Victoria - Great Ocean Road

One of the draws to Melbourne is it’s “proximity” to the Great Ocean Road. We thought it was close to Melbourne (to the west), so we planned to do this drive and then head over to the Mornington Peninsula for dinner, or even drive back round passed Melbourne (heading east) over towards Lakes Entrance. However, upon further investigation we found the Great Ocean Road is over 100ks from Melbourne and the road itself is about 200ks!!!

So we decided to set out early and picked the car up at 8:30am. Loading up the car was quick and easy, and Marc just popped inside to pick up a cup of tea and toast which Evelyn was getting from the kitchen. After being no more than 2 minutes, Marc came out to find a parking ticket being written. We didn’t know where to park, or not, so were a bit unlucky that we chose one of the only places you couldn’t stop ;(

A bit disheartened at being A$107 light in the wallet, we began our drive, and made it to the start of the Great Ocean Road by 10am. The drive basically follows the ocean and is mostly a coastal drive, with lots of nice views.

We stopped for lunch in the little town of Apollo Bay which is the only town of note along the drive. We found a nice little café so stopped for a pie (standard Aussie lunch). From here we stopped off on a dirt track that leads to a lighthouse, they wanted to charge a bit for entry so we just drove back, also with our time being short we couldn't really spend the 2 hours walking around the lighthouse. On our way along the road we spotted some koalas, they were quite cute, just sitting among the trees, just chilled.

The drive gets a bit more interesting now as we reached the start of the 12 Apostles by walking down the Gibson Steps, these were quite slippery but we managed to get some views of the Apostels from the beach. This was pretty cool and you could really appreciate the sheer largeness of them by looking up.

When we got to the official viewing point for the 12 Apostels it was raining a bit but this only added to the scenery – the rock pillars come out of the ocean having once been attached to the mainland, but due to weatherential erosion the rocks have collapsed, leaving these pillars. There are also blow holes and rock bridges, which are the beginning of “apostles”. Despite the name, there are not 12 anymore (we only counted 11), due to the collapsing of old ones and forming of new apostles, this number changes constantly.

We could have probably done with stopping over here for the night, to explore further up the road, but as the apostles were the main highlight, we decided to begin our drive back towards Melbourne. As the weather was bucketing down, we decided to head towards Queenscliffe and catch the ferry over to Mornington Peninsular in the morning, rather than take the long drive around Melbourne. As it was heavy rain, any ideas of camping to save money, were quickly ruled out, so luckily we managed to get a cabin at Barwon Heads.

The guy here was so friendly and helpful, and he recommended a nice chippy down the road. Nice idea, but it was shut when we arrived (7:30 on a Saturday – go figure!!) so we decided on pizza. This was one of the best pizza's we have had, and timed it just right so arrived by the beach with our takeaway just as the sun was setting ;D