Great Ocean Road
I’ve spent the last two days taking a tour of the great ocean road on the South coast of Victoria. Most people who take a tour of this do it in one day, which after taking the (recommended) two day version I can’t imagine doing it all in one day.
The Trip:
Day 1, the drive started at 7am. A few hours of driving inland to reach the far end of the great ocean road. Driving through flat dry farmland, nothing to see there. Driving to the far end of the road from Melbourne first instead of doing the traditional route meant that the whole time, none of our stops were packed full of other tour buses. In fact most were pretty devoid of anyone but our small (20) group. Anyway, once we reached the far end of the road the first site of the coast was this. Logans beach.
Not bad as a starter eh? Next was back inland a bit to a wildlife reserve with Koalas and Kangaroos.
Then we were driving along the shipwreck coast (named for, duh, the amount of shipwrecks that happened here), seeing the bay of islands and the bay of martyrs with high cliffs and stranded rock formations offshore. Very windy, that and the vegetation reminded me of the South coast of New Zealand.
The main stop along this section of coast is the “12 apostles” rock formations. (Purely a marketing term, and there’s actually 13). We got there for the sunset, which wasn’t one of the spectacular ones there but was still nice.
Next morning we got started out at 7:30am, off to see the London Bridge formation and then on to a gorge where a famous shipwreck occurred with only 2 people surviving out of nearly 60. This gorge has several caves, a wonderful sheltered shady beach and high cliffs all around. Quite beautiful.
After that it was back to the 12 apostles, this time in full daylight.
We then drove through the green coast, seeing some rain-forest. Something I had no idea existed in the part of the country. Complete with the largest tree ferns I’ve seen on this trip by far.
The last section of the drive was the surf coast, this is the original part of the great ocean road with the design apparently based on US highway 1 the Pacific hgwy. I drove along that in September and the roads are similar. The road hugs the ocean all the rest of the way, with stunning overlooks around most corners. Beach after great looking beach, stunning coastline. The shades of blues and greens in the water are amazing along here. One stretch of this coast line also has so many Koalas that we saw 10+ in the trees just driving through on the bus without stopping.
The drive along the whole coastline is about 250km, and like I said before I can’t imagine doing it in one day. There’s so many stops, My group spent 2 long days seeing stuff, we didn’t stop at everything but we did plenty and had time to explore quite a few spots. Excellent tour and guide. This being the first real travel I’ve done since I’ve been in Melbourne, it was very refreshing to be exploring again, around (a great group of) travelers currently in the traveling process and making new friends. A great change from the sloth like behavior of many of the residents at my hostel in the city here. I took several hundred pictures over the 2 days, I’ll sign off with this classic image of Australia….
Tags: Australia, Travel
Adam
That is so cool! I love the ocean! You are taking some great pictures on this trip too!
::Caitlyn::
thanks for that, I love taking pics, can’t believe my cameras dead now! uughhh
Amazing coastline!! And great pictures – sorry to hear about your camera, hope you find one that is just as good.
Hey, very nice photos, and this place look incredible…..:)