The Great Ocean Road is an Australian National Heritage listed 243-kilometre stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and Allansford.

Our first stop for this journey was Lorne, just 45klm from the start of the road, at Torquay.
The traffic is always busy, but we drove out along some back roads and visited a few waterfalls and enjoyed the serenity of the forests.
Next stop was Apollo Bay, Mt Defiance lookout and then at a historic grave site and the site of the W.B. Godfrey wreck of 1891. There are great views of the coastline and Apollo Bay from the Cape Patton lookout. On the way back to Lorne, we stopped at the Carlsbrook Falls, which was a walk of about 20mins. Further down the road, we stopped at the Cumberland Falls which took about 30 mins.
There are a number of pretty waterfalls along the G.O.R. and we paid a visit to Erskine Falls, to the west of Lorne. These 30 metre falls are perhaps the prettiest ones to date. Beryl loved the 230 steps back up to the car park.
Next place we stayed was at the Pisces caravan park, Apollo Bay.

We stopped at Maites Rest rainforest walk. Just glorious country, driving through the rainforest, with its gigantic Myrtle and Mountain Ash. We walked along the loop track and saw giant fern trees and dense rainforest flora. It was nice and cool and echoee (is that a word?).

We then drove down to Ottway Light(house). A really amazing building which was built by 70 stone masons and builders, in a period of 10 months. The blocks were all hand cut and set together to make a circular lighthouse. No mortar was used and all the blocks fit together very precisely. Just like everything else in Vic, you couldn’t get to see the lighthouse for free. Cost us $33.

The ‘tree walk’ is also going to cost $40, so we will give it a miss. All these incidentals add up, so we have to choose what we will do and see. Drove back from Cape Ottway to the Great Ocean Road and saw quite few koalas sitting in the trees. We stayed at Apollo Bay for three days, to try and see a number of scenic sites, close by.
Today, we had a drive around the Otway Loop (my name for it) and stopped to look at a couple of waterfalls. We drove up the road from the Great Ocean Road, towards Colac. Turned left at Turtons Track and commenced the trip down to Beauchamp Falls and Hopetoun Falls. The start of Turtons Track, for around 8klm, passed through thick rainforest and had some of the largest, straightest Mountain Ash we had seen. It was magnificent and can’t be adequately described. A video camera mounted on the car, would have been a bonus. The walking track down to Beauchamp was marked as moderate to difficult, so we passed on that one and headed off to Hopetoun Falls.

In the parking area, we saw a 3 cyclinder Daihatsu Charade which was packed to the hilt. A fellow crawled out of it and we had a chat. Seems he is itinerant and travels wherever the road takes him. I couldn’t see where he could sit to drive. There was junk everywhere. He certainly wouldn’t have been able to see out of the mirror. He was certainly different, but seemed harmless. He was excited when I told him my daughter owned a 3 cylinder Charade, and he wanted to know all about it. His had over 300 thousand klms on the clock and still going strong. On the way down the steep track, through dense fern trees and rainforest jungle, I heard a rustle in the leaf litter. Expecting to see a lizard, I got a start to see a 2m Tiger snake with its neck in an ‘S’ shape, ready to strike. Tigers are an aggressive snake, so I told Beryl to freeze, as she was only 1m from the snakes head. It stayed poised for about 30secs and then turned and slithered off into the scrub. Continued on to the falls and were rewarded with a spectacular waterfall. The 200 odd steps on the way back were harder than going down. Told a couple of ladies at the top to watch out for the snake, and headed off to the Beech Forest. Another spectacular spot, with huge California redwoods, which were planted in 1836.

We continued on from there to the Ottway Fly, which is a treetop walk. It was going to cost $22 each, which was fine, but the carpark was full and we decided to do the Triplet Falls instead. That was a great walk through the rainforest and giant mountain ash. It was 2klm, but there were plenty of birds. I watched a male Satin Bowerbird, performing in his bower and tossing blue feathers and plastic around, in an attempt to entice two females into his gallery. The mimic calls were really cool. The falls were very nice, but you couldn’t get too close. Lots of tourists around here. On the way back, we stopped and had a look at a roadside lookout, at Castle Cove. If I had a surfboard, I could have visualised myself riding the fantastic surf at this spot. Crystal clear water and 2m waves with long rides and no-one taking advantage of them.

We went to Peterborough and checked out the sights. This is the the spectacular coastline which includes the famous 12 Apostles – of which there are only 8 left standing. The Bay of Martyrs was quite spectacular, as was the Loch Ard Gorge and the 12 Apostles. I have not seen so many people at any one spot, as there were at the apostles. Had to laugh at a couple of old ladies walking along and playing ‘count the aussies’. I caught them out and asked what the tally was.

We left at the usual time around 9.30am, and headed west towards Port Fairy. Pulled in at the Bay of Islands for a few photos,before continuing on.
Drove out to Tower Hill, which is an extinct volcano crater. They are revegetating it with native plants, which in turn are attracting native animals. We saw emus and koalas as well as other birds.
From there, we drove to Portland and had a look at the shops. Beryl went to the craft shop and I went to the disposal store. It was a big store, and Beryl found me before I had checked out only half of it. The owners were good value and chatted away for ages. She was into quilting, so had a common interest with Beryl and he was a shooter, so we chatted along as well.
We then drove out to Cape Nelson lighthouse. The seas were quite big and wild, so it was easy to sea how ships came to grief in the early days.
From there we drove to Bridgewater blowholes and back via Bridgewater Lakes. Saw a neat, old Uniting church (most likely it was Anglican before that) and some old homesteads. We also called in to a strawberry farm, where we bought a big punnet and I tasted their strawberry liqueur. Yummm. Back to Port Fairy around 6pm and off in the morning to Halls Gap. This marked the end of The Great Ocean Road for us, but the continuing adventure of discovery in this homeland of ours.