Via the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne

Posted On January 3, 2020

After our good workout in the astonishing Grampians, we headed back to the coast to what is probably the most famous attractions in Victoria – The Great Ocean Road (drum roll pls.).

Great Ocean Road

As we couldn’t find any campground with space along the coast we stayed one night at Mortlake. The nice campground came with hundreds of Cockatoos – quite a concert as you can imagine.

On the way to the campground, we even managed to find an alpaca farm where we learnt that these smart animals not only produce wool but are also used a guard animals for sheep farming.

In contrast to our first visit to the Great Ocean Road, this time the weather was overcast which completely changed the atmosphere (and the pictures – have a look at the old ones for a comparison). Also this time we did the whole journey in one long day.

However, the first stop was at the infamous Ziegler Drive – just for Kevin’s ego.

As so often with fantastic landscapes, pictures don’t do them justice but have a look at the gallery at the bottom anyway.

The spots we visited were:

The Grotto
The London Bridge (the stone arch collapsed in 1990 and left a few tourist stranded)
The Arch
Quick lunch at Port Campbell
Loch Ard Gorge
Thunder Cave
The Twelve Apostles – as you can see from the picture we were not the only ones. Interestingly we think the most famous part of the Great Ocean Road is by far not as nice as other stops (but then it’s all about the branding we guess).

Beautiful Great Ocean Road (London Arch)

It get's pretty busy at the Twelve Apostles — It gets pretty busy at the Twelve Apostles

Last but not least we managed to see two Koalas at Kenneth River. After another two hours or so along the coast and a quick dinner, we arrived back in Melbourne just before 10 pm.

Unquestionable the Great Ocean Road still is one of the great drives in the world with breathtaking landscapes all along.

Very Hip Melbourne

After a good night’s sleep at our friend Anni’s place, we attended the birthday party of one of her friend’s kids before having a yummy Chinese dinner.

The next day we spent some time organising our upcoming New Zealand trip before heading out in the afternoon. After a quick lunch in Chinatown, we visited the impressive State Library Victoria. Besides some excellent exhibits about Victoria, the building itself is very pretty and worthwhile the visit.

State Library of Victoria — State Library Victoria

We started the next day with some yummy doughnuts at Daniel’s Donuts. Afterwards Hazel headed back to the apartment to continue planning our upcoming NZ trip (where her parents and sister-in-law will join us) while Kevin continued to explore Melbourne.

Have a look at the pictures for some impressions of the stylish arcades and ultra-hip wall murals.

Before heading back to the apartment and dinner with friends Kevin also had a look at the Rod Laver Arena (where hopefully Roger Federer will triumph in a few weeks time at the Australian Open) as well as at the impressive Shrine of Remembrance. The monument was built after the first world war to remember all Australian tropes who fought overseas in WWI and in all subsequent conflicts.

On the last day in Melbourne, we had a look at the National Gallary of Vicotria which hosts a few interesting pieces such as a green Picasso.

That brought us already to the end of our time in Melbourne and Victoria. We were definitely very happy that we had the chance to visit beautiful Vicotria and our friends there again.

Now it was time to head off to Tasmania.