On the last morning
we were both spent after having had a terrible sleep and being pretty stiff and
sore. When we woke up it was raining a
bit, so we just decided to pack up early, have some breakfast, and get on our
way. We were hiking by 8am because we
wanted to finish as early as possible.
We decided not to
follow the trail and instead we took an old road inland. We thought it might be a little less hilly
since it wasn't along the cliff, and we thought it would be a smoother walk. It probably was, but it was still sandy and
pretty rough - I wouldn't have wanted to be driving on it, that's for
sure! Despite Ryan's knee, he motored
along and basically dragged me along. He
was definitely a man on a mission.
We saw a few swamp
wallabies and some nice birds, but overall it was pretty uneventful. In the end we made it to the check point half
an hour ahead of schedule.
We walked through a
little town near the river and past a bit of a camping area. There were some kids playing in the water,
and one kid who was kind of hesitating getting in the water because I imagine
it was pretty cold. We all know I'm not
great with kids, but I thought I'd make an effort and encourage him to get in
the water. I told him that if he didn't
get in the water quickly he would get leeches on his feet (which of course
probably wasn't true here, but definitely was true as a kid in northern Quebec
lakes), but instead of encouraging him he totally freaked out and ran out of
the water. Oops! Ryan's just keeping me away from children
from now on I think…
As we left the town
and hiked our final stretch, the houses we left behind reminded Ryan of his
childhood spent in Newfoundland, so we were slightly distracted for the painful
last few hours.
And then we hiked
over dunes, boardwalks, and through scrub.
The bushes were just tall enough that we couldn't see over them, and
just close enough to the path for us to be worried about snakes. Nonetheless, I still managed to tease Ryan
about hobbling like an old man. Though
again, he never complained. If anything
it was me that was doing that!
And finally, after 6
days of hiking, we got our first view of the landmark 12 Apostles!
We still had some
hiking to do after that, but once we saw them our spirits lifted because we
knew we were on the home stretch. We
rested briefly, but it was only brief because when we sat down we found tons
more of the red inch ants! Ryan
definitely didn't want to get bitten again, so we continued on our way.
Then we reached the
"fake" ending of the hike where we got a lovely photo op just before
the rain started.
After our final 10
minutes of hiking Ryan ceremoniously got rid of his walking stick, we found our
trailer, and the driver took our picture.
Before leaving the
Great Ocean Walk/Road for good, he took us to the official tourist site for the
12 Apostles. We didn't realize we were
in for a bit of a walk there, but at least we didn't have our packs and it was
on a cement path. We did our quick photo
shoot with the hundreds of other people and then finally left for good.
I have to say, there
really is something satisfying about completing a giant hike like that even
though you don't feel it at the time.
Looking back I'm extremely proud of what we accomplished, and it's cool
to have such a unique experience. It
wasn't until we were at the tourist centre that we realized how lucky we were
to be away from the crowds and get such a different view of the Australian
coast. For once we actually took the
time to have an experience, and it was definitely worth it.
The driver delivered
us safely back to our car in Apollo Bay (the 1.25 hour drive took us 6 days to
hike!), we got some lunch, and then started our drive back to Melbourne. On the way we stopped at Bells Beach, which
had recently been the site for one of the world surfing competitions. They were taking the grandstands down, and
still there were hundreds of cars in the parking lot which presumably belonged
to the hundreds of surfers in the water.
There were of course some spectators, but it was really cool to see the
best surfers in Australia messing around at one of the top surfing sites in the
world. It was especially funny to see
all of the vans in the parking lot, and even older guys with long blonde hair
in wet suits getting ready to surf. It
was so stereotypical, and definitely worth the stop!
As a reward for
completing the hike, I had bought a cheap voucher for one of Melbourne's most
posh hotels: the historic Hotel Windsor.
We knew we wouldn't want to tour around the city, so this was the next
best thing. Unfortunately, it took us
awhile to get there. For some reason
Ryan had in the GPS that we were going to the Windsor suburb, so needless to
say it took us a little longer than expected to get there! But we got there in the end around 6:30pm,
and it was seriously worth the wait.
We pulled up out
front of the hotel, and a valet came and took our bags and parked our car. Of course we had backpacks and duffle bags,
so we looked extremely out of place walking into the lobby with chandeliers and
an entire wedding party. But Melbourne
is a friendly city and the bride and groom joked with us saying they were glad
they're not the only ones to travel with backpacks! The staff made us feel very welcome despite
our smell, but we were relieved when we were finally in the room.
The package included
a bottle of sparkling wine, which was chilled for us upon arrival. Our first priority was to shower, but I
decided to have the best of both worlds and have some wine IN the shower. Life's hard!
We ordered delicious
room service (of course way too much food) and enjoyed it in our robes.
Now, one fun thing
about the Hotel Windsor is that they have a pillow menu. That means they have a list of pillows you
can choose from, and then they bring it up to your room. Yes, this is extravagant, but since it was
included I of course wanted to make the most of it! So Ryan ordered the "posture
perfect" pillow and I ordered the "aromatherapy" pillow, not
really sure what to expect. Shortly
thereafter our pillows were delivered, but I was a bit surprised that mine
smelled like, well, pillow, not the lavender loveliness I was expecting. I of course wanted to exchange it, because it
was obviously a mistake, but Ryan tried to talk me out of it. He was absolutely mortified when I called the
front desk, but in the end it turns out they HAD sent me the wrong pillow and I
got to enjoy the rest of the evening smelling glorious.
Once everything was
sorted we rented the movie "Robot + Frank" on pay-per-view and ate
our delicious desserts in bed. Needless
to say we were passed out in a food/hike coma by 9:30 pm. What a wicked way to end the trip!
The next morning we
went down to enjoy our complimentary breakfast, which was soooo lavish. The tea was served on actual china with
actual silverware! There was every
wonderful indulgence you could possibly imagine for breakfast, and I made the
most of it. I especially enjoyed the
unlimited supply of strawberries and blue cheese!
And then, suddenly,
everything was over and we were off to the airport to get back to reality. I must say, if you want to just ignore the
world for an entire week, do what we did!
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