The Great Ocean Road runs 243 kilometres from Torquay to Allansford along Victoria's southern coast. It was cut by hand between 1919 and 1932 by around three thousand soldiers returning from the First World War, using picks, shovels and explosives, and dedicated to comrades who did not come home. That makes it the largest war memorial in the world. It opened on 26 November 1932.
The Twelve Apostles
The limestone stacks standing offshore are the reason most people come. There were never twelve — the name was invented around 1922 to replace the earlier and less marketable "Sow and Piglets". Nine stood when the name stuck; one collapsed in 2005, leaving eight. The tallest reaches about 45 metres.
They are being eaten. The Southern Ocean erodes the soft limestone cliffs at roughly two centimetres a year, carving caves that become arches that become free-standing stacks that eventually fall. New ones are forming behind the current line.
Loch Ard Gorge and London Arch
Loch Ard Gorge is named for a clipper wrecked on the reef in 1878. Of 54 people aboard, two survived — an eighteen-year-old apprentice and a teenage passenger he pulled from the water. The gorge is a short walk with several viewpoints and is usually quieter than the Apostles.
London Arch was called London Bridge until 15 January 1990, when the span connecting it to the mainland collapsed without warning. Two tourists were stranded on the far side and lifted off by helicopter, unhurt.
Along the way
- Bells Beach — a surf break near Torquay that has hosted a professional contest every Easter since 1961.
- Kennett River — the reliable place to see wild koalas in roadside manna gums; look up, and stay off private drives.
- Maits Rest — a twenty-minute boardwalk through cool-temperate rainforest and tree ferns in the Otways.
- Cape Otway Lightstation — built 1848, the oldest surviving working lighthouse on mainland Australia.
- Gibson Steps — 86 steps cut into the cliff, the only place you can stand on the beach beneath the stacks.
How to drive it
- Go east to west — from Melbourne towards Warrnambool. Australia drives on the left, so heading west puts you in the lane nearest the ocean and every lookout is a left turn rather than a crossing.
- Two days minimum. The one-day bus tours from Melbourne cover 500 kilometres and give you twenty minutes at the Apostles. Stay a night in Apollo Bay or Port Campbell instead.
- Sunset at the Apostles faces the right way and the tour coaches have usually gone.
- The road is narrow and winding with regular fog; allow far more time than the distance suggests.