The Great Ocean Road is a 243 km stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia. The road was originally constructed to provide work for returning soldiers and dedicated as a Memorial to those killed in the First World War. It starts about an hour outside of Melbourne. We had a three-day weekend here recently and decided to spend it in Apollo Bay - a small town about half-way along the Road.
The Great Ocean Road is one of Australia's top tourist destinations, and so they provide some friendly reminders for those of us unfamiliar with the road rules...
On our first day, we stopped at many scenic "look outs", our first being Torquay, the first town on the Great Ocean Road.
The second stop of the day was Anglesea, which was home to several of what turned out to be many great beaches along the Road.
Our next stop was the Aireys Inlet, where we saw an old lighthouse.
The next destination was Erskine Falls. There were stairs that led about 750 feet down to the base of the waterfall. The falls were really beautiful and it was well worth the trip down, but it was a bit a work-out going back up all those stairs! :) Needless to say, our calves were a bit sore the rest of the trip.
Next, we passed through the town of Lorne, which is one of the most popular towns along the road. There is a great look-out above the town looking down over the road.
In between Lorne and Apollo Bay, was a memorial from an old shipwreck...you can still see part of the anchor sticking out of the water in the middle picture below. There was also a grave site there, which we thought was odd since no one actually died in the shipwreck.
Apollo Bay itself was an awesome little town. We spent two nights in a cabin right off the Great Ocean Road, which was a perfect location.
The Appollo Bay beach was just across the road from our cabin.
Appollo Bay had several amazing little restaurants (like pretty much everywhere we go in Australia - the food always seems to be great). We ate at Buff's Bistro for dinner since it came highly recommended by one of Anthony's co-workers. We tried out first meat pie and it was actually delicious. Australians love meat pies, so we figured we'd "give it a go".
We took a walk on the beach after dinner. I thought we needed some "sand art" pictures, and Anthony played along :)
Day two began with a trip to The Otway Fly Treetop Walk - a 1.9 km round walk among the trees. It's the longest (1,900 feet) and highest (80 feet) steel canopy walk in the world. There was a 150 foot spiral look out as well. The views were incredible.
The rest of the day was spent driving to The Twelve Apostles. It is about two hours one-way from Apollo Bay, but it was well worth the trip.
It was an amazing trip, and we agreed that we can't believe we hadn't seen any of it earlier given that it is relatively close to Melbourne (Lorne is about 2 hours from our house). We will definitely be back.
