The Great Ocean Road, Done Properly: Melbourne to the Twelve Apostles in Two Days
The Great Ocean Road is 243 kilometres of coast road built by returned soldiers after the First World War as a memorial to their mates, which makes it the world's largest war memorial and, not incidentally, one of its great drives. It is also the most over-rushed attraction in Australia. The standard day tour leaves Melbourne at 7am, reaches the Twelve Apostles at 3pm with forty other buses, and gets back at 8pm. Do it over two days with your own car and it becomes the trip people talk about for years.
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The shape of the drive
The road officially runs from Torquay, an hour and a half south-west of Melbourne, to Allansford near Warrnambool. The famous coastal section is the first half, Torquay to Apollo Bay, where the road clings to cliffs above the Southern Ocean. Then it turns inland through the Otway rainforest before returning to the coast at the Shipwreck Coast, where the Twelve Apostles and the other limestone formations are. Total driving time without stops is about four and a half hours from Melbourne to the Apostles. You will stop constantly.
You need a car. This is the one Australian attraction where that is not negotiable, and a small automatic is fine; the road is fully sealed. Our guide to driving in Australia covers the left-hand-side basics. Collect the car on the morning you leave Melbourne, not before.
Day one: Melbourne to Apollo Bay
Torquay and Bells Beach
Leave Melbourne by 8am. Torquay is the birthplace of Rip Curl and Quiksilver and the surf shops are here if you need a wetsuit; otherwise push on ten minutes to Bells Beach, the most famous surf break in Australia. Even if you do not surf, the cliff-top viewing platforms over the reef break are worth twenty minutes. Rip Curl Pro is held here at Easter.
The Memorial Arch and Aireys Inlet
The timber Memorial Arch at Eastern View is the ceremonial start of the road and the photo everyone takes. At Aireys Inlet, the Split Point Lighthouse has a short cliff walk and a good café. From here the road tightens and the drive becomes the attraction.
Lorne
The first proper town, and the place for lunch. Lorne has a wide beach, a pier, good bakeries and the Erskine Falls, ten minutes inland, a 30-metre drop into a fern gully that is a five-minute walk from the car park. If you are staying two nights on the road rather than one, Lorne is the first night.
Kennett River: the koalas
Forty minutes past Lorne, turn inland at the tiny settlement of Kennett River onto Grey River Road. Drive slowly for the first kilometre or two and look up into the manna gums. This is the most reliable place in Australia to see wild koalas from a car, and there are usually king parrots and crimson rosellas in the car park as well. Please do not feed them. Ten minutes here beats any wildlife park.
Apollo Bay
A fishing town in a wide bay with the Otways rising behind it, and the sensible place to stop for the night. Fish and chips on the foreshore, a swim if it is warm, and an early night, because tomorrow starts before dawn. Accommodation ranges from a caravan park to motels and a handful of good B&Bs; book ahead in summer and at Easter.
Day two: the Otways and the Shipwreck Coast
Sunrise at the Twelve Apostles
This is the reason for the overnight. Leave Apollo Bay in the dark; it is about 90 minutes to the Apostles through the Otways, and you want to arrive as the sky starts to lighten. Sunrise here means the light comes from behind you, lighting the stacks gold against a dark sea, and the car park that holds a thousand people at 3pm holds twenty. It is a different place. There are fewer than twelve stacks, incidentally, and there never were twelve; the name was a rebrand in the 1920s from the Sow and Piglets. Nobody minds.
Gibson Steps
A kilometre east of the Apostles, 86 steps cut into the cliff take you down to the beach beneath the stacks. From below, the scale of the 70-metre cliffs and the two nearest Apostles is overwhelming. Check the tide; the beach disappears at high water.
Loch Ard Gorge
Five minutes west, and to many people better than the Apostles themselves. A sheltered gorge with a beach where, in 1878, the two only survivors of the wreck of the Loch Ard washed ashore. Several short walks lead to blowholes, a cemetery, the Razorback and Thunder Cave. Allow an hour.
Port Campbell and beyond
Port Campbell is a small town in a cove and the place for a late breakfast. If you have time, continue 15 minutes west to The Arch, London Bridge (which lost its span in 1990, stranding two tourists on the far side until a helicopter arrived) and The Grotto. Then turn around.
The Otways on the way back
Take the inland route home via Lavers Hill and the Otway Fly treetop walk if you want to be among the tree ferns and mountain ash, or via Maits Rest, a free 30-minute rainforest boardwalk near Apollo Bay that is one of the quiet highlights of the whole trip. From Apollo Bay back to Melbourne is about three hours via the inland C-roads through Colac, or three and a half back along the coast if you want to see it in the other light.
If you only have one day
Take a tour. The driving is tiring, the day is 12 to 13 hours, and having someone else at the wheel means you actually see the coast. The small-group tours that run the route in reverse, inland first and coast in the afternoon, reach the Apostles when the big buses have left. Ask specifically about that.
When to go
The road is open all year. Summer is warm and busy; autumn (March to May) is the pick, with settled weather and the crowds gone. Winter is cold, wild and dramatic, with the Southern Ocean doing what it is famous for, and whales offshore at Warrnambool from June to September. Fog in the Otways is common on winter mornings, so leave a margin for the sunrise drive.
Practical notes
Fuel up in Lorne or Apollo Bay. Stations are sparse between Apollo Bay and Port Campbell.
Drive slowly and pull over to let locals past. The road is narrow, winding, and full of people looking at the view. Use the marked pull-offs, not the verge.
Kangaroos and wallabies at dusk through the Otways. Do the inland section in daylight.
Phone coverage is patchy beyond Lorne. Download maps.
The Twelve Apostles visitor centre is free, has toilets and a café, and the walk to the viewing platforms is a flat ten minutes under the road.
Two days, one early alarm, one car. It is the best road trip in Australia that does not require a week, and it pairs perfectly with a few days in Melbourne at either end.
Cover photo via Unsplash.
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