After inspecting the steep staircase that jerks down the golden cliff and then disappears out of sight, our small group of hikers finds themselves faced with a dilemma. Will we dare to go down or will we take the narrow forest path we are already on?

Since we departed from Blanket Bay, a trailhead campsite outside the town of Apollo Bay on Victoria’s southwest coast, our journey along the Great Ocean Walk was straightforward. We walked beneath twisting eucalyptus forests where we searched for koalas dozing in the canopy, listened to the swirl of purple roselles fluttering between the trees, and found shy wallabies munching on mushrooms. The winding path now leads to a dramatic junction above Wreck Beach. Below us, a century of tides have buried and exposed two shipwrecks, offering a tantalizing glimpse of Victoria’s maritime past. But seeing the wrecks involves a gamble.

“There are 366 wooden steps that lead to Wreck Beach. We could go down there and find that the tide has risen too high, which means a difficult climb back to our starting point with nothing to show for it,” explains Joe Lionnet, while rubbing his salt and pepper beard. Despite our guide’s warnings, the wry smile on his face and the gleam in his bespectacled eyes suggest he hopes we’ll choose the steps.

Our group splits and only a handful of us descend, diving in with no idea of ​​what awaits us. But our bet pays off and we soon find ourselves on a wide sandy beach while the wind whistles along the imperious cliffs that rise above us.

It usually takes a week to complete the 68-mile Great Ocean Walk, one of Australia’s best multi-day walks, which begins at Apollo Bay and winds through two of Victoria’s coastal national parks before culminating at the Twelve Apostles – a series of jagged limestone spiers strung along the cliffs near Port Campbell.

With only a weekend to spare, I instead joined the Australian Walking Company’s new guided hike, which offers a more condensed experience, covering almost 19 miles over three days. Our group spent time navigating tranquil mushroom-studded ravines and exposed cliff-top tracks, before retiring to the company’s accommodations in Johanna, near the trail’s midpoint, in time for an aperitif and a meal of wild venison and grills. crayfish.

The next day we do it again, using the company van to get to the next trailhead on the route. Driving to these trailheads means traveling sections of the walk’s more famous counterpart, the Great Ocean Road, which runs alongside us for stretches before disappearing inland and returning. Ranked among the most scenic drives in the world, the 151-mile route winds between sleepy coastal towns, past epic surf breaks and waterfalls, en route to our shared destination, the Twelve Apostles.

Before it was a major promenade or highway, this same section of coastline was known by a much more ominous nickname: the Castaway Coast. This dangerous strip, with its hidden reefs and changing conditions, claimed the lives of around 660 ships in the mid-19th century, when Victoria’s gold rush was in full swing.

It’s not that these waters are more perilous than those elsewhere. Melbourne’s sudden wealth in the 1850s made it one of the richest cities in the world, and thousands of ships sailed there in search of riches. Many found only disaster – their stories of tragedy, survival, loss and even love washing up on shore with the survivors. “More ships means more accidents,” as Joe puts it bluntly, standing at the edge of a rock pool where the rusty anchor of the Marie Gabrielle protrudes from the water.

Marie Gabrielle was one of the lucky ones. The ship crashed on Wreck Beach while attempting to deliver tea in 1869. All the crew survived but the ship was destroyed. shreds. Fiji, whose anchor we find only a few hundred meters away, was less fortunate when faced with conflict in 1891. Joe explains how a photographer documenting the unfolding calamity may have inadvertently caused the death of the Fiji crew while delaying emergency services. On the cliff above us we see a somber memorial overlooking the scene, a white tombstone honoring the drowned sailors and the cook, “name unknown,” who died with them.

We don’t have time to dwell on their fate. The tide comes in quickly and Joe takes us on a thrilling race across the beach, scaling small rocks and timing our run between the waves, to reach the staircase rising on the other side of the beach. We rejoin the rest of the group and the trail which now descends into the coastal wetlands.

Soon we are strolling along a boardwalk above the Gellibrand River while hidden shorebirds call from the tall straw-colored rushes. On the other side, we begin climbing again through a labyrinthine network of coastal scrub when an unexpected break occurs in the foliage. There, in the distance, I can make out the twelve apostles, like a jagged finish line shrouded in salt spray.