8 Best Stops on the Great Ocean Road
The Great Ocean Road (GOR) is definitely one of the most visited places in Australia, and it was sitting pretty high at the top of my bucket list when I moved here. For those of you who don’t know, it is situated in the state of Victoria, which is in the southeastern part of the country. What that means is, the further south you go, the colder it gets; therefore I feel like it’s best to visit during the summer months. Due to covid, I didn’t manage to fly back to Canada to spend Christmas with my family this year, so I thought the holiday season would be the perfect time to venture down there on a little road trip. I drove from Sydney to Melbourne with my friend Marie and we immediately made our way to the Great Ocean Road. No matter where you are on the GOR, you’re always between 2-4 hours away from Melbourne’s city centre. Some people go there just for the weekend whilst others can spend 5 days exploring the area. We personally thought 3 days would be enough to see what we wanted to see. Although I must mention that we didn’t really get any good weather. If it had been a bit warmer and sunnier, we would have 100% spent a fourth day there, just to enjoy some laidback time at the beach!
1 - Geelong
This was our first stop on our way to Torquay! We just wanted to get some lunch and take a little break from driving. Cunningham Pier is a nice place to stop if you’re looking to get some food by the water. Sadly the weather wasn’t really ideal when we went there, but we had a good time nonetheless.
2 - Torquay
Next on our itinerary was Torquay and its stunning beaches. Bells Beach is one of the places we were supposed to stop at for a little sunbathing session. When we got there, it was super cloudy and very windy, so what was supposed to be a half day stop got shortened to 10 minutes! There are some other nice places to check out if you are luckier than us with the weather, including Rocky Point Lookout and Point Impossible Beach.
3 - Lorne
Because it was raining so much, we decided to drive straight to Lorne, where we would camp for the night. We camped at Lorne Foreshore Caravan Park, which is located right in the heart of the little town and across the street from the grocery store. When it finally stopped raining, we ventured out to visit the surroundings and filled up on wine and cheese. The next morning, we had breakfast at a cute little cafe called Riverbank and we checked out the view from Teddy’s Lookout before heading off.
4 - Great Otway
Once again, the weather forecast didn’t look that great that day, so we wanted to avoid staying by the coast as much as possible. Instead, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to go visit some waterfalls in the National Park. After a quick stop in Kenneth River, where people usually spot koalas in the wild (we didn’t - it was too rainy), we drove all the way to Hopetoun Falls. The road wasn’t really easy to get there, but gosh this waterfall is stunning! Totally worth the long and winding drive. About five minutes further down the road is the Californian Redwood forest. I bet those giant trees will leave you speechless - rain or shine! Lastly, we decided to make the (long) detour to go see Cape Otway Lighthouse, the oldest surviving lighthouse on mainland Australia ($15pp to visit).
5 - Twelve Apostles
Because we had woken up early and were done with our little hikes around 2pm, we thought we’d just continue driving. We both found that it’s easier to get to a new campsite at daylight rather than getting there in the dark. We were about to go straight to Port Campbell, but as we got closer to our final destination for the day, the sky seemed to clear up a bit. We got so excited that we decided to go straight to the 12 Apostles. When we got there, it was still very windy, but the sun was out and we were both delighted! We spent at least an hour there, before making our way to Gibson Steps for sunset… another incredible spot!
6 - Port Campbell
By the time we got to our campsite, well it was pitch black outside. We spent the night at Port Campbell Recreation Reserve and had a really nice breakfast at Grassroots Deli Cafe the next morning. The sun was out that morning so we went back near where the 12 Apostles are because there are so many other rock formations to go visit and a beautiful coastal walk to go on (pictured above). Some of the most popular places include: Loch Ard Gorge, Razorback, Island Arch and Thunder Cave. Once we were done with this place, we drove just past Port Campbell to see even more beautiful cliffs and caves. We stopped by the Arch, the London Bridge and the Grotto.
7 - Tower Hill
Now, we would have normally spent the afternoon tanning on Logans Beach in Warrnambool, where the GOR ends, but it was so cold that we decided to continue further and look for a nice vineyard to visit instead. We ended up going to Basalt Vineyard in Tower Hill and indulged in a very tasty grazing board. We asked our waiter if he had any suggestions of things to do in the area, and he suggested checking out Tower Hill Reserve to spot some wildlife, which we did! We saw heaps of kangaroos and wallabies, some emus and two adorable koalas perched on a tree.
8 - Port Fairy
Shortly after our little adventure, we continued our drive to Port Fairy where we visited The Crags. This beautiful location is just a 20-min drive from Port Fairy and it is stunning and very secluded compared to the rest of the Great Ocean Road. We then headed back to town to go see the sunset on Griffiths Island near the lighthouse. There were wallabies everywhere, which I was really happy about! That night, we camped at Killarney Beach Caravan Park and the next morning we had what was probably one of my favourite breakfasts ever at Bank St + Co.
From there, you can either drive back to Melbourne and stop in other spots you might have missed (there’s heaps to see, especially in the National Park). You could also continue all the way to South Australia if you’re on a long road trip. We personally chose to make our way up to go see the Grampians, which I’ll chat more about in another blog post :-)
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