Two hours of driving from the city centre to Anglesea township; I am drowsy, jerk awake several times -- five-thirty, my owl self muse, is awfully early to set off for an adventure. I nip into the General Store for coffee. We park by the Anglesea river -- so serene its waters as I stood on its bank, so placid this village scene of joggers and big dogs and the odd bankside fisher, it is difficult to imagine we were so close to the ocean already.

Thence hugging the coast to Lorne and onward to Apollo Bay (on one side of the road stretches of burnt eucalyptus like angry blackened hands groping skyward (bushfire), blinding blueness without horizon on the other). Thrice we pull over at the lookouts -- Split Point, under a lighthouse; Teddy's, the coast cut by giant pinking shears; Cape Patton, as we enter Apollo Bay -- each time the heart dances: thalatta, thalatta! (Why -- a girl from a small island can be bewitched by the ocean as much as an inlander. Yet at the same time, a part of me would have like to simply drive those sweeping curves without ever stopping, the road unending and ourselves mesmerised by blue and motion.)

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We come into Apollo Bay -- had we two days on the Ocean Road instead of one I should certainly overnight here. We take lunch on the second floor of a little Mediterranean restaurant with a view of the bay. As soon as we were seated we were served a board of Turkish pide (warm, crackly, sprinkled with sea salt), with dishes of hummus and taramosalata and tzatziki. Wot we et on our holidays: mussels in tomato broth, one bucket; flounder, grilled whole, on a bed of spiced couscous; beetroot salad (shredded like a slaw, with mint leaves and chopped almonds); and on the side, roast sweet potatoes and pumpkins and yoghurt and nuts. 8/10.

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In the Otways now -- well done Parks Victoria for laying a looped boardwalk trail through the forest floor in a tree-fern gully, or are they fern-trees? Ferns they are, at any rate, their leaves what Steve calls "quintessentially fern-shaped."I know only the muggy heat of a tropical forest -- in here, the temperature drop startles me even when I am expecting it -- by so much? Too late to go back to the carpark for a jacket. Now we are on the valley floor, the vegetative debris is unfamiliar to me; from time to time I look up and cannot find the top of the myrtle beeches and eucalyptuses (second in height only to the redwoods in California, the tourist brochure says.) The roots of trees, raised and twisted, are shell-house enough for a grown man.

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Port Campbell National Park -- finally, what we have come so far for. At the visitor centre I find on display photography of the coast, dramatic p​anoramas​ only achievable from helicopter vantage, each panel paired with truly atrocious poems about waves and transience and shipwrecks and sentinels. No doubt they were community-sourced (at least one hopes they were not commissioned.) I feign polite interest before each and do not wince. Walk on, girl, walk on, follow the tourist stream to the Apostles.

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When did I last take a geography exam? -- scrawling out rote essays on wave action and coastal landforms -- all theoretical -- and only now, 20 years later, I'm seeing a sea stack for the very first time -- and so many at once (there had been arches too; just a few years ago some would still have been standing -- the last collapsed five years ago, why, even the famed Apostles are crumbling away -- 7 left now.) 'Caves, arches, stacks and stumps, and then nothing', I crow a little, remembering my lessons.

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Who knew about the Great Ocean Walk? A hundred kilometres of walking trails that trace the coast across the cliff-tops, is this what they call windswept? -- 8 days it would take to make the journey. Had I good shoes and an outdoor companion of great experience, an Esme or a Steve perhaps, I would have liked to hike it, just for half a day -- alone I have no confidence; my city shoes scrabbling on the soil, I follow the trail for a few hundred metres, to the nearest lookout, and sit. The wind is in my hair, tugging, wild and strong. The Ancient Greeks have no word for blue; over the clifftops the Southern Ocean is shimmering bronze.

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Drive on, drive on to Loch Ard Gorge (never seen a gorge for 36 years, and then three in six months on two continents, not single spies but battalions!) Boardwalk loops lead to railinged lookouts after lookout from which serious photographers vie with selfie-sticks tourists. I look over shoulders -- every shot comes out with spectacular post-card unreality. Hashtag NoFilters for it is the landscape that is hyperreal. It is too much. I reach for an imagined hand and hold it tight: how can I look upon this alone? So many of them, these landforms -- golden and inhuman each and vast beyond comprehension. Stricken, I turn inland, unable to speak, needing an interpreter.

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Three other trails to follow. I hover before the park map -- time for one more only -- and take the one for the gorge floor. Wooden stairs beside cliff face lead down and down to a secluded half-moon beach in a horseshoe bay (the sand underfoot alternating cold or toasty as I totter barefoot through shadows and sunlit spots.) Small caves too, at the base of the cliffs -- hideouts, I think, for a shipwrecked man. I went at once to the water's edge and waited for the woosh, the incoming cold wash over my feet -- two small children near me squealed and fled giggling up the beach chased by the tide; another one, a small boy, monkeyish, raced out to meet it, leaping into foam. In that moment my heart lurched in both directions -- at once wanting to plunge forward and to flee. But I stood still, solemn and adult, in the shallows, while a thousand possibilities streamed through me.​ It would not do, if I were late, to be off our timetable for the homeward drive. I must go soon, go now, climb those steps back to the cliff top. Yet I lingered watchful, being a castaway, seeking distant black sails.

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