Melbourne - Part 3: The Great Ocean Road

We spent the last full day of our Melbourne trip on a bus tour of the Great Ocean Road.  Ironically, shortly before moving to Australia, I saw a photo of the Twelve Apostles (which is a landmark on the Great Ocean Road), and I immediately added seeing it to my bucket list.  I never thought I would see it just a few months later!  Because of this, I had been super excited about our tour of the Great Ocean Road! 

The Great Ocean Road is a stretch of road along the southeastern coast of Australia- somewhat similar to the Pacific Coast Highway. The road is narrow and twisty, but it travels right along what I can honestly say is probably one of the most beautiful coastlines I have ever seen.  There are also lots of famous landmarks and beaches along the way.  You can read more about the history of the road here- like how it was built by soldiers returning from WWI, among other interesting facts. 

Here is a map of the road in its entirety:

We "only" went from Melbourne (just east of Geelong on the map) to Port Campbell- but even this was a full day trip (7:30 AM to 9:30 PM).  We opted to take a guided bus tour, which is the type of thing I usually try to avoid, but we had heard good things about these tours and it was actually really nice to not have to worry about driving ourselves and to have someone with us who could tell us all the interesting facts about the road and the sights we were seeing.  Highly recommend. 

Although the beaches and coastline were amazingly beautiful, there are actually only a few spots where the beaches are "safe" for swimmers.  This coast is known for very rough and dangerous waters and is often called the "shipwreck coast."  You can't tell from many of the pictures, but the water really was very rough and almost ominous looking. 

Our route was as follows:
-Geelong
-Torquay (home to the famous Bells Beach)
-Anglesea
-Lorne
-Apollo Bay
-Port Campbell

But enough of my jabber- here are the amazing photos that don't even begin to do it justice:

Torquay - home to Bells Beach, famous surfing beach:

The waves weren't very good this day (as you can see there are no surfers), but apparently people come from all around the world to surf this beach. 

Anglesea - cute little beach town:

Lorne - another adorable little beach/vacation town:

On this day, they were holding a Juniors Lifeguard competition- that's what all the crowds on the beach are there for.

Just outside of Lorne was a rest stop/ cafe area that had tons of these wild birds and koalas just hanging out in the trees.

Apollo Bay - Home to beautiful beaches and the Otway rainforest:



Apollo Bay

Mait's Rest is an area with several beautiful hikes you can take through a temperate rain forest.

It was neat to hear that this rainforest has been around since the time of the dinosaurs!  Our guide kept telling us that how it looks now is probably very similar to how it looked when dinosaurs roamed through.  Crazy!

Port Campbell (home to the Twelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge, and London Bridge):

The Twelve Apostles!

 

 

 

Loch Ard Gorge

 

The water was fuh-reeeeezing cold!

 

London Bridge

 

One of the arches of the London Bridge collapsed in 1990. There's a neat story that goes along with it about a couple that was having an affair and decided to spend the day on the furthest point- of course on the day that it collapsed.  So the two were stuck out there- caught red-handed! What are the odds?