OurTripDreaming: Ryans Den Campground to Devils Kitchen Campground (GOW Trip)

24 February 2024 (Day 7) 14-22 degrees

It was a cool night, but better once the wind dropped a little. On waking the wind was noticeably less than yesterday. Over breakfast Drew spotted a koala with baby in a nearby tree. This is the only campsite so far that has had no blue fairy wrens.

https://www.greatoceanwalk.info/day-6-ryans-den-to-devils-kitchen/

Very hilly start to the day, constantly up or down with very little flat. We saw a few swamp wallabies. The track would be very slippery and gluggy in wet conditions. There were a few small areas not far into today’s walk where the grass was a little overgrown (these were the first such spots we had encountered on this walk).

The second section of walk had much gentler inclines and declines and passed through lovely woodland. We took a side trip to Moonlight Head Cemetery. The view from Gables Lookout was good – the ocean was still fairly calm but I certainly would not like to be in it. We saw flocks of Gang-gang Cockatoos.

At the eastern end of Wreck Beach we felt there was too much water for us to go down and hike to Devils Kitchen this way. We continued on the inland route, which was very pretty. National Parks have done a lot to protect grass trees and other native plants from cinnamon fungus; there are functional boot cleaning stations and more than a kilometre of raised walking track.

The view from the top of the campsite was beautiful and being first into camp we were lucky enough to snag the top campsite.

https://www.parks.vic.gov.au/places-to-see/sites/great-ocean-walk---devils-kitchen-hike-in-campsites

In the afternoon we took the walk down to Wreck Beach to see the anchors and anchor chain winch. We were down here on an outgoing tide with calm seas and the waves still occasionally touched the base of the cliffs - it would be totally terrifying to be wrecked here. We then took a side route up top to the burial site for some of the seamen from the Fiji wreck. Some of last night's campers arrived, having walked via Wreck Beach – their opinion, we made the correct choice in dropping off our packs and heading down later from this end.

https://www.visitmelbourne.com/regions/great-ocean-road/see-and-do/outdoor-and-adventure/walking-and-hiking/vv-wreck-beach-walk

https://www.parks.vic.gov.au/news/2022/07/27/00/16/historic-shipwreck-coast-monument-accessible-again