Einar's travel blog: The Great Ocean Road

Here's everything about the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians National Park including all the amazing pictures :)

Tuesday 8 Feb.
Route: Flight from Sydney to Melbourne where we picked up our rental car. Then we drove from Melbourne Airport to Lorne
Distance: 180 km driving and 713 km flight.

After a chaotic morning we arrived at the airport in Sydney to realize that our Jetstar flight was 2 hours delayed, so we frantically started looking for comfortable seats with WiFi. Finally we could board the flight and were on our way to Melbourne in the great state of Victoria. From Melbourne we drove to Geelong for a lovely lunch at the harbour front. After lunch it took us about 30 minutes to get out of this city again. After we continued our drive down to Torquay, Anglesea, and arrived in Lorne in the early evening. In Lorne we stayed at the Eskine River Backpackers hostel where we had a 4 dorm room to ourselves.

The two happy Great Ocean Road explorers after lunch in Geelong.

This is the plan :)

Wednesday 9 Feb.
Route: Lorne, Apollo Bay, Great Ottawa National Park, Port Campbell
Distance: 180 km

After a simple breakfast at the hostel we drove west towards Apollo Bay where we had a coffee, but it was too windy there to have our packed lunch. After Apollo bay we drove to the Great Ottawa National park and went for a walk in the rain forest. Cape Ottawa lighthouse was just down the road after we finished our walk, but instead of paying 17 dollars each for looking at a lighthouse we decided to buy a couple bottles of wine. On the small road going to the lighthouse we were lucky to see a lot of koalas in the trees just next to the road, we even saw a baby koala.

After this great experience we continues west towards the Twelve Apostles, which is the most famous place on the Great Ocean Road. In the afternoon we reached the Twelve Apostles, we parked our car and went down to have a look together with a lot of other tourists.

We decided to go to Port Campbell to stay there at a hostel for the night, we had some red wine and went to bed quite early.

One of the first view points on the Great Ocean Road.

The warning sign in the Great Ottawa National Park just we saw many Koalas.

A Koala, and a Koala baby :)

A Koala in a tree.

The Twelve Apostles on the Great Ocean Road.

Thursday 10 Feb.
Route: Port Campbell - Halls Gap
Distance: 220 km

This day we woke up at 5 am to head back to the Twelve Apostles again, we wanted to see them at sunrise without the crowds. After we saw the sunrise we went back to the hostel to sleep a couple of hours before we headed for a couple of other view points to see the Arch, London Bridge, and other famous rock formations along the Great Ocean Road.

Hospital bed at the hostel in Port Campbell.

The Twelve Apostles during sunrise.

Warrnambool was our next stop where we had lunch and updated Facebook. From Warrnambool we wanted to drive to Halls Gap, we struggled a bit to get there since many roads were closed due to flooding. Fortunately the experienced map reader found a road that was both scenic and not closed. Arriving in Halls Gap we checked out a couple of places before we decided to stay at Tim's Place. At Halls Gap we saw several Kangaroos, a good change for all the dead ones we'd seen along the way.

The Arch

London Bridge, partly collapsed in the 90's with a couple of tourists stuck on the right hand side.

Martyrs Bay

Before dark we went up to the scenic lookout 1 hour walk from where we stayed, the view from the top was amazing, we could see all of the valley and some lakes far away. In the evening we had a barbecue with 3 friendly Australians who were staying at Tim's place too. It was a good night with cultural exchange, red wine, and good food. :)

The first living Kangaroos we saw on our trip, this is at Halls Gap just outside Tim's place.

The view from the mountain just behind our place at Halls Gap, evidence of recent flooding was all over the place.

Friday 11 Feb.
Route: Halls Gap - Melbourne
Distance: 376 km

This day we left Tim's place in the early morning, we headed to the north of the Grampians and stopped to have a look at a waterfall in the forest.

A waterfall in the Grampians National Park.

Later we drove to Mt. Zero where we saw some really nasty spiders, and had a great view. After the whole spider experience we decided that we'd seen enough wild life for one day, so we started driving back to Melbourne. Still in the national park we almost hit an Emu standing in the middle of the road, but thanks to mr map reader screaming "osterich, eh, bird, eh, something big over there!!" we could stop in time to avoid hitting the Emu... :)

On the top of Mt. Zero.

The view from Mt. Zero.

Nasty spider!!

Since we hadn't booked any hotel in Melbourne yet, we decided to go to the bottle shop to clear our thoughts. We bought 100 dollars worth of good ideas, the called the Radisson hotel in Melbourne to book our room for the weekend.

So this is basically the summary of our trip on the Great Ocean Road.