Great Ocean Road.... ALLLLLLL the way to Adelaide

After some great time exploring Melbourne and catching up with the hostess with the mostest Marci and her boyfriend Kristian we were ready to make the next leg of our journey.  We were off to the great ocean road and then on to Adelaide to catch up with some of my family. After much trial and turmoil trying to get a rental car, due to unfortunate dealings with “Adam” from the Campervan Relocation company, we were finally able to secure one with Avis instead (probably the most expensive rental ever) and took the 45 min ride outside the city to pick it up Thursday so we could hit the road first thing Friday morning.

The alarm bells rang at 5:30 am and we were on the road by 6:00 to make it to the town of Torquay for breakfast.  Torquay marks the beginning of the great ocean road and is famous for begin considered the “birthplace of surfing” (according to some anyway) as well as housing the headquarters and factory outlets for all the major Aussie surf brands, Roxy, Rip Curl, Quicksilver, etc. We stopped and had a quick breakfast in Torquay while waiting for all the shops and the tourist info centre to open at 9am. After a quick browse around the shops and a very informative visit to the info centre we hit the road for our 2^nd stop of the day just 15 mins down the road – Bells Beach.  Bells beach is the home of the Rip Curl pro, one of the biggest and the longest running surf competition in the world, which they were setting up for while we were there.  It is also known for its amazing waves….not for the faint of heart surfer.  Unfortunately it was a bit foggy when we arrived but we explored the beach from the overlying cliffs for a while and watched the surfers catch the early morning wave (well late morning I guess in the surf world) before heading back on the road.

Set up underway for the Rip Curl Pro

Surfer's strolling on Bells Beach

Surfer catching at wave at Bells

As we made our way down the road towards the town of Lorne the fog started to clear and it turned into the most amazing sunny day that we could ask for, just in time to reveal the amazing scenery along the road. The landscape and the drive really reminded me of the Highway 1 drive in California around Big Sur.  Never ending winding roads lined by rugged coast line and amazing ocean vistas. With scenic lookouts positioned about every 100 ft. and quaint Oceanside towns every couple of km’s it’s easy to see how some people take days to make the approx. 260km journey.

Getting started on the Great Ocean Road

Some early scenery on one of the deserted beaches

One of the many scenic lookouts along the way

View from Teddy's lookout

We spent the day cruising down the coast and marveling at some of the most beautiful natural attractions I have ever seen including amazing surf beaks, deserted beaches, shadowy rainforests and even a bit of local wildlife. Here are some of the highlights from the day – the pictures really don’t even do it justice!

Erskine Falls – a few KM in land from Lorne, the falls are about a km hike into the woods.

Mait’s Rest Rainforest walk – about a 30min trek through a rainforest with some of the biggest

Catching a glimpse of 100’s of Koala’s in the wild – heading town towards Cape Otway there are hundreds of the cuddly looking creatures up in the trees …..Just pull over and look up!

Natural Attractions of Port Campbell National Park – you can spend hours alone just gazing at the amazing feats of nature to be found in the national park including; Gibson Steps, 12 Apostles, London Bridge and the Grotto

Sunset over the Bay of Islands – Our final stop along the great ocean road was a great way to close out the day

After the last of our scenic stops for the day I took the wheel……yup that’s right I made my first left side of the road driving attempted. Overall it went pretty well, other than a few really tight hugs to the left shoulder and hitting the windshield wipers instead of the signal my driving shift ended with us still in one piece.  

Earlier in the week we had decided that after we finished the great ocean road we would just continue on the last few hours to Adelaide rather than stay overnight somewhere to avoid the hostel cost and have an extra day with the family. What we thought was only a couple hours’ drive from Warrnambool to Adelaide actually turned out to be an additional 8 hours’ drive…… after the 12 we had already spend on the great ocean road. So after many snack and redbull stops, many driver swaps and countless hours of being on kangaroo watch (this stretch of highway is notorious for the little guys jumping out in front of cars) we finally arrived at my cousin Tom’s place around 3:30am, dropped our stuffed and CRASHED!