waypoints, and this time co-badged with Australian Geographic: all you need to bring is your legs and lungs!
My goodness, it’s been a very long time between blog posts – mostly because my co-conspirator Deb (that’s her above walking south from Mt Rosea) and I have been busy researching, walking, writing and now editing our next guidebook, Best Walks of the Gariwed – Grampians National Park, which will hit the shelves in December 2019. If you haven’t had the chance to walk in the Grampians, just 3 hours west of Melbourne, or even if you have and want another reason to fall in love with it all over again, get yourself west with your boots and backpack. What a place – it offers everything: rugged sandstone ranges, whacky rock formations, ridge-walking, heart-stopping scrambling, waterfalls, lakes and gentle creekside ambles, spectacular wildflowers, serenity, and more wildlife than you have ever seen in one place. There’s controversy at the moment too of course, as long time users of the National Park navigate their way through changes to its use. There is also a lot of track realignment going on at the moment, as work to complete the long distance Grampians Peaks Trail continues. None of this detracts from the walking experience, and winter/spring is a brilliant time to get up there, before the crowds and heat arrive in summer.
Melbourne Walks 