Blanket Bay - Great Ocean Walk (GOW) news

We have just returned from a short break, camping at Blanket Bay in the Otway National Park. Blanket Bay is one of the hikers camping areas for the Great Ocean Walk ,as well as a nice quiet National Park camping area (shhh , don't tell anyone!!). We only met one party doing the walk and I think they were from Germany. They are only in Australia for 3 weeks and 7 nights were to be taken up on the GOW. They had opted to stay overnight in each GOW campsite which would have made their walking days quite short, leaving them plenty of time to explore the area.
We were very pleased to see that a shelter was being constructed in the group hikers area at Blanket Bay. This has always seemed an oddity on the GOW, because every other camping area has a wonderful shelter. Blanket Bay (and the whole Otways area) has a quite high rainfall and this new addition will be very welcome. The picture below is the, still under construction, shelter with its planned water tank. This additional water supply will be excellent. The other water supply at Blanket Bay is about 150 metres for the GOW hikers sites and not very convenient for people with limited means to transfer water to their campsites.

My new German friends were also concerned about the quality of the drinking water on the GOW. It is all tank water, collected off the roof of each shelter. We have never had ANY PROBLEMS drinking this water and , in fact, prefer it to the reticulated water we get at home. It is in fact the ONLY water generally available each day and you need to ensure you carry enough for the whole day.



Blanket Bay, on this trip, was like a natural zoo. We saw a brown snake, an echidna, many, many different species of birds, 3 koallas, wallabies and a blue tonged lizard! This was the most creatures we had seen there for years. The pics below are of a mum koala and her very cute baby and a very relaxed blue tonged lizard. There is also a very game fox who is keen on rubbish bags and and any other means of scavenging food.




Related Posts on the Great Ocean Walk
Our Hiking Blog goes "lightweight" at Blanket Bay
Drinking water on the Great Ocean Walk
Great Ocean Walk - the start
Marengo to Blanket Bay
Blanket Bay to Cape Otway Lightstation
Lightstation to Aire River
Aire River to Joanna
Joanna to Ryans Den
Ryans Den to Devils Kitchen
Devils Kitchen to The Gables