7 Day Great Ocean Road Twelve Apostles Walk

You arrive in Melbourne and check into the Holiday Inn Express Melbourne Southbank. After settling in, you enjoy a leisurely evening exploring the nearby restaurants and laneways. A restful night's sleep follows, with the anticipation of the upcoming walking adventure building.

After a relaxed breakfast at the hotel, you have a full day to explore Melbourne at your own pace. Perhaps you choose to wander through the Royal Botanic Gardens, visit the National Gallery of Victoria, or indulge in the city’s renowned café culture and shopping. You return to your hotel in the evening, enjoying your second night in familiar surroundings as you prepare for the beginning of your walking adventure the next morning.

After a scenic drive from Melbourne, we start the first section of the walk at Blanket Bay, one of the highlights of the Great Ocean Walk. We follow the coast of Great Otway National Park, climb along cliff tops and walk barefoot on golden sand beaches. Learning about the unique flora and fauna as you go from our expert guides. Koalas, kangaroos, and echidnas, you are sure to see some local wildlife on this unique part of the trail. The Cape Otway Lighthouse makes for a great end to the walk, where our guides can teach you all about the naval history of the area. From the lighthouse, we transfer you to our private lodge in Johanna, where we welcome you with a glass of local sparkling and a spectacular long table dinner to celebrate your first day of walking.

Challenge delivers great reward. Wild, weathered headlands give the sense you’re at the world’s edge. Day two is your hardest day out on the track. But with it comes spectacular seascapes and personal triumph. Beginning at Milanesia Track, it covers some of the most remote sections of the Great Ocean Walk. This is your day of wild. Your day of rugged. The ocean is your steadfast companion across 14.5 kilometres of rolling terrain today, beginning with a descent onto Milanesia Beach. Here, your guide will point out a ‘natural rock wall’ that would be the envy of any budding young climber. After a fleeting beach visit, it’s a short but bracing climb that whispers of inclines to come.

Over the next hours, the trail carves its way through deep gullies with tree ferns and towering remnant Eucalypts. There are 132 steps to ascend before trailing west out of the forest to Ryans Den. On suitable days, this is your lunch perch. The Den gifts with unsurpassed views across to Cape Volney and Cape Otway. Further along, the trail, as it mimics the tumbles and rising of the coastline, keep an eye out for Cape Volney. There’s a bench that, if time allowed, could swallow hours. Heaving seas disappear into watery caves. Views west travel to the horizon’s edge. And the entire spectacle is framed by the forest.

The first four and a half kilometres gently meander through native stringybark forest providing a contrast to the coast, concluding with a rise to the Gables, one of mainland Australia’s highest cliff-top lookouts. Tide-dependent, you will descend onto Wreck Beach and explore the historic shipwreck ruins before continuing through to Devil’s Kitchen for lunch and onto the historic Fiji shipwreck memorial. Wilder days will give an insight into the cauldron-like ocean at this part of the coast. After lunch, we follow the Devil’s Kitchen Track through fern gullies and over a ridge populated with grass trees to Wreck Beach carpark. On our way back to the lodge we divert for a short walk around Melba Gully, an enchanting rainforest gully with towering Mountain Ash and Beech Myrtle with an understory of tree ferns and waterfalls. After returning to the lodge we celebrate our last night together with a rejuvenating foot spa, a long table dinner and a glass of local wine.

Enjoy your final morning at Twelve Apostles Lodge. After another wholesome breakfast, there’s a final pack up, check out and lodge farewell before a 45-minute drive to Princetown. These fabulous natural wonders emerge on slow reveal as the trail rises and falls along the coastline. There is a viewing lookout exclusively for walkers before our final stretch of trail into the Twelve Apostles Visitors Centre. You’ve made it! We’ll then move on to the nearby town of Timboon where we visit our dairy supplier, Schulz Organic Dairy for lunch before returning to Melbourne. We offer a drop off to the airport and Melbourne CBD after your walk.

You enjoy a final breakfast at the hotel before checking out. Whether you’re flying home or continuing your travels, you depart with unforgettable memories of your Twelve Apostles adventure and a refreshed perspective shaped by time in nature.