This one was wild. Completely pristine – hardly anyone uses this track. I am going to leave some track notes here as there is limited information on the internet. The info I did find was either completely exaggerated (you’re going to die!) or plain wrong. Hopefully if you are googling this walk you will find this post.
Track and Route-finding: I walked this track from Shipwreck Creek all the way into the only pub in Bemm. Due to water availability I did it 4 days, but the 4th day was largely walking into the village of Bemm. The blogs I found about this hike describe route-finding as challenging, describing the inland routes as overgrown, appearing and disappearing, etc. I found it pretty straightforward, really. There are a couple tricky spots but if you are paying attention you should be fine. If you use GPS, the OpenStreetMap map layer in Garmin/Earthmate has this entire track on it and you can pre-load the route to help you out if you get confused. I figured this out after I traced it from the aerial map layer. To my point, if I could trace the inland routes from a photo taken from space, you should be able to follow it on the ground.
Water Availability: This is a real concern. Aside from a spring a kilometer or so from Red River, which isn’t guaranteed to be wet year round, the only other water sources are the rain collection tanks at the drive-in campsites you run into at the inlets (Wingan and Mueller/Thurra). That is it! These are spaced roughly 25K apart so be prepared to hike that distance daily or carry a ton of water. I carried 5 liters a day. Its hot and exposed so make sure you carry enough.
Inlet Crossings: There are a few possible inlet crossings. Most are closed (sandbar to walk across) but if there has been heavy rain be prepared to cross more. Wingan Inlet is open year round and you will have to cross it. I crossed within a couple hours of low tide, swell was low, and the water didn’t even come to my belly button. The other possible crossings are at Mueller/Thurra (within a couple K of each other), Tamboon and Bemm/Syndham. These are open to ocean so they would absolutely need to be crossed at low tide. Download the tide chart before you go and time your walk to make sure you don’t get stuck.
Day 0/1 (~27K): We left the car at Bemm and bussed our way into Mallacoota. For a few extra bucks the bus driver agreed to personally drive us to the trailhead at Shipwreck Creek. We opted to hike in a few kilometers to the cove at Seal Creek (highly recommend) and made camp for the night. The following morning we hiked our way through to Wingan. There is a pretty obvious path (~1.5K) from the beach to Wingan campsite where the water is – you can camp there in a section for walkers or you can camp anywhere you want on the beach. This is the day you will do most of your inland walking with some beach sections.
Day 2 (~20K): This is a day with some forest hiking but mainly beach and whole lot of bouldering. No water anywhere until you get to Mueller or Thurra. We met some fishermen at Mueller and decided to make camp there. There is no path to the Mueller campsite.. just wade along the edge of the inlet (a half a meter deep) until you get to camp. You can see it from the beach. You could also opt to keep going to the Thurra campsite a couple K down the beach. If you do, don’t follow the OpenStreetMap – pop over the sand burm after the inlet crossing and you will save yourself a long walk.
**THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE FOR WATER! YOU HAVE 45K OF WALKING LEFT!!
Day 3 (~25K): This last section is a bit of doozy. The Parks Victoria website describes this section (from Thurra to Bemm) as 28K, which is correct if you stop at Bemm Inlet. The problem is, unless you arrange for a boat to scoop you up or you decide to swim a couple kilometers, there is no access to town. For that, you need to walk another 10K of coastal beach and then pop out onto Pearl Point Track Road and walk another 5K into Bemm. I didn’t realize this until halfway through day 3… I assumed the Parks Dept would include the walking route out. Once I did realize this, I walked to a point right in the middle of Tamboon and Bemm Inlets and made camp for the night. This day is also largely beach with the exception of a fantastic, but short, bush walk from the lighthouse.
Day 4 (~20K): Woke up with the sun, packed up camp and hiked the 20K to the pub at the Bemm River Hotel. Had a frosty in my hand by 11:30am. Considering I drank all my water the previous day, the beer tasted mighty fine. Mighty fine, indeed.
When I have more time I will create better GPS files and post them here so you can simply load them into Google Earth or whatever map/GPS system you use.
Enjoy the hike! It’s an epic one!
The Ragamuffin Billy Goat 
Amazing pictures! Great blog with some good info for when I go there someday!
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I can’t wait to see your GPS tracking overlaid a satellite map! This one sounds gnarly and epic!
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Less wildlife and diverse scenery than the other two aussie hikes, but this was my fav. So pristine and wild.
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