Australia's Great Ocean Road Must-Sees 🇦🇺
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📍 The Great Ocean Road officially starts in Torquay, Victoria; a beachside town famous for its' laid back locals and surfing culture. From there, you'll travel 243km (150 miles) to the town of the quiet town of Allansford, passing some spectacular scenery along the way.
⏰ It takes about 5 hours to drive from Melbourne's CBD to Warrnambool non-stop. However, it took my friend and I around 9.5 hours from start to finish with plenty of stops along the way.
🗓️ Give yourself 2 full days to comfortably enjoy all the sights along the road. While you could *technically* do this trip in one day, you'd find yourself rushing between stops and have to leave super early (7am or 8am) and get back to Melbourne quite late.
Quick Tips
- I highly recommend booking a night's stay in Warrnambool. It's the largest town near the end of the Great Ocean Road (only a 10 minute drive) and has the highest accomodation availability.
- Fuel prices skyrocket once you head west of Geelong, so be sure to fuel up here if you're coming from Melbourne. To find the best petrol/gas prices, use the Petrol Spy link below (not an ad for them).
- Hiring a car and being able to pace yourself is always a better option than joining a busload of tourists and being shuttled around in one day. There's loads of cheap car hire websites that offer same-day hires.
Best Sights to See
I've listed these in order of how my friend and I visited them, broken into Day 1 and Day 2. You could easily pick & mix as many stops as you like and I've included an hour-by-hour breakdown of our itinerary in the last section.
Day 1
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Day 2
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Reference Trip Timeline
I took a 2 day trip with a friend on the 17th - 18th of December 2023 and these were our rough timings (thank god for iPhone photo timestamps)
Day 1
10:30am - Left Melbourne CBD
12pm - Arrived in Torquay and spent an hour here
1:30pm - Arrived at the Airey's Inlet Lighthouse and spent about 25 minutes here
2:20pm - Arrived in Lorne and spent an hour having lunch and checking out the view from the St George River Lookout
4:10pm - Arrived in Apollo Bay and spent half an hour frolicking on the beach/chatting to some locals
6pm - Arrived at The Twelve Apostles and spent half an hour taking snaps and enjoying the surrounding scenery
7pm - Arrived at London Bridge and spent 15 minutes here
8pm - Arrived in Warrnambool
Day 2
12:50pm - Arrived at Gibson Steps after a lazy morning and spent about 20 minutes here
1:40pm - Grabbed some delicious pies for lunch at Yatzies Cafe and spent half an hour here.
2:30pm - Arrived at Melba Gully and took about 40 minutes to walk the circuit
4pm - Arrived at Hopetoun Falls and spent half an hour on the circuit
4:30pm - Checked out The Redwoods for 20 minutes
6pm - Arrived at Colac Botanic Gardens for a picnic and quick nap
9pm - Arrived back in the Melbourne CBD
I hope you have an incredible time traversing Australia's favourite coastline! If you have any questions about this itinerary, feel free to message me on IG @ka.tea.ah 💌
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