Great Ocean Road - Australia (what to do?)

I lived in Melbourne for a year ...... one of the most beautiful drives in the world.
Just drive it and soak it all in.

Melbourne is a world class city ... enjoy it.

I'll be checking in on this - we're going over Thanksgiving and plan on doing 3 days on Hamilton Island then 4-5 day road trip along the Great Ocean Rd.

It was a fantastic road trip. (no pics in this review cause I don't know how to post them)

You can do the whole thing as quickly or as slowly as you want. One day, three days... whatever.

We started off on the eastern point of the Great Ocean Road in Torquay (after a three-night bachelor party camping out just north of Wye River), but we really wanted to start our drive from the west and head east. So we did. We took the inland highways around to the 12 Apostles.

On the way, we drove past a cute little farm called Apostles Whey Cheese Farm. They had a sign out front that said free cheese tasting - yes, please!

We stopped and talked to the people there for a bit. They had just won some first place medal for their brie. We tried their brie, camembert, garlic something and a few others. It was delicious. So I bought all of them. I take all the cheese.

We drove on to the 12 Apostles and it was gorgeous. We hiked down to the Gibson Steps which provide access to the beach. The waves were enormous and violent, and the wind was whipping up something fierce. The rock formations jut out from the sea in awesome fashion. We brought our cheese with us and sat on some rocks, ate cheese, drank a beer and took it all in.

We then walked back to the Visitor Center and took the trail out to the overlooks. Again, the views are spectacular.

Next, we drove west a bit more to see the Loch Ard Gorge. It doesn't get as much fanfare as the 12 Apostles, but it's certainly a sight to behold. I highly recommend it.

While there is more to see farther west, we needed to start heading back east. The bride didn't give us as much time to explore as we had hoped. My wife and I traveled all the way around the world and she was held hostage by bridezilla, and all we wanted to do was see Australia. Aaaaanyway...

The next couple of hours of driving is inland - very hilly and curvy. At one point, I pulled over because the girls in the backseat got a little car sick. We looked up and there was a koala in the tree over us. I'm not kidding. What a place to pull over! I tried to act like I had seen it prior to pulling over, but that was a lie.

We continued on our drive until we got to Apollo Bay. We stopped at the Great Ocean Road Brewhouse and had a drink. They weren't serving food, so we walked down the street to a great Chinese restaurant and then went back to the brewery and had a few more drinks.

We did some shopping at some of the touristy shops along the strip (you know - boomerangs, koala backpacks for my daughters, T-shirts, hats, etc).

Then we drove just past Apollo Bay to Petticoat Creek where the coolest little... well, hippie village, called the Kookaburra Cottages (booked on airbnb). My wife and I booked The Beach and had our own private cottage, deck area, grassy area, hammock, hot tub/spa room, etc. all overlooking the beach. The owners are great and made our stay even more interesting.

The next morning we continued the beautiful drive along the coast and stopped at the Kafe Koala near Kennett River. We got some coffees and then took a stroll along the adjacent street where there are always koalas in the trees (hence the name of the cafe). We saw about five koalas, took some pictures, soaked in the sun for a bit, and then continued our drive.

By the way, the drive itself is spectacular. Maybe not as dramatic as the Pacific Coast Highway, but still a worthy sight.

We continued on and made a nice stop in Lorne. Did some shopping. Had some great pizza at Pizza Pizza (I think that was the name).

And then it was time for us to head to Melbourne to prepare for the wedding festivities. We finished the Great Ocean Road passing up Anglesea and finally got to Torquay before heading northeast on the M1 for some great food and a cool setting in Melbourne.

quote:

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Bells Beach

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Beautiful.

We stopped at Bells Beach on our way from Jan Juc to the campsite where we held the bachelor party (just north of Wye River). It was about two hours after we landed in Melbourne, and of course I wanted to see kangaroos.

Whattayknow - across the road from the beach there was a large field with about 40 kangaroos. It was perfect. My friend (an Aussie) pulled over and we took a bunch of videos.