{"id":4568,"date":"2024-03-19T09:09:51","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T09:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everythingvictoria.com.au\/?p=4568"},"modified":"2025-01-20T05:17:32","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T05:17:32","slug":"surf-coast-walk-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everythingvictoria.com.au\/surf-coast-walk-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"A Detailed Guide to Victoria’s Surf Coast Walk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Surf Coast Walk is a 44km path that runs from Point Impossible, a few kilometres east of Torquay<\/a>, to Fairhaven, just west of Aireys Inlet<\/a>. In perhaps unsurprising news, this part of Victoria is known as the Surf Coast, and the route hugs the shore most of the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Towering cliffs, roaring seas, and empty beaches are the main themes here, but there’s plenty of coastal bushland and sheltered forest to enjoy as well. The track regularly runs along the beach, but even where it doesn’t, you can often just drop down to the sand to walk or swim there anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhat unusually for multi-day walks in Australia, the path runs through several towns along the way. That means you’ve got plenty of accommodation options without having to carry camping equipment: a nice change of pace!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I walked the route over two days, one longer (28km), the other much shorter (16km), with an overnight stay in Anglesea<\/a>. If that longer day sounds a bit much \u2014 it’s around seven hours of walking, not including breaks \u2014 then you can also easily split it into two shorter ones of about 10km and 18km with a night in Jan Juc in between. You can also just skip the first\/last section between Torquay and Point Impossible, which I talk more about below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, if you’re a masochist<\/s> very dedicated, you could decide to walk the entire route in a single day. It’s not something I’d personally recommend unless you’re very used to that kind of distance, but I know of people who’ve done it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/span>Public Transport<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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A V\/Line train sitting at the platform at Southern Cross station<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since the route runs near (and in some cases, alongside) the Great Ocean Road, much of it is accessible by public transport. If you’re coming from Melbourne, V\/Line trains run regularly from Southern Cross Station to Geelong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From there, a V\/Line bus runs between Geelong and Lorne<\/a> four times a day in each direction: twice in the morning, twice in the afternoon. There’s also an extra westbound service on Friday nights. The bus stops on or near the route at several points between Torquay, Anglesea, Aireys Inlet, and Fairhaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first service leaves Geelong at 10:27am, which means the earliest you’ll be walking from Torquay is just after 11am, or Fairhaven at 11:43am. Likewise the last service from Fairhaven back towards Melbourne leaves at 4:03pm during the week, 4:28pm on Saturday, and 5:56pm on Sunday, and passes through Torquay about 40 minutes later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’d be nice if it was more frequent, but it does at least make it possible to walk the Surf Coast Path without a car, or to return to wherever you parked it. The only tricky bit is the start\/end at Point Impossible: there’s no public transport that goes there, and it’s 6km from where the bus drops you off in central Torquay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’ve got a few choices about how to deal with that. Taxis and Uber operate in Torquay, and are reasonably affordable, especially if there are two or more of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could also take the number 50 bus from Geelong instead of the V\/Line service: it takes a different route into Torquay, and if you get off at the St Annes Reserve stop<\/a>, you’re basically on the Surf Coast Walk, about 3km from the start. Of course, you then just have to turn around and retrace your steps, but it’s not the end of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or if you’re not a completist, you could just choose to start walking from Torquay instead. Being honest about it, that section to\/from Point Impossible is probably the least-interesting part of the walk anyway, so if I had to cut something out, this is the bit I’d choose! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/span>Where to Stay<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Because the middle sections of the track hug the coastline but the Great Ocean Road doesn’t at that point, there isn’t any accommodation around the halfway mark. The two logical places to stay instead are Anglesea and Jan Juc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I mentioned earlier, you could spend a night in both towns if you want to split the walk into three days, or just pick one (most likely Anglesea) if you’re trying to do it over a weekend. That’s what I did, and despite my sore legs at the end, it felt like the right decision!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I walked with a couple of friends, so we booked a two-bedroom unit at the Great Ocean Road Resort<\/a> in Anglesea. They’ve got one-bedroom apartments as well: all of the rooms are pretty similar from what I could see, with small kitchens, a living room, and a terrace outside where you can lay the socks that you may or may not have washed in the sink out to dry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unit was clean, the bed was comfortable, and I couldn’t hear any road noise: after a long day of walking, that’s absolutely all I needed. If you have more energy than I did, there’s a swimming pool onsite, along with a bar and restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t love the hotel restaurant prices, but it’s right on the Great Ocean Road in the middle of Anglesea, so there are plenty of other options within a few minutes’ walk. We opted for Sawadee Thai for dinner, and it was a good call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you were planning to stay in Jan Juc as well, I’d suggest Chianti Cottages<\/a>. The studio cabin is clean and well-priced, especially for the area, and only a five minute walk from the trail. It’s unusually spacious, with a little kitchenette for toast and coffee, and easy access to cafes and restaurants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best of all, at least for me, is how quiet it is: it’s far enough away from the main roads that there’s essentially no car noise at all, and you don’t share a wall with anybody else on the property either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/span>Maps and Signage<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The waymarking is good on the track – this sign is at Sunnymead Beach<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In terms of a basic overview, I found the best map was this PDF<\/a> put out by the Great Ocean Road tourism board. For the walk itself, I just downloaded this AllTrails map<\/a> to my phone: it covers the whole route, and has all of the side trails and beach alternatives marked as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Signage along the way was generally very good, with a distinctive stylised leaf marker at most places that needed one, and larger signs at regular intervals that gave the distance to the next town or point of interest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The track is well-marked in both directions: most people start at Point Impossible, so that’s the direction I’ve written up the sections below, but I walked the other way because it suited my timings better to have the shorter day first. It really makes little difference which way you go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/span>Shorter Walks on the Surf Coast<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While I chose to tackle the full length end to end, there’s no reason you have to do the same. This is one of the most accessible multi-day paths in the state, running through several towns and with many<\/em> places to park your car elsewhere along the route, so it’s easy to just walk a small part of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously it’s a point-to-point route, so unless you can do a car shuffle, have someone who’s happy to pick you up, or can link up with the infrequent bus service I mentioned earlier, you’ll need to turn around at some stage and return the way you came. That’s far from a hardship, though: the views are epic in both directions!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below I’ve divided the route I walked into eight sections, each of which is somewhere between two and eight km long. That’s completely arbitrary on my part, but it gives plenty of choice about how far you want to go. Feel free to combine two or more sections, or make up your own: it’s entirely up to you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are no bad options, but if I had to pick the best sections to walk, these would probably be my top three:<\/p>\n\n\n\n