The Great Ocean Road

OAT scheduled a free day in Melbourne today, and offered an optional, extra cost tour along The Great Ocean Road. This tour is a famous highlight of this area, and probably ought to be part of the trip. But thanks to Mary's in-depth research, she discovered that many OAT travelers found the option tour over-priced and not a good value. She also discovered a local tour operator who offered nearly the same tour for less than half the cost. We went our own way.

The pickup point for the Go West tour was just across the street from our hotel, so it was easy. We managed to be among the first to be picked up, so got great seats in the front of the bus. The driver-guide, Ebony, was both a competent and safety-conscious driver and an excellent and engaging commentator on what we were seeing along the way. She was also a fun person with a pleasant personality. Our van was full with 21 passengers, but we soon discovered that there were two more, identical vans from the same company following the same route. Go West is doing quite a business!

After negotiating traffic getting out of the city, we traveled west on the M1 motorway (like a U.S. Interstate) to the town of Torquay (Tor-key), on the seacoast. Torquay is the surfing capital of Australia, even though the water here is cold -- generally only 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit. Seas in this area are rough (it's also a region notorious for hundreds of shipwrecks prior to steamships and modern navigation), and the surf pounds in year 'round. Companies known worldwide as manufactures of surfboards, wetsuits, and associated surfing gear were founded and remain major employers in Torquay.

We stopped at a park on the beach for "morning tea" provided as part of the tour. It was easy to understand the many shipwrecks, because the bay was shrouded in thick morning fog. Nevertheless, we walked near the water and enjoyed our tea and cake.

From Torquay we drove on to the village of Anglesea, a very small place on the coast. Just past the village we stopped to see the Memorial Arch. We were expecting something grand, like the arch in St. Louis. This is just a wooden sign over the road. But it was placed as a memorial to Australian soldiers who died in World War I, and is important here because this road was largely built by their surviving colleagues. When the Great War ended, thousands of Australian solders returned from Europe with no job prospects. They were put to work building this road, the construction of which continued into the Great Depression.

At Kennett River, a wide spot in the road that hardly qualifies as a village, we were barely able to see a koala high in a tree above us. We also were visited up close by several beautiful Australian king parrots in the bright red and green. We were also visited, up even closer, by thousands of very irritating flies. They don't bite, but they love to land on your face and hair.

We stopped for lunch at a town called Apollo Bay. The bay and the town got their name from a sailing vessel, the Apollo, that took shelter in the bay in the approach of a heavy storm. The ship was badly damaged but the crew survived. Many other crews along this coast were not as lucky.

We were lucky in Apollo Bay, however, because a local bakery specializes in sea scallop pie. They were like meat pies, but filled with seafood. Tasty, filling, and very reasonably priced at about $8 U.S.

Almost instantly the land around us transformed from rather dry grassland, good for little more than grazing sheep and cattle, into lush forest. Prior to human habitation, which began in Australia at least 40,000 years ago, almost all of this coastal region was cold climate rain forest. Now the Otway National Park protects a tiny remaining portion.

The rain forest is dominated by giant trees that are called white ash, though they don't look anything like ash trees we know in North America. These can grow 200 feet tall and up to 25 feet in diameter. The forest floor is also lush with ferns. It was a beautiful nature walk through this fascinating forest.

The highlight of the trip was an area of steep cliffs and rock formations in Port Campbell National Park.  We made three stops in the national park, very near to one another. 

The first was a place called Gibson Steps, where early settlers built a stairway down to the beach from the top of the cliffs. Before the Great Ocean Road was constructed, farms and villages had to be supplied by sea, so the steps allowed boats to unload on the beach and settlers to get to the goods. We walked the steps and enjoyed the view from the beach.

The most famous of these rock formation is known as "The Twelve Apostles," despite the fact that there never were twelve rocks. The Apostles are within walking distance of Gibson Steps, but we drove and unloaded among myriad buses, coaches, and automobiles. The walkways and overlooks here were packed, and helicopters brought sightseers from overhead. But we thought the formation was something of a disappointment.

Next we drove to Loch Ard Rocks. Named for another famous shipwreck -- the sailing ship Loch Ard sank here in 1878 claiming 54 lives and only two survivors -- these cliffs and rock formations were stunning.

The expanse of Loch Ard makes it difficult to capture all of it in a single photo, but the rocks and sea here were very impressive.

Leaving the Great Ocean Road, our van took the faster, more direct route away from the coast to get back to Melbourne. The land is very agricultural, but with very few crops -- it is almost entirely grazing for sheep and cattle. We had a dinner stop in a small town called Colac which could have passed for an Iowa farm town. There was a big John Deere dealership, the tractor supply store was named AG Warehouse, but it was the same sort of place. And of course, there was a McDonalds. We were back at the hotel about 9 p.m. A long day, but a good one.