Great Ocean Road

Every time I've come to Melbourne I've wanted to drive the Great Ocean Road, but have always been sidetracked by activities in the city, namely shopping, eating, drinking and watching shows.

Now that I'm living here, I really have no excuse, so one beautifully sunny Saturday, S and I went down to Budget in Richmond and picked up a car for a mini roadie down the coast.

Driving in Melbourne is a little challenging with the hook turns (pull into the left hand lane to turn right?!), u-turns and trams to contend with, but we managed to get out of the city, over the Westgate Bridge and onto the 3-lane (or as S calls them "three way" highways, haha) highway with the city fading away behind us.  Now I know I haven't had the most stressful of recent months (apart from job-hunting), but it's always nice getting out of the big smoke and escaping to the country for a drive... and boy was it a long one.

After stopping for lunch at a real truck stop, we past Geelong and headed down to Torquay.  Torquay is home to head officies of some of the biggest of Australian surf brands and their retail shops... and not much else.  Can't say I'd rush back.  Angelesea and Aireys Inlet; the next two bays along, were charming and quaint by comparison, but still boasted some beautiful big coastal homes.  Wouldn't mind spending a weekend there!  The Split Point Lighthouse provided some good lookouts as well.

Lorne was a little bigger although not as pretty.  For the next few dozen kms after that, it's just winding coastal and clifftop road and deserted beaches.  It's not quite summer here yet, but I could imagine it would be nice in December/Jan to have your pick of beaches and have it to yourself for an afternoon of picnicing, swimming, beach bats and lazing about.  Bliss!

Our goal was to make it to the Twelve Apostles cliffside road formations, having heard so much about these natural wonders.  So we pressed on.  After Apollo Bay; a beautifully calm, long sandy beach, we turned inland through the Cape Ottway National Park and some farmland, which weirdly enough, in parts, reminded me of New Zealand and the drive down to Mt Ruapehu from Auckland.  Finally got back to the coast, drove through Princetown and made it to the 12 Apostles.  I wasn't expecting to be blown away, but these rock formations are incredible!  A result of thousands of years of cliff erosion, they really are breathtaking.  The cliffside erodes at a rate of roughly 2cm per year so thinking about how long they took to form and how many years they've withstood the power of the ocean crashing against them really is awe inspiring.

Some pics:

Well worth the 9 hour round-trip!