Day 136: Australia's Great Ocean Road

We dedicated a full day to seeing the famous Great Ocean Road, which runs along the coast beginning about an hour west of Melbourne.  The road was built by veterans between 1919 and 1932 and dedicated to soldiers that died in World War I, making it the largest war memorial in the world.  It's a beautiful coastal drive with several stops where you can see the orange cliffs drop into the wild ocean. Its most famous landmark is called the Twelve Apostles, which are limestone rock formations scattered along part of the coastline. Here is a map of the route, starting in Torquay which is about an hour outside of Melbourne.

Great Ocean Road route, courtesy of Australian Travel & Tourism Network

While most people take 2-3 days to drive the  Great Ocean Road, we decided to do it in a day. Chris is no stranger to driving long distances and felt up to the task.  For us, a day worked out well because we made many stops along the way which really broke up the drive.  We left Melbourne at 8:30am and returned around 9:30pm.  Here is the route the we took:

Torquay & Bells Beach
Apollo Bay (lunch)
Cape Ottway National Park (koala spotting)
Twelve Apostles
Loch and Gorge & Thunder Cave
London Arch & London Bridge
Back to Twelve Apostles for sunset
Departed Port Campbell for Melbourne via the A1 highway which runs north of the coast

Here is what we saw along the way:

Bells Beach

Sad little surfer at Bells Beach

12 Apostles

12 Apostles (looking away from the rock formations)

Looking for wild koalas in Cape Ottway. We spotted three!

Seedlings near London Bridge

London Arch

Farmland along the way

Chris found a spot to watch the sunset over the 12 Apostles

It was the perfect place!

The 12 Apostles at sunset was the best part of the day.