NB: I will constantly update this post as I complete and photograph more of the walks around Phillip Island.
George Bass Coastal Walk
The best way I can think of describing this walk is the Victorian equivalent of the Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk up in Sydney. This is a 7km walk that starts from Punchbowl Road just outside San Remo or at Shelley Beach Carpark in Kilcunda. It isn’t a loop walk so you will either have to organise a car shuffle or try to hail a cab or Uber to get back to your start point. It’s 14km if you have to trek back to your start point so that probably explains why this walk isn’t as popular as it should be.
Is it better to start from San Remo or Kilcunda? In my view it’s better to start from the San Remo end. There aren’t any cafes or restaurants where the walk starts just outside San Remo. However, the finishing point of the walk at Kilcunda takes you practically up to the pub (if finishing around lunch / dinner time) and the cafe / general store (if finishing around breakfast / brunch). Sitting at the cafe in Kilcunda overlooking the sea was definitely a pleasant way to end the walk.
Depending on how many stops and detours you take, the 7km walk should take you about 2-3 hours to complete. We detoured to the beach at Half Moon Bay which involved taking a fork in the path down to the beach. It was about an 800m detour and I would estimate added about 15-20 minutes to the overall trip. The beach at Half Moon Bay was well worth the detour. Given you can’t drive up to it, it was pretty close to pristine and we had the entire beach to ourselves.
As for the walk itself, it is spectacular – with rolling farmland on one side and the roaring southern ocean on the other. We started early, just before sunrise and so were lucky enough to see a wombat ambling across the path. If doing the walk in summer i would recommend either starting the walk early in the morning or late in the afternoon – there isn’t much shade on the path and I can imagine it being really unpleasant trying to do the walk on a hot summer’s day.
Forrest Caves Walk
This is one of the big ticket walks in Phillip Island (along with the Nobbies and the Pinnacles). It is important to note that the caves are only accessible at low tide. Make sure to time your visit at low tide or an hour or so either side of low tide to be able to safely access the caves. Check sites like Willy Weather (https://tides.willyweather.com.au/VIC/gippsland/phillip-island.html) for tide times.
There’s plenty of parking and it’s a pleasant 600 metre walk along the beach, so this is suitable for families with young children. My kids loved racing along the beach all the way to the caves. If you have been to cave systems like the Buchan Caves in Gippsland, please manage your expectations for Forrest Caves. There is really only 1 small cave, the other is more of a walk through.
The first ‘cave’ is pictured below and as set out above is more of a walk through. There’s still a few nooks and crannies and rock pools for young kids to explore and play in though, and my kids certainly enjoyed scrambling around this first area.
On the other side of this cave, walk out a bit and to the left you will find the proper cave. If you time it right the sunlight will come through the skylight and illuminate the rock below, which would make for some great portrait opportunities.
And that’s really all there is to the Forrest Caves walk. There isn’t that much to keep older kids engaged for long. However if you have younger kids and go at low tide there will be plenty of rockpools for them to play and explore in.