Day 1 - Portland to Cobboboonee Camp Ground - 45.51kms - we departed Portland at the official start of the GSWW route at 8:07am on Friday 27th November, 2020. Karen and I with support on the course from Greg were carrying fast pack hiking packs with camping gear, food for 3 days. The weather was a hot 32 degrees for the day. We took our water from the camp site water tanks we travelled through and were filtered through a device that Greg carried for us to fill our water bladders every few hours. Our lunch stop was at Cubby's Camp and we arrived at the Cobboboonee camp after travelling through dense lush forest late in the day to set up camp. Our dinner was re-hydrated spaghetti bolgonaise on deb potato, beef jerky and a glass of port. We shared a 3 man ultra light tent for the night with little sleep to be had by all.
Day 2 - Cobboboonee Camp to Batterbys Camp - 52.91kms - after a re-hydrated breakfast of oats, dried fruit and tonnes of cinnamon and a cup of tea we departed the camp ground around 7:40am through more national park forests. We stopped for lunch early afternoon with a water refill at Fitzroy Camp from the water tank. Lots of wild life with echidna's, kangaroos, and one large brown snake. We were so glad to finally reach the Glenelg River for a change in scenery after so much forest. The weather forecast was for rain at about 8pm but it came in mid afternoon so we got very wet. We arrived in to the camp at Batterbys to find the camp ground was overtaken with drive in campers who were drinking and being very loud and obnoxious. We made the call to be driven out of the camp site for both safety reasons and the heavy rain - there was 60mms over night, by my husband, Nick, who was waiting to see us when we arrived in Nelson the following day. It turned out to be a good call because the drive in campers disturbed the other GSWW hikers until 4am in the morning.
Day 3 - Batterbys Camp to Lake Monibeong - 56.73kms - we returned to the campsite at 7:00am this morning and began the day following the Glenelg River stopping at each of the camp grounds to refill our water supplies. We even got to enter into South Australia during COVID lockdown for a few kilometres which was a special treat. Midway was Nelson, and we had timed our arrival to get a chocolate milk from the Nelson Kiosk. It was here Greg decided to take a break and left us to allow him to get some recovery rest for the following day. Karen and I continued on to the coast at Discovery Bay where we finally got to follow the wide open white sand beaches. It was about 18kms of firm sand, crashing waves, and plenty of bird life to keep us entertained. We had timed the low tide perfectly and got to experience a wonderful sunset before arriving at Lake Monibeong to be greeted by Greg and Nick with cold pizza's for us to eat. Around 8pm we drove back to Nelson to sleep.
Day 4 - Lake Monibeong to Portland - 107.5kms - It was an early start at 6:58am this morning and Greg had decided he would re-join us at the summit of Mt Richmond. Karen and I followed the coast to Swan Lake before heading in land to the summit of Mt Richmond. It was another warm day so being Australia we were prone to see snakes and sure enough we came across 4 of them through the Swan Lake to Mt Richmond section. Karen wanted to get back to the beach as quickly as possible so she did not have to worry about snakes on the forest trails. At the summit of Mt Richmond we were greet by the grunting sounds of a male Koala, Greg and Nick met us there and we took our lunch break at this point. We had decided to complete the GSWW today and go through the night to finish early Tuesday morning back in Portland. Greg re-joined Karen and I from this point onwards. Our next camp was Tarragal where we refilled our water - we each carried 2 litres each day in a bladder. We had returned to the coast line as we came into Bridgewater Lakes around 48kms in for the day. The next water stop was at The Springs camp where we were greeted by a school group camping for the night. They hike leader was so impressed we had already done over 55kms for the day and was even more shocked when we told them we were going through the night to finish back in Portland. You can imagine they thought we were crazy. We then arrived at the blowhole early evening so it was time to set up the camp burner to make some chicken two minute noodles for dinner but did not stop for too long. We kept moving to make the most of the days remaining daylight. It was dark by 8:45pm so the head lamps were required. We arrived at Cape Bridgewater around 8:30pm and did another sand section for about 1.7kms before we headed back up along the cliff tops for another 6-7kms. We then hit the sand of Merrell's beach for the next 4.5kms. It was a long hard slog in soft sand before the steep climb out of the sand dune. The Nelson lighthouse was our next logical stop for a few minutes to get more water and was going to be the last rest stop for the night. The early hours of the morning as we wound around the bays, the Quarry and the wind turbines required some extra motivation so out came the iphone with Nickelback playing loudly to encourage us to keep moving. With 10kms remaining Greg left Karen and I to finish the remainder of the route as dawn approached. Coming into the bay at Portland Karen and I crossed the start/finish line at 6:34am on Tuesday 1st December, embracing each other in tears through sheer exhaustion and the emotion with both of us realising what it was we had just accomplished.
I wanted to load more photos but it wouldn't allow me to do it. I also wanted to load a video I took on my phone of our water filtration system but couldn't do that either.