This is supposed to be the most scenic drive in the world or so the locals will have you believe. We set out to the Great Ocean Road, early in the morning.
It takes us about 1.5 hrs to get to Torquay, the start of the drive. Torquay is renowned for its surfing beaches and as we stand along the cliffs, we see loads of people trying to catch that perfect wave. We have no intention of testing out our surfing skills - although its sunny, its quite cool today and the water must be pretty chilly. But the views from our vantage point are amazing and as we drive along this ocean road we’re very impressed by the sights.
The water is super blue and the rocky cliffs glimmer in the sun. We make several stops at lookout points along the road and take an enormous about of photos.
At around 3pm we arrive in Lorne, a sleepy beachside town along the ocean road. This is where we’re staying for the night because its pretty much the halfway point of our journey. We stay at the hotel in a tiny windowless room, which we were lucky to get on such short notice as its school holidays and everywhere is packed. Outside the room, the hotel is pretty nice, we sit out on the veranda, overlooking the ocean. Life is good.
The next morning, we wake up early and head off down further down the ocean road. It’s a scorcher today and we’re thankful for the cool a/c breeze. This part of the road is as scenic as yesterday but after 30 mins, the road veers off the coast and heads inland. It’s a nice shady drive through the forest and we are on the lookout for kangaroos. We still haven’t seen any and there are signs everywhere saying to watch out for them crossing the road. But alas we make it through the forest without seeing a single roo. We’re not too disappointed though because we managed to spot a family of koala bears sleeping in the trees. (well we actually spotted a few people on the side of the road with their cameras pointed up towards the trees) These bears are as cute in real life as they are in photos, but they’ve got some monster claws on them, so we decide not to try and cuddle them.
The road winds back onto the coast and we finally get to the apex of our journey…the twelve apostles!
There are only 6 or 7 rocks left that form the 12 apostles and I don’t think there were ever really 12, but we can’t stop and read the info boards because there are swarms of flys everywhere. It’s so bad, some discerning tourists are wearing fly nets on their heads. We literally have to use our hands as swatters in order to stop flies from landing in our eyes. We spend 5 mins at the look out points, take a couple quick photos of us swatting flys, and then run back to the car. This is where we have to eat or picnic lunch. Lovely.
We make a couple more stops to check out view points along the great ocean road and then turn onto the freeway and head back to Melbourne.
