Melbourne 2014. Chapter 3: The Great Ocean Road

Let's take a moment to think about what is named Great. The Great Barrier Reef, Alexander the Great, the Great... Outdoors? Ok, that's a rubbish list. Want to know what's not rubbish? I'll tell you. The Great Ocean Road, that's what. Welcome to the meat of the series. The meatballs of a meatball sandwich. The chicken slices and croutons in a Caesar salad. The shirtless Jacob scenes in Twilight.... no, wait. Ah, welcome to Chapter 3.

Well it is called a road, and roads are meant to be driven on. This one's called the Great Ocean Road for a reason. Well firstly it runs alongside an Ocean, and secondly, it truly is Great. The Great Ocean Road runs for 243 kilometres along the south-eastern coast of Australia and is listed as an Australian National Heritage. On one side you have an ocean that spans as far as the eye can see, and on the other side you have endless green mountain ranges that evoke images from Lord of the Rings and Jurassic Park.

Zoom in for Hobbits and Dinosaurs.

The actual route and road seems like something the God of Driving (is there one?) painted onto this part of the world. If you enjoy driving and road trips in general, this is the road for you. As soon as my trusty GPS had enough of trying to find me the most remote country roads and actually spat me back out onto the Great Ocean Road, the view forced an audible "Whoa" out of my mouth. Because the mountainside winds in and out, you can see the road span out in front of you, snaking it's way down the coast and every time you get to one of these bends, you're treated to a panoramic view of the Ocean.

With a more agile car, better driving conditions and a bit more bollocks, you would have quite an adrenaline rush pinging round the bends. That is, until you inevitably run into a tourist like myself slowing down to admire the view. It takes absolutely nothing away from the drive though, no matter what speed you're going at.

The first town I passed on the Great Ocean Road was Lorne, which is a nice little seaside town mainly geared towards tourists. A few kilometres later, I ended up in Apollo Bay, the nearest town to A Room with a View. From a tourists' point of view, Apollo Bay is just one main street with the beach on one side, and a row of shops on the other. There are a few surf clothing shops, one provisions shop, a food court, a few other restaurants, and a few hotels. Apart from walking on the beach and the greenery that surrounds the area, I recommend checking out Dooley's Ice Cream and Apollo Bay Seafood Restaurant. Dooley's boasts Multi-award winning home-made ice creams including the 2013 Champion of the Australian Grand Dairy Awards. I had the honey malt flavour and the richness and creaminess of it was truly something to behold. There's also something about eating ice cream in cold weather that seems to appeal to us Asians. Apollo Bay Seafood meanwhile, like most of the seafood joints here, has fresh selections of all kinds of seafood done whichever way you want. I have never seen such a confusing array of options when ordering  Fish & Chips.

Apollo Bay Greenery.

Having passed through Apollo Bay, the 2 remaining items on my itinerary were the 12 Apostles, and the Cape Otway Lighthouse. You have a choice to make here. Either shoot straight ahead to the 12 Apostles and go to Cape Otway on the way back, or follow the natural flow and stop by Cape Otway first. I chose the first option and almost regretted it, I will tell you why later. The road from Apollo Bay to the 12 Apostles though, which is in Port Campbell, makes for a slight change of scenery compared to the earlier driving. It is still single lane driving and lots of bends, but the scenery changes to a lot more greenery as you progress inland.

A few broken speed limits and a lot of dangerous picture-taking whilst driving later, I reached the 12 Apostles. Let me get this straight out of the way. I have no idea if there really are 12, although I will trust the name and assume there are. There are nice walkways built to enjoy the view of the Apostles and Melbourne's weather reared it's head here. I had about 10 minutes of lovely sunshine for pictures and then it immediately began to rain quite heavily. 10 minutes later, the sun was out again. Fickle.

The 12 Apostles though, are amazing and truly a sight to behold. The sheer scale of them, with the ferocious ocean waves lapping at their feet make for majestic viewing. If it was not raining, and there were less tourists, I would have gladly taken a seat and just watched the waves attempt to bring them down for quite awhile, taking in the mix of crisp autumn air and salty ocean breeze. Right next to the 12 Apostles is the Gibson Steps. Here, you actually get to walk down onto the beach and marvel at the cliffs from the bottom. Not as popular as the 12 Apostles, but if you are there, I would highly recommend making a quick stop at the Gibson Steps as well, if only for a different perspective. They say a picture speaks a thousand words. Well if that were true, we wouldn't need blogs, just our Facebook albums. But anyway, enjoy some pictures of the 12 Apostles.

Taken from Gibsons Steps.

Remember how I said earlier I almost regretted not dropping by Cape Otway first? It is because the one thing that changes as quickly as the weather is the light. At 5, it was very quickly getting very dark and I found out that the Lightstation actually closes at 5. The attendant very kindly allowed me as the last guest in for the day and gave me tips on how to get to the Lightstation as quickly as possible. Do take note you have to pay a small entrance fee.

I was lucky to have just made it in time to see the Lightstation. Interesting things like the fact that it is made without any cement and all blocks are hand crafted really casts back to a time before mass production and robots. At the top, I met the lightstation master who indulged me in some small talk before allowing me out onto the viewing deck. Here, you get a true 360 degree view and I know I have used this word a little too much but it is breathtaking. You are treated to a view of the deep blue of the ocean contrasted against the vivid green of the untouched nature surroundings. I had time to snap a few pictures and within 15 minutes I was back in my car. Hopefully I didn't cause too much of a delay in closing up shop for the staff there.

After all that, my final adventure was driving back to A Room with a View. It was close to 6pm, and like I showed in the previous chapter, it is pitch black without any street lights. Add the pressure of massive SUVs blowing past you and flashing their lights, I was lucky that the sweat from my palms did not make more a flood.

So there you go, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else in between, that is my experience of the Great Ocean Road in a nutshell. There are a few more sights to see if you have a bit more time and venture further but that was all the time I had and what a great one it was. I went back, jumped in the bubble bath and prepared for the next days' 4 hour drive back to Melbourne City, which will be another massive post for the next chapter.

For more pictures, feel free to visit my Facebook album here. Alternatively, Google+ has a great “story” feature which looks great, here. And finally, I will be making a short compilation video of the pictures which will hopefully be coming soon.

As always, if you have any feedback, or just want to say hi, drop me a comment. Thank you for all the encouraging feedback I have received so far, it is all truly appreciated. Stay tuned, keep calm, and I will see you in the next one.