We left Melbourne on Friday evening for a couple of days exploring the Great Ocean Road (GOR) which heads along the coast from south of Melbourne in the direction of Adelaide. Our route would take us along the coast about 300 km to Port Campbell, before turning to return to Melbourne along the inland route, a total of about 550 km over three days. The highlights of the trip were the stay at the Cape Otway Lightstation, and the spectacular "Twelve Apostles" rock pillars near Port Campbell.
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| Our route showing Melbourne up at top right, Cape Otway at the lowest point. |
Out first night was not far from Melbourne in Geelong (with a soft "G" I believe), the second largest city in the state of Victoria, with about 250,000 people. As we often discover when visiting somewhere in Australia for the first time it is much larger than we had expected. There were palms along the waterfront giving it a tropical look but it was a very chilly 14 degrees. We had clear, cold weather which we thought is pretty good for this time of year.
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| Geelong Waterfront at dusk. |
Next morning our first stop along the road was at Torquay, our first encounter with the actual south coast of Victoria. We were surprised to find a surfing town with extensive beaches, and plenty of old guys out surfing even in this crisp weather. The waves were a good height for learners or some gentle practice. We lunched in the town centre at morning tea time, trying to stay on NZ time as far as possible.
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| Sue enjoying the view from "Danger Point" at Torquay. |
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| Surfers at Torquay. |
Further along the coast at Aireys Inlet we missed the hourly lighthouse tour by a couple of minutes. There were quite of lot of other tourists on the road seemingly following the same route, so the driving was slow, and the carpark at the lighthouse was full. At least we had a beautiful clear day!
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| Split Point Lighthouse, at Aireys Inlet (Not Cape Otway!) |
There were many stop/go roadworks along the coast, with heavy machinery working on numerous locations where the bank above or below the road needed work, reducing the road to single lane. Reminded me of the Kaikoura coastal road. There are many large, architectural houses along the coast built for expansive views out over the ocean - perhaps weekend places for the better-off folk from Melbourne?
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| Home with a view! |
We passed through a nice little town called Lorne, with a bay and beach tucked in behind a headland, and agreed we come back there for a holiday one day! It felt like a holiday sort of place.
At Apollo Bay the highway leaves the coast, and does not return to it for 80 km (apart for a brief moment at Glenaire). We stopped for a cup of tea, aware that this is the nearest place to Cape Otway where we could buy a meal. With that in mind we had stocked up on something for dinner and breakfast at the supermarket back in Geelong.
I had expected the Great Ocean Road to stick much more to the shoreline. From Apollo Bay it winds up into the hills through tall forested areas, in the middle of which is the turn-off to Cape Otway where would spend the night.
