Great Ocean Road

We had managed to fit in a day trip to part of the Great Ocean Road when my parents & Katherine were here in December, but we were still keen to see more of it and so last weekend we decided that it was time for a road trip. Our little car is doing us proud, and all I can say is thank goodness for air conditioning! Temperatures when we left Melbourne on Friday were already in the 30s, and stayed that way for much of the weekend.

Although the Great Ocean Road drive is described as an easy trip from Melbourne, it is only really close by Australian standards! It took us about 4.5 hours to drive to Warrnambool along the most direct road - it's more along the winding Ocean Road - whilst on the map it all looks very close together. We stayed the night at a nice motel, had some great seafood for dinner (well, at least I did) and started on our way back along the ocean route on Saturday morning.

After passing through Peterborough (a bit different from your version J&V!), we stopped at a series of lookout points all with gorgeous views. The most famous is the 12 apostles which we reached early afternoon. Although you can't see 12 of them any more as some of them are obscured and the sea is constantly eroding the rock, it is a very beautiful sight. What's left of London Bridge (see 1st photo below) is also really impressive; it used to join the mainland until part of the "bridge" collapsed in 1990, leaving 2 unfortunate tousists temporarily stranded on the newly formed island! We also passed through a lot of forest throughout the day, beautiful in its own right but it is definitely not an ocean road in many parts.

We went for a dip in the ocean when we reached our stop for the night, Apollo Bay, which was a much needed opportunity to cool down. We stayed the night at the Eco Lodge YHA, an interesting new hostel designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible. After heading out for some fish & chips (had to be done) we watched a film on the hostel's huge plasma TV - not sure on the energy consumption angle there... Hostels here seem to be pretty posh, and a double room can cost as much as an en suite motel room! We will have to be a bit creative on our accommodation choices as we travel in Australia, as we were definitely more than a little bit spoilt with South American prices.

The winding drive from Apollo Bay to Lorne on Sunday morning was one of the prettiest sections of the route. I tried to take photos from the car with limited success, but the one below should give you an idea. It was still blue skies all the way and as we reached the beaches closer to Melbourne (including the famous Bells Beach) it was clear that the surfers were out in force. When we stopped at Lorne beach just before Christmas it was pretty much deserted, but this time you couldn't even find a parking space!

We returned to the city mid afternoon and having got the travel bug back immediately started planning our next trips. We have just booked to go to Sydney then Brisbane late March/early April, and aiming to fit in some shorter trips in the meantime...