28. The Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road is one of Australia’s most iconic coastal drives, stretching 240 kilometers along Victoria’s rugged south-west coastline from Torquay to Allansford.

Although it is a popular day trip from Melbourne, we decided to rent a car & take the route at our leisure. We enjoyed the dramatic cliffs, pristine beaches, and charming seaside towns along the coast.
Some of the highlights include:

The 12 Apostles in Port Campbell
A series of limestone sea stacks rising from the ocean. Funnily, there were never twelve stacks, only nine, and now seven remain due to natural erosion. Is the name just a marketing gimmick to foster interest? We saw so many stunning rock formations - this did not rank among the best for sheer physical beauty.

Loch Ard Gorge
A gorge of towering cliffs around a secluded beach, this area was named after the clipper ship Loch Ard that crashed in 1878

London Bridge in Port Campbell
A bridge made by natural rock formation, the center of which collapsed unexpectedly in 1990, thus yielding the phrase London Bridge is Falling Down.

Kennett River
We took a walk along one of the nature trails here where it was advertised that we might see a koala in the wild - which we did! It was sleeping - not surprising as the leaves they eat supply insufficient nutrition to them, thus resulting in 20 hours of sleep per day.

At one point we detoured off the coast to spend the night in Otways rainforest. Our research said Lake Elizabeth in the park might provide the rare opportunity to see platypus, which usually come out at dawn or dusk, so, after all day in the car, we braved another hour to track down the Lake Elizabeth trail & search for the holy grail. And we were rewarded for our efforts. My pic is not the greatest, but we saw it and felt surprisingly elated.

The 2 days of driving felt so long, but the breathtaking beauty of the experience was worth it.Read more