12/10/13 – 12/17/13: Great Ocean Road to Melbourne, New South Wales, Australia
The Great Ocean Road is one of the most highlighted tourist trails in Australia. Unlike Kangaroo Island, everyone's heard of GOR! (Yes, that’s what it’s commonly known as. Not the most appealing of acronyms.)
Seeing as Katie and I are road trip junkies, we definitely hopped on the GOR bandwagon. Was it everything we dreamed it would be? Not exactly. Yes, there were incredible karst rock formations and fantastic oceanic views, but you had to get out of your car and walk to them every five minutes. In, out, in, out, in, out. Obviously, I'm not opposed to stretching my legs, but it got a bit tiresome. My point is this: the road itself wasn’t very pretty. A whole lot of thick shrubbery sums it up. Then there were the tourist buses. Since GOR isn’t far from Melbourne, there were hordes of day-trippers clogging up the road. Finally, there was the wind. It was relentless and merciless; as strong as a blacksmith pounding his steel!
These are minor quibbles, of course. We weathered the wind, swerved around tourists, and had a wonderful time camping and traveling from town to town, squeezing in our own side trips along the way, which were even more enjoyable than GOR! (I feel strangely compelled to put an exclamation point after GOR!)
Here, I present to you a video/photo blog of our southern coastline drive from Kangaroo Island to Melbourne by way of GOR! (You see? You just want to yell it!) Hold on to your hats, it’s blustery out there!
