2nd February 2010
Our first stop this morning was Avis to pick up our hire car for the next 3 days in order to drive up the Great Ocean Road from Melbourne to Adelaide. Having successfully retrieved the car it was back to the apartment to load up our kit and check out. With all the jobs done we headed out of Melbourne picking up Andy along the way, who was going to join us for the first leg of the trip to Warrnambool, and after a few wrong turns we eventually made it out of the city and onto the freeway heading west towards the start of the Great Ocean Road.
The Great Ocean Road is a 243 km stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and Warrnambool. The road was constructed to provide work for returning soldiers and dedicated as a Memorial to those killed in the First World War. It is one of Australia’s great scenic coastline drives.
About an hour after leaving Melbourne we arrived in Torquay where we stopped to admire the beach, before heading a little further down the coast to the even more impressive Bells Beach, home of the world’s longest-running surfing competition – the Rip Curl Pro Surf & Music Festival.
At Airey’s Inlet where the pretty Split Point Lighthouse with its red cap overlooks the town. A short bush walk down from the lighthouse took us out to the point with more views of the coast.
Back on the road, we passed under the Memorial Arch commemorating those that built the road, stopping for the obligatory photo, where Andy was a little more daring than we were, before heading on to Lorne for a bite to eat. After lunch, we continued along the great Ocean Road where the steep cliffs provided ample stopping points for great coastal vistas.
On one particularly tight hairpin bend, we passed a couple of people looking up into a tree and pointing. Anxious to see what the fuss was about we pulled over and were rewarded by seeing several koalas hanging from the trees, lazily eyeing the tourists and wondering what all the fuss was about. We spent a good 20 minutes here just watching these cuddly creatures.
The road continued through eucalypt bush and back out to the sea eventually arriving at the Twelve Apostles. These awe-inspiring formations just off the coast are gigantic limestone pillars, some rising 65m out of the ocean which retreat in rows as stark reminders of the power of the sea with the cliff faces eroding at about 2cm a year. We parked at the visitors centre and walked through a tunnel under the road to the lookout points along the clifftop. A magical and memorable view. We were fairly late getting here so luckily we missed the crowds and although sunset was still a way out, we were treated to a changing light so there were many photos!
After the Twelve Apostles we visited Loch Ard Gorge, named after a ship called the Loch Ard that sank here on its way to Melbourne from England, only 2 people survived. The gorge is surrounded by fantastic rock formations, such as an archway and the razorback cliff.
By now, it was getting fairly late and we still had a fair distance to travel before our stop for the night at Warrnambool, so our final stop was London Bridge. Tourists were once able to walk across the double-arched formation, but in January 1990 the span of the first arch collapsed leaving just the archway in the ocean. Another picturesque view on the Great Ocean Road.
We eventually reached Warnambool around 8pm where we decided pizza and beer followed by cheesecake would be a fitting end to a very full day.