The so good it's Great Ocean Road

Day 3: I had an early commute into the city to join a 2 day tour of the Great Ocean Road. Unlike many of the day tours, this is more spread out and does the trip in reverse, starting out at the end and working back to Melbourne. I joined a group mostly consisting of backpackers, several poms included, even a girl called Emma from north Devon, so we were able to talk about missing the coast and how they don’t do proper cream teas down here.

The first part of the trip was a long drive, stopping briefly at the deadest of dead end towns, Lismore, for a tea and toilet break. We then hit Warrnambool, a thriving metropolis with a fine beach. After that, it was into Tower Hill Reserve, which is the crater of an old volcano and home to kangaroos, emus and many wild koalas. There were so many of the little things, snoozing in the trees, inducing gasps of “Oooh” and “Aaaahhh” mostly from the girls on board.

Sitting down to eat some lunch, a couple of kangaroos bounded past followed by a pair of emus and then a short walk led a few of us to find a koala milling about on the ground eating some of those delicious nutritious Eucalyptus leaves. We managed to get really close to him, he seemed more interested in these leaves than a bunch of camera wielding tourists.

From Tower Hill it was off to hit the coast proper and the first part of the Great Ocean Road, which is called the shipwreck coast. With huge sandstone cliffs and massive waves, it is easy to see how it got its name. We stopped at a few lookouts – the Bay of Islands offered a gentle introduction to the landscape, followed by the Bay of Martyrs, where there was a nice little beach and some small coastal walks.

The next stop was The Grotto, which featured a hole in the rock and a narrow bay which got continuously pounded by white surf and crashing waves.

London Bridge had fallen down…or at least one arch of it did a few years back. Interestingly, there were two people stranded on the remaining arch when it did, and they were stuck for several hours because of bad weather. Locals got out their deckchairs to watch, news crews followed and finally when the two people were rescued they went into hiding. The reason? They were married but not to each other. This was their supposed business trip. So the moral of the story: don’t have an affair on a fragile sandstone coastal area.

A few miles further down the road was Port Campbell, our base for the night and scene of a fabulous barbecue provided by Todd, the tour guide.

Full of good food and a little wine, we headed to the Twelve Apostles (there are in fact anything ranging from seven to eighteen depending on who you speak to). This was a beautiful spot to watch the sun go down.

After dusk, a few Little Penguins appeared on the beach below, waddling their way home for the night. Meanwhile, we waddled our way to the only pub in Port Campbell for a few games of pool and a couple of beers.

Day 4: The bus was a bit quieter on the second day, a few sore tired heads were among us. But the spectacular coastal scenery continued, first at Loch Ard Gorge, with some sheer cliff faces, caves and small bays.

Then it was down to Gibsons Steps, a long sweep of sand where a few of the Twelve Apostles lie in the water nearby. It was a misty morning and I guess very evocative and atmospheric.

The haze lifted somewhat so that it was clear enough to take a 10 minute helicopter flight over the coast. This offered a totally different perspective and you could see how the sea has carved out the soft sandstone. Here are a few of those Apostles again…

The landscape changed somewhat as we headed inland across the Otway Ranges, an area of cool temperate rainforest. We took a short refreshing walk through the forest at Mait’s Rest, one of the most pleasing aspects being the absence of flies which seemed to have been everywhere else along the coast. Trundling back down the hills towards the coast, and a stop for lunch at Apollo Bay, the bus then followed the coast for the next 50 km or so, winding around forested hills plunging down into the ocean below.

In order to satisfy the needs of those TV obsessed Brits (who had already done the Neighbours night in Melbourne and said Harold Bishop was a pervy old man), we stopped at a lighthouse (Splits Point lighthouse) which was the setting for a kids TV show called Round The Twist.

I don’t remember much about this show apart from the theme tune, which got stuck in everyone’s head for the rest of the day. It was in a beautiful spot though, as the blue skies and sunshine returned illuminating the lighthouse.



Time was running away from us and we had one quick stop in Torquay (yes, I know, Torquay!) where there was this unique sight of kangaroos grazing on the golf course.

Finally the road left the coast and headed back through Geelong and into Melbourne, where my long journey was not quite over, as I went back to the Dandenongs, tired yet fulfilled by a wonderful two days.