A road trip on the Great Ocean Road

We left Ballarat again under some cloud cover however by the time we arrived at the Twelve Apostles, the skies had cleared and were mostly blue, offering us some clear and wondrous views over the famous coast line!

We pulled into the large parking area and walked towards the cliff, the whole time fighting the million flies off our faces (at least a face mask comes in handy sometimes). It’s a beautiful view and it’s easy to see why it’s the main drawcard along the Great Ocean Road. Anyway, we had plenty left to see so after a while we pulled stumps and continued our trip westward! 

Next on our list were ‘The Razorback’ and ‘Loch Ard Gorge’ which are only a few minutes further west. As we approached the location, we observed as a large cloud cover fell over us and covered us completely, what had been a beautiful sunny day was now a grey sludge where visibility was only about a 100 metres.  

Well, it is what it is, we still stopped and walked down to the beach and the kids, specially Eloise, had a blast running along the water’s edge (well, at least until Eloise ran too close and wet her shoes). We continued driving and stopped along a few more sights until we reached Port Campbell and checked into our accomodation at the Summer’s Rest Units. 

Due to the weather being what it was, we didn’t hit the beach as we had initially planned but instead had some lunch near the beach (with our jumpers on us) before returning to our accomodation where we spent the afternoon watching cricket and playing games. Later that afternoon we visited the ‘Sow & Piglets Brewery’ in Port Campbell where we sampled some of their wares whilst we also had some pretty terrible Pizzas, at least the beers were good!

The next morning we continued along the Great Ocean Road, making a number of stops along the way at places like ‘The Arch’, ‘London Bridge’, ‘The Grotto’, ‘Bay of Islands’ and ‘Childers Cove’ before we reached our final destination for that day, Warrnambool. We again had a full day of grey skies and cool winds however the sights were still beautiful to behold. Once we arrived at our destination we checked into our accommodation for the next few days, the Central Court Motel Warrnambool. The hotel itself was ok, it was dated but clean, was located centrally and had a separate rooms where the kids could sleep…. pretty much what we needed.

We spent the afternoon down by the large park near the foreshore where the kids were kept entertained for hours by all the different activities available. Later that evening we dropped Suz off at the ‘Deep Blue Hot Springs Warrnambool’ for some alone time whilst Xander, Eloise and I played some minigolf!

The next morning we drove the short distance to Port Fairy and walked to the beach, it’s a long and beautiful beach however with the weather being cloudy and around 17 degrees, we didn’t feel like getting in (so much for our summer holiday Victoria). We found other things to entertain us with, with the kids even getting their first even camel ride and later towards the afternoon, the temperature rose a few degrees and the sun came out, making it a beautiful day (still too cold to go for a swim however).

The next morning we started our drive east again, this time under a beautiful blue sky, so we revisited a few of the sites along the Great Ocean Road. We drove past the ‘Twelve Apostles’ however and stopped at ‘Gibsons Steps’ at which point the clouds had come over us again… of of course! The cliffs were amazing in their own right and I would rate the site actually higher than the Apostles! We continued our drive into the ‘Great Oatway National Park’ where we visited the ‘Otway Fly Treetop Adventures’. This area has elevated walks over the national park and also zip lines along the trees, however as Eloise is still just short we skipped them this time and just did the walk which we all enjoyed. 

We stayed that night at the AirBnb Heart of the Oatways which is a farm stay that advertises that you will be surrounded by animals. And they weren’t kidding, as soon as we arrived we were surrounded by at least 5-6 dogs, all very friendly. There were also cows, goats, ostriches and of course cats and kittens which kept Xander and in particular, Eloise entertained for hours. The next morning we woke up to the sound of roosters, in particular one that was having trouble with his watch as he started at 4.00am. Lucky we were able to go back to sleep for a few more hours before we left. 

The next morning we travelled the last part of the Great Ocean Road, stopping and visiting places such as ‘Apollo Bay’, and ‘Lorne’ before we came to the ‘Memorial Arch at Eastern View’ which really feels like the start (or end in our case) of the Great Ocean Road. We continued and our last stop along the coast that day was ‘Aireys Inlet’ where we visited the lighthouse. 

After that, we drove until we came to our final stop of the day in Queenscliff and checked into our accomodation, Circa 1902 Queenscliff, a heritage listed guest house that provided us with a small room for the four of us to share, however didn’t feel cramped and was very comfortable and within easy walk to anything else in town. Unfortunately, Covid had pretty much cancelled the town as everything was closing early and we were lucky that we even got some food. We didn’t get to sit at the ‘Queenscliff Brewhouse’ but were able to get a few take aways that we enjoyed in the park with our fish ‘n chips dinner! 

We had a great time re-visiting this area for the first time in about 16 years, even though most was organised and booked as a last minute and hopefully we’ll be back here again soon!