Great Ocean Road Adventures

Since I am already in the southern hemisphere I figured I should probably catch up with the people I know on this side of the world before heading back to Canada. I caught up with April and David in Melbourne and have a fair few friends in and around Adelaide that I would like to see so it only made sense to make that my next destination. I did however want to do some exploring in between so I booked a tour along the Great Ocean Road and through Grampians National Park that departed from Melbourne and ended in Adelaide.

I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning and made my way well before the scheduled pick up time but still managed to stress myself out that I had missed the bus when it was running late. While I was waiting I met a German girl named Britta who was going on the same tour so that helped calm my nerves about the delayed bus and helped convince me that the bus was behind schedule. Really that is the only logical possibility anyway, when have you ever heard of a bus running ahead of schedule? Never, that’s when! The bus was running about 15 minutes behind schedule but once I was onboard I wasn’t really worried about any further delays.

The first couple hours of the trip were pretty boring as we made our way out of the city and on to the Great Ocean Road. Once we made it to the famous road the day got much more exciting. We stopped for a coffee break at a place that I want to say was named Geoffreys Bay but I could be making that up (and the itinerary is vague and not helping me at all). Whatever it was called it was a beach along the section of the highway known for its iconic surf locations so while everyone else was drinking coffee and tea (gross) I was watching surfers ride the waves.

We drove through some pretty cool looking towns but unfortunately didn’t have enough time to stop and explore them We did however stop for pictures at an arch marking the beginning of the Great Ocean Road as well as a campground for some koala spotting. There seemed to be more parrots than koalas kicking around but I still managed to find one asleep at the top of a tree.

From there we made our way to Apollo Bay for some lunch. The sandwiches provided left a little something to be desired. I was going to say that I shouldn’t complain about free food but it wasn’t really free, I paid quite a bit to be on this tour so it would be nice if the provided lunch was more than one sandwich and a small bottle of water. Having such a small lunch though did leave some free time to explore the town before hopping back on the bus. I took a short stroll along the boardwalk then checked out some of the booths at that were set up for a festival going on in town.

Our next stop for the day was at Mait’s Rest in the Otway Rainforest. We went on a walk around a short loop, which was fairly uneventful aside from a really rude family we encountered along the way. About halfway down the trail there is a giant tree with a big hollow at the base of the trunk. This family thought they would take about 600 family photos followed by several photos of groups of two or three and then of individuals. You couldn’t even walk past them without feeling guilty about ruining their pictures. So we stood there for about 10 minutes waiting for them to finish up their photo shoot and when they finally finished they stood in front of the tree, blocking the trail, arguing about which direction they should walk. It was all I could do not to scream at them! It’s a freaking loop! Walk the opposite direction from the way you came!

The next destination was the one I was most looking forward to, the twelve apostles. The twelve apostles are a rock formation that were given a catchy name in an attempt to attract more tourists and it seems to have worked even though there are only really 7 rock stacks still standing and one of them has actually collapsed and is a tiny rock barely poking out of the water. I was given the opportunity to go on a 10 minute helicopter ride over the apostles for $95 and while I have set a fairly tight budget for myself I thought this was something I might regret if I didn’t do it and so I coughed up the money. If you are ever given this same opportunity I would recommend giving it a miss. Walk to the viewpoints instead. The apostles were particularly busy on this day and so they cut all of the helicopter rides short and didn’t offer to give the passengers any of their money back. I was pretty pissed off to be honest.  Especially since I had to wait in line for so long that I didn’t have enough time to explore the apostles from the ground before I had to get back on the bus.

We stopped at a few more scenic lookouts for some stunning pictures before veering of the Great Ocean Road and heading to Grampians National Park where we would be spending the night. Our hostel was just an old house that had been converted in to a hostel, and by this I mean that they put a whole lot of bunk beds in the tiny bedrooms and called it a hostel. It was pretty warm outside and the house didn’t have air-conditioning so sticking 4 people in a room designed for one person made for an unbearably hot night. The bunk beds were old and creaked and swayed every time someone on either bunk made the slightest movement so between that and the heat there was not much sleep involved.

Breakfast was served at 5:45am so this didn’t really help the situation any. When I booked this trip I must not have read the itinerary because the ridiculous o’clock wake up call was almost as surprising to me as the fact that we would be hiking up a mountain after breakfast! This was so not on my list of things to do. I am in terrible shape and this was made evident at several points throughout the day. Most of this hike was okay, but the last 400 meters were a scramble not a hike and I almost died about 6 times.  The views from the top were pretty spectacular though so I guess it was worth it even though I almost died a few more times on the way back down.

I was under the impression that we would be driving to the rest of the locations for the day so I was again surprised that we were actually going on a number of hikes. We covered approximately 12km over the course of the day and the last hike to the base of a waterfall included climbing something like 237 steps to get back to the bus. It was 37 degrees. This was not my idea of fun and while the things we saw were beautiful I was thrilled when the days activities were over and all I needed to do was sit on a bus for the rest of the day.

I arrived in Adelaide a little after dinnertime and since I was exhausted I had a pretty low-key evening. I did however have the most amazing shower in the history of the world. It felt so good to wash all of that sweat off! It was an action-packed couple of days and I super excited to try and catch up on some sleep in my air-conditioned room.