The Great Ocean Road

We passed through Melbourne on our way to the great ocean road. We had heard from everyone that it was a must see/do in Australia. We had pretty high expectations since everyone we spoke to told us to do it. Even Uncle Ron & Aunty Cathy highly recommended it.

We knew where to start the great ocean road trip; it was in the town of Torquay. The great ocean road is about 300km long from the beginning to the end. We had about 2 days to do it. Since we had our own campervan, we had plenty of food and water supply. On the first day we passed through Geelong where Ian lives. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to call him and hangout with him. We were going to do that on our way back to Melbourne.

Our first stop was Bells beach. This legendary beach is where they had supposedly filmed the end of the movie Point Break. Gin & I had our lunch sitting in our campervan watching the surfers try to catch some good waves. It was awesome to see them from above the cliff. After the lunch we decided to check out the beach, but it was too cold to go in the water. There was absolutely no one around the beach area except the surfers. I couldn’t believe that they were surfing in that cold water. Hats off for even attempting.

We drove onwards towards Lorne and continued towards Apollo Bay. We were going to stay in Apollo Bay, but we were recommended to stay at Blanket Bay since we had our campervan. We kept on driving past Apollo Bay and there were no signs of Blanket Bay anywhere. We came across the sign for Cape Otway and we just decided to go in that direction. It was already getting very dark and we were in the middle of the rainforest. We were getting a little worried since there weren’t any signs of Blanket Bay. Luckily, thanks to Gin’s good eyesight, she spotted a sign for Blanket Bay. We had a similar experience in New Zealand where we were looking for a camp ground and spent a while looking for the camp ground eventually giving up on that idea. We had very little hope about this camp ground at Blanket Bay as well. We continued and got to the camp ground. A right turn led us into a spot where about 20 people were camped out. That was a big sign of relief. Finally, we were relaxed and got ourselves a spot to camp. After dinner I tricked Ginnie into going for a walk. It was absolutely gorgeous. The moonlight hitting the waves and the silhouette of the moon was absolutely mesmerizing. We were glad that we found the spot.

Next morning we continued onwards towards spending a few hours at the Cape Otway light house. It was fun few hours at the light house with some spectacular views of the sea. The history of the lighthouse was also very interesting. It was the oldest light house of Australia and served a very important role in WWII.

We were totally excited about seeing the famous 12 Apostles. It is the hallmark of the great ocean road. We wanted to go see them around sunset because by sunset most of the tourist buses disperse. It was certainly the highlight of the great ocean road. We hung out there until sunset. We met a very nice couple, Tal & Efuat, from Israel. They had also rented their campervan with Jucy rentals. For our last day in the campervan, Gin & I decided to stay in a Holiday Park in Port Campbell. It was the only holiday park close to the 12 Apostles. The reason why we wanted to stay there was because we were going to wake up early for sunrise and go see the 12 Apostles again. We told the Israeli couple to go and stay at the holiday park as well and they did. It was wonderful hanging out with them and we were invited to go to Israel and stay with them in the north of Israel. We’d certainly take them up on that.

The great ocean road was certainly very beautiful and very unique to Australia; however, it didn’t even come close to the beauty of the South Island in New Zealand. Gin & I enjoyed the great ocean road very much, but felt a little gypped, since we had done New Zealand first. The great ocean road is supposed to be the best drive in all of Australia and if it is so, then it’s far from being amazing. If I were to go to the South Pacific again, I’d go to Australia first, and then go to New Zealand because after going to New Zealand, Australia had no chance of coming close to the natural beauty and the picturesque setting of New Zealand.