Tag: Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road and this time the 12 Apostles

The 12 Apostles are a group of sandstone islets of the coast of Victoria near Port Campbell

They are one of the highlight scenes along the Great Ocean Road, in Victoria, Australia

In my blog back in May I wrote of my last trip down this road.  It was the first days of  the Covid 19 lockdown easing of restrictions in Australia

I had just been released from Quarantine and keen to spreat my wings

The Great Ocean Road called but the lookouts to the 12 Apostles were closed

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Its deeper into winter now and the Great Ocean Road and the sea is battered by the winter storms

As restrictions have relaxed one has to pick a way through the traffic not just get lost in the road as it snakes along the cliff face

But the lookout is open and the majesty of this piece of coastline can be admired again

Just inland from here

There is the remnants of the logging history of the Otway Ranges

An old wooden trestle bridge at Timboon

Timboon once a a logging village now a dairy area

Famous for Timboon Cheese and Ice Cream

Apollo Bay to Port Campbell on the Great Ocean Road

Apollo Bay Fishing Harbour

To get to Apollo Bay there is the route along the eastern part of the Great Ocean Road or

The Road over the Otway Ranges from Forest

After travelling via Anglesea and Lorne last week this time it was over the Otways.

Tucked between the Otway Ranges and the sea Apollo Bay remains one of my favourite places to visit and to stay.

From Apollo Bay heading west along the Great Ocean Road in the midst of the Otway National Park is the turn off to Cape Otway and its impressive light house proud upon the steep cliffs of the Cape.

A beacon for shipping on Victoria’s Shipwreck Coast

Past Cape Otway the landscape and the road changes.

East of Cape Otway the road is narrower often clinging to the cliff face and the corners tighter, with patches of dense rainforest.

The sandy surf beaches nestled between rocky headlands like Lorne, Wye River and Apollo Bay

West of the Cape the road evens out more sweeping curves than tight corners, the land an open plateau across the top or the windblown cliffs with offshore the rocky monuments carved by the prevailing wind and sea.

From Port Campbell the view back along the sandstone cliffs toward Cape Otway in the late afternoon light is a sight one never tires of.

The Great Ocean Road continues onto Warrnambool from Port Campbell, but my route took me north through the coastal hills and farming land to historic Camperdown

And its famous clock tower.

Then road back to Melbourne.

It is so wonderful to be able to do this ride again free of traffic like it used to be 40 years ago, when sections of the road through the forest was still gravel and tourist coaches had not been invented.

The lockdown provisions in Victoria still preclude staying away overnight.  All the hotels and camping grounds are still closed.  It was nearly a 10 hour trip by the time I got home in the cold and the dark but what a ride and how good to be free!