Two Bays and Coastal Walk loop hike

Lizard Head near Rye

For my final hike of the year I decided to do the Two Bays Trail from Dromana to Cape Schanck. Initially I was going to do this as an out and back with camping overnight for one night, but then I found out about the Coastal Walk along the back beaches from Cape Schanck to Portsea and opted to do a loop hike with the help of a bus to return to my car in Dromana. I ran the Two Bays Trail in about 2004 and I have run or walked bits of it since. The forecast was for two very hot days with a cool day in between so I picked a hot day for my first day and hoped to enjoy the cooler day as my second day. The campsite situation was such that I would only be hiking 16 km on the hot day.

I set out from Dromana mid morning; it was warm but not uncomfortable. I had a big drink before starting out and I was carrying 3.2 litres of water which is much more than I normally carry. The Two Bays Trail starts with climbing towards Arthur’s Seat but then deviates to avoid the summit. The path was quite rocky and went into forest, then contoured a bit, crossed some grassy slopes and I came to a small lake. There were great views of the azure waters of the bay as I climbed. I was surprised to see several runners on such a warm day. Everything was very dry.

I then had to hike through suburbia for a while and returned into the bush on a dusty trail that descended a long way. I startled a long black snake that was hiding in some grass on the trail. I had to follow a dirt road for a while, and having done 10 km I thought it was time to stop for lunch so I sat down on a log in a paddock.

After lunch I soon headed into the bush for the nicest part of this trail. It was a lush forest of ferns and a welcome change after all the dry colours. I heard a few kookaburras. The trail crossed many dry creeks and there were masses of buzzy insects around the creeks, but also some butterflies. I surprised an echidna, who immediately burrowed half way into a hole then kept very still. I also saw a huge kangaroo.

When I got to my planned campsite I had a pleasant surprise as there was a water tank which I had not expected. But the camping area was totally without shade and it was by now very hot. It was not yet 2 pm and I didn’t think I could spend the rest of the day there so after a short break I walked on. I wasn’t at all sure where I could camp instead. 

I came to the end of the fern forest and the picnic area at Boneo Road where the car park had lots of cars but not a person in sight. I didn’t want to camp so near a road and there were no facilities so I walked on towards Bushrangers Bay, which is where all the car occupants must have gone. The beach was absolutely beautiful and I hoped I could find a secluded spot to camp there, but the entire area was visible from the trail, however there was not going to be anywhere better to camp before Cape Schanck as the bush was too dense for camping and the cape has good road access.

I paddled in the water for a while, lay on the sand and sat on rocks with my feet in the water. I was seriously short of drinking water and had to ration myself as there wouldn’t be any before Cape Schanck. I decided to camp at the back of the beach and put up my tent and cooked once all the daytrippers had left. It was really hot inside my tent and I needed the fly sheet for privacy, but I didn’t use my sleeping bag until the middle of the night. Everything was fine until I heard some weird noises and poked my nose out of the tent: there was a fox sniffing around where I had been cooking, but it quickly ran away. I didn’t sleep all that well and the ocean was very noisy.

In the morning I walked quickly to Cape Schanck (seeing another fox on the path, or maybe the same one) to use the facilities and had breakfast at a table in the deserted car park. I walked part way along the boardwalk to get a good view of the lighthouse and the rocks. It was rather a dull overcast day.

Then I headed out along the Coastal Walk, first along the clifftops in forest to Gunnamatta Beach. There wasn’t much view until I descended to the beach but I then had a lovely long stretch of beach walking. The beach walking was definitely the highlight of my 2 day hike. After Gunnamatta I walked along St Andrews Beach and Rye Beach and they were all fairly empty. It was low tide so I had hard sand to walk on and occasionally walked across rocks. The dunes varied from sandy to rocky. I thought it was quite hot again but not as oppressive as yesterday. The clouds cleared nicely and the sun came out.

Past Beach 16 in Rye the trail was close to the road but then returned to clifftops to go above some very pretty small beaches. One beach had a bench with a sign on it “The Office”. Just before Bridgewater Bay there was a detour due to a landslide so I had to go inland. I went for a quick peek at the bay and then headed back across the - by now very thin - peninsula to Blairgowrie. I went into the first cafe I saw and after a while I got the bus back to Dromana. I walked 25 km the first day and 26 km the second.