Great ocean road is a National Heritage site of Australia. It is one of the famous landmark in Australia and it is featured heavily in Australia tourism advertisements. The road is situated at the south eastern part of Australia. The total length of the road is around 243 Km and it joins Torquay and Allansford city. It took nearly 20 years to build the word and it was built in the memory of World War I soldiers. The best way to explore Great Ocean road and the landmarks is by taking a day tour.
I booked my Great Ocean road tour online from https://autopiatours.com.au. I choose the tour in reverse direction in order to avoid crowd. 12 Apostle is the most famous landmark along the Great Ocean road. By taking the tour in reverse direction we will visit the 12 Apostle early morning and this will help us to avoid crowd. The tour includes pick from your accommodation in Melbourne city. Our tour guide picked me up from my accommodation at around 6.30 am. This is a long day tour and the tour usually finishes around 9.30 pm. The tour also includes morning tea, Lunch & Dinner.
We started our tour around 7 am after picking up all the passengers around Melbourne. After around 2 hours drive we reached our first stop Colac town. On the way to Colac town we passed though lots of Cattle and sheep farm. The weather was cold and very windy. Our guide stopped us near the Colac war memorial and we were served sandwich and coffee for our breakfast.
Our next stop was London Bridge. The London Bridge is a natural arch formation in the Port Cambell National park. Natural erosion led to the formation of beautiful double span bridge. But unexpectedly in 1990 the arch closer to the shore collapsed leaving two persons stranded on the outer span. The two persons were rescued by the Police helicopters.
After 30 minutes ride from London Bridge we reached 12 Apostle which is the most famous tourist attraction along the Great Ocean road. All the limestone stacks are located very close to each other. I had seen the twelve Apostles multiple times in various movies but the feel of experiencing something with your own eyes is something special. There are only eight apostle left and the ninth one was collapsed in 2005. On the day of the tour it was very windy and the sea was very rough. You can also book a short helicopter tour along the 12 Apostle but due to bad weather all the tours were cancelled on that day. The view of the Apostles was amazing from different viewing platforms. Scientists believe that all the Apostle will eventually collapse because of the constant erosion.
We reached Lochard Gorge after a short 10 minutes drive from 12 Apostles. The site is famous for a shipwreck story where only two survivors were saved out of 54 passengers. The beach of the gorge is accessible by stairs. Sea water enters the beach through a narrow channel. We had our lunch at this location. The sea was very rough and it was making loud sound because it was struggling to enter the beach through a narrow pass. The views from the top and from the beach were spectacular.
After lunch our guide took us to a nearby Kangaroo farm. We were able to spot some Kangaroos at the firm. It was great experience to see Kangaroo roaming free in the farm. I think your trip to Australia is incomplete if you don’t see a Kangaroo. Our guide took us to a small town near Kennett river in order to see some Koalas in the wild. We tried to search for Koalas sitting on the trees but we couldn’t even find a single Koala. We saw some parrots type birds called lories and lorikeets near the stop.
Towards the last part of the day tour the roads became more scenic. We were travelling along the narrow and twisty road. One side of the roads was mountain and the other side was beautiful Blue Ocean. We had a short stopover at Apollo bay and Surfers Coast before reaching memorial Arch. Memorial Arch was built in the memory of the world war I serviceman who built the Great Ocean road. The Arch is situated at the entrance of the Great Ocean road. The memorial acknowledges the difficulty faced by workers during the construction of the Great Ocean road. We arrived at Torquay around 6.30 pm. We stopped at a pizza place for dinner before leaving for Melbourne. We reached Melbourne around 9.30 pm. It was a long day tour but it was completely worth it. At the end of the tour our driver told us that we had driven around 500 km in total.
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