Before leaving to Australia, my friend Julian told me “There is a very nice long road trip along the coastline in Australia… hmm… I don’t remember what’s the name of the road.”

“It’s the easiest name to remember, you meant The Great Ocean Road right? The most straightforward aka non-creative name of the road.”

Then when I back from Australia, my friend Evelyn asked me the places I visited in Australia. So I told her “I visited The Great Ocean Road.”

Evelyn then replied “Wow… the road must be great. What’s the name of the road?”

-_-”

Anyway, as the name depicts, it’s the greatest ocean road in Australia with the most spectacular scenic view along the beautiful coastlines. Stretching 243 kilometre along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and Warrnambool, The Great Ocean Road was built as a work project for veterans returning from World War I and was completed in 1932.

The beautiful coastline

Newly bought hat from Australia, love it so much!

We started our road trip early in the morning from Melbourne drove along The Great Ocean Road to Apolla Bay. There are so many sights along the coast to keep you occupied during the road trip. Information boards exist at all sights and attractions. So if you’re traveling without any tour guide or road map, no worries, you basically don’t need them. You can fully dependent on the information boards along the road.

First pit stop at Cape Patton

While charting the southern coast of Australia in 1800, Captain Grant RN named this cape after a British admiral. The Cape Patton cliffs, some of the highest on the Victorian coast are embedded with 106 million year old dinosaur bones in the rock layers of sandstone, siltstone and mudstone. 75 metres above wave lashed rocks the road offers spectacular views extending to Apollo Bay in the west and Aireys Inlet in the north-east.

In 1935 the GOR Trust built this final section of the road from Wye River to Cape Patton which linked to the road from Apollo Bay built in 1919 by the CRB. Construction on the cliff face was an amazing engineering feat with the road supported by tonnes of boulders and scree removed from the hillside.

It was absolutely refreshing with a gentle breeze caressing my face

It would be perfect to drive an open roof ocean blue car (to match the color of the sky and the ocean) with a few good buddies and enjoy a few hours breezy drive along the coast.  If I stayed in Australia, I don’t mind doing it every weekend. The weather was just so great that you don’t have a chance to sweat at all. On the contrary, open roof in Malaysia? I gonna sweat like pig.

There are a lot of pretty houses along the road. Most of the houses are built like glass house to offer unblocked view of the ocean. Guess most of the houses are for vacation use, as I could hardly spot human.

Cows and sheep are everywhere. As long as there are grasses, there are cows and sheep, and no human. Seriously, except the tourists that stopped by at the attraction places, I basically didn’t see human.

Apollo Bay Hotel for lunch

We reached Apolla Bay after about 3 hours drive to get our lunch. I was told that fish and chips is the specialty in Australia (I never know fish and chips can make it to receive the honour of  being called ‘specialty’), so I ordered fish and chips.

The fish was very fresh. But it was still made of flour and fish, can’t tell how special they were.

After the lunch, I took a stroll around Apollo Bay and enjoyed the cold weather and the extremely blue sky. I really love blue sky, it made me feel so energetic and lively that I almost wanted to climb the tree to burn out my energy.

Driving in Australia is relatively easy.  Most of the Australian cars are equipped with GPS navigator. The roads in Australia are pretty simple and straightforward that you could hardly go wrong with GPS. Unlike here in Malaysia, the fly over overlaps each other is common scene. It’s easy to take the wrong exit to the fly over by following the navigation in GPS.

The Great Ocean Road is well developed with regular restaurants, accommodation and fuel.  Also check out some of Victoria’s most spectacular views from lookout points and viewing platforms along the Great Ocean Road. You can even plan to have one or two days stay in the towns. We didn’t stay in Victoria though; we headed straight to Geelong, Victoria’s second largest city, and spent a night there. The accommodation in Geelong is relatively cheaper since it’s off the tourism place.

Next, we gonna visit 12 Apostles and I will write up the post soon.

Related External Links:

• The Great Ocean Road official website
• Melbourne and Victoria website
• Tourism Australia
• Accommodation in Apollo Bay
• Transportation in Victoria