Travel: GREAT OCEAN ROAD, AUSTRALIA

After my beautiful time in Melbourne and it's surrounding areas (read about them here), it was about time I headed out of cities and back into nature. What better way than charting off on a three day adventure through some of Australia’s most beautiful landscapes? So here we go – the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians.

Collected from central Melbourne, myself and the small group tour I would be spending the next few days with set off out into the great unknown. Now, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Australia or not, but it’s pretty massive, meaning that it was going to take us some time to even get in the vicinity of where we were going. As a result, this meant plenty of breaks at picturesque locations en route!

Our first stop was Torquay, the town in which Ripcurl was born. Victoria has plenty of surfing towns like this, so it’s no surprise that surfing brands like Ripcurl and Billabong have their origins here. I stopped for avocado toast and an iced chocolate (one of Australia’s greatest inventions) at Mavis Mavis, before taking a walk along the nearby beach in the morning sun.

Back on the bus, we carried on until we reached a photo stop for the beginning of the Great Ocean Road – a big sign towering over the road which we were lucky enough to reach just before a big tour bus pulled up!

Next up was Apollo Bay, a popular beachside town where we stopped for a picnic lunch and the option to check out the nearby souvenir shops and beach. I’m hoping I’ll be able to spend some timing living in Victoria in the not too distant future, but I must remember to pack some warmer clothes because it certainly was rather chilly whilst I was there!

We took a break from the beach to visit the rainforest in Melba Gully where we took a rather rainy walk through the trees to a small waterfall. This part of the journey brought back sweet memories of Hawaii (read about that here) where I visited a similar beautiful rainforest which was certainly equally slippy and wet as this one!

Our final destination of the day was the main attraction along the GOR – the Twelve Apostles, rock formations that stick up from the sea alongside a picturesque beach. What I found particularly interesting is that there is not, and never has been twelve structures. There have only ever been nine rock structures, and one has fallen down, meaning that there’s actually only eight apostles! The more you know!

We took a walk along the boardwalk to get some great views of the monuments and (attempt to) take photos in the raging wind. In spite of the grey and rainy weather, it was still undoubtedly beautiful, and I can only imagine how lovely it looks on a sunny day.

We headed to the tiny town of Princetown which is home to little more than our hostel for the night, the 13^th Apostle; and a campground. Cosy. We dropped our bags off and then had free time before dinner. What to do? Go in search of kangaroos of course! We took a walk down into the valley and found a pack of kangaroos happily munching the grass – a lovely and peaceful moment to observe.

By the time we’d finished dinner, the sun had just about started peeking through the clouds, so you’d best believe that we hurried back to the Twelve Apostles to watch the sunset. This was incredibly beautiful, with insane purple hues unlike any sunsets I’d seen before. The only disadvantage? It was utterly freezing which made taking my usual timelapses more difficult than usual since I couldn’t feel my fingers, but the outcome was certainly worth it.

It was tough getting out of my toasty bed the next morning but we had a full day of activities ahead of us. Up first was Loch Ard Gorge, named after the ship which ran aground there in 1878. The gorge is famed for the story of passenger Tom Pearce who survived the wreck and pulled himself ashore in the gorge, and subsequently rescued fellow passenger Eva Carmichael from certain death after hearing her cries from the ocean. Eva was so traumatised by the experience that she only ended up staying in Australia for three months before returning home to Ireland. The story remains, as does the cave where Tom and Eva took shelter, so we had the opportunity to explore and watch the treacherous waves come crashing in.

Next up was London Bridge, a natural bridge which used to be connected to the land, the link to which collapsed in 1990 leaving two tourists stranded atop it and requiring helicopter rescue. For obvious reasons, tourists have no way of getting on top now so the bridge is best admired from afar.

The next stop was my favourite – The Grotto. Wandering down a steep set of stairs, you arrive at a natural window looking out on the ocean. It really did look like something out of a fairytale, and I could happily have spent even longer watching the waves roll in and out.

Alas, we had places to be, and carried on to Tower Hill volcano (why are so many of the places down here named after London tube stations?) where we had a short walk in search of koalas and then cooked up some lunch on the park barbeques, accompanied by some friendly emus who were keen to help us with our lunch.

We had a brief cultural break at Brambuk cultural centre where we were given free time to wander around the informative centre to learn about Aboriginal culture and history in the area. Next up was Mackenzie Falls, a beautiful waterfall which I was a bit disheartened to see had become effectively an ‘Instagram location’ – visitors would walk down to the falls, take a photo in front of them, and then leave without even taking a moment to admire the falls. I don’t deny that I’m a victim of this too, but I like to think I also appreciate the landscape for what it is too!

We were staying in the town of Halls Gap that evening, so I had a quick walk into town to check out the craft fair taking place, before heading back for dinner. No sunset to head to that evening, but we had a surprise in store the next day…

We woke up early and hopped in the van in the dark to make our way to Pinnacles. A twenty minute walk brought us to a viewpoint with amazing views over the Grampians, and this is where we perched ourselves to watch the sunrise. I’m a big fan of sunrises (when I can be bothered to get up to watch them) so watching the first rays and then the glowing ball itself appear over the horizon was really quite special.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to wait much longer and continued on our hike up to the highest point, with a windy viewpoint to take in the early morning light, before we retraced our steps and headed back down to the carpark.

The rest of the day was spent in the van as we drove along the highways towards Adelaide and the end of our tour. I was indeed due to spend a few days exploring Adelaide and the surrounding areas at the end of this tour, but as circumstances would have it, had to leave earlier than expected – let’s hope I’ll be able to return to Adelaide at some point soon to see what that lovely city has in store!  

Thank you for reading about my trip along the Great Ocean Road! I can't wait to get back to Australia to do some more exploring - do you have any recommendations for where I should add to my bucket list? I'd love to hear - drop me a message in the comments below or on Twitter @CiarasCountry, where you can also stay up to date with all of my upcoming travel blogs!