Our first real trip with the van in Australia was driving along the Great Ocean Road (GOR), one of Australia's most famous road-touring routes. It is a road connecting the towns at the southern coast of the Victoria state. The road itself is a landmark, as it was built by returned soldiers as a memorial to those who died while fighting in the First World War. Placed all along it are bronze plaques, comemorating parts of the construction. 

The road is more or less a V shape starting from Torquay at the east, reaching its southest point at Otway and heading again north west finishing close to Port Fairy. It goes through several towns bigger or smaller, but not all the same interesting. The two parts of the V are the Surf Coast on the eastern side and the Shipwreck Coast on the western.

1. Torquay to Apollo Bay

We started it on the 1st May after solving some minor problems with the van in Melbourne. Without clear idea we were heading towards Anglesea which seemed to be the first town on this route. But complying with my role as tour guide in the Australia adventures, I started checking maps and travel guides as we were driving past Victoria's second largest city, Geelong. And I found out that the way we were heading we would miss Torquay. Officially the GOR starts between the two towns, but Torquay has a unique characteristic and proved to be the most interesting of the towns in this part of the trip: it is the home of Rip Curl and Quicksilver, two of the main surf companies. When Dominik (whose style is something between surfing and skating) heard about that, he was totally convinced that we need to stop in this town and go through the shops and outlets of the surfing companies.

Besides shopping, we also stopped at Surf Beach and Bells Beach, to watch big surf waves and several surfers in their efforts. Bells Beach is the place where the Rip Curl Pro (an international surfing competition) is hosted every Easter and we could see from the beautiful long waves that were arriving at the shore why they would choose that beach.

2. Cape Otway

On the third day we reached the most southern point of the route, Cape Otway. There we visited the Lightstation with the oldest surviving lighthouse on mainland Australia. It has been in operation since 1848 and although the lighthouse itself is not that tall, it stands on cliffs 80 meters above the sea. It was built because of the many ship accidents off the coast of Cape Otway. When the ships were heading to Australia from Europe or North America, they were usually going down the Atlantic, skimming the Antarctic continent and reaching Australia from the south. For the sailors this part of the continent was the first sight of land after many months at sea. And here they had to cross between Cape Otway and King Island, a pass of 90 miles sailors used to call "threading the needle", in order to enter to the Bass Strait. 

After the lightstation, we headed again inland through a road full of huge eukalyptus trees and an area known for koalas. After having a bit of training in spotting these adorable furry balls on the trees, we had a small walk in the forest to check our abilities. Honestly, it is amazingly difficult to spot the animals when they are sleeping at the top of the trees among leaves and everything. But Dominik managed to see one of them!

Lastly, we continued a bit northern still, to the northern edge of the Great Otway National Part, so as to experience our second treewalk (we did one in Rotorua in New Zealand). In the heart of an Australian rainforest, we were able to walk on steel walkways that reached up to 25 meters above ground level. We were surrounded by huge Mountain Ash (a type of eucalyptus), myrtiles, blackwood and of course humble ferns. The walk included a spiral tower, reaching 47 meters above ground, that took us among the leaves of eucalyptuses, and a cantilever which was swaying slightly back and forth. 

3. Princetown to Port Fairy

Honestly, this last part was the most interesting of the three. It is full of incredible coastline, hiding absolute gems. The good part started already from the camping we stayed after Otway, just outside Pricetown. The facilties were basic, but the camping was incredible: there were kangaroos hopping around the camping site. We saw several of them eating grass after sunset, but we were lucky enough to spot three of them sunbathing under some bushes the next morning. One of them even got up to say hi to us!

But the real gems of the ocean road were:

a. Gibson Steps

These are 86 steps that were originally hacked by hand into the cliffs by the landowner Hugh Gibson (ok probably not by him personally). They are leading to the beach below and give a first sight of the major gem of the whole Great Ocean Road, the Twelve Apostles

b. Twelve Apostles

These are huge rocky formations jutting out from the ocean in such a spectacular fashion that it looks as if they are forgotten parts of the mainland. The moment we saw them walking from the carpark, the view was absolutely breathtaking! From a system of platforms we could see six or seven of them the to the west. These are the official Apostles.

On the eastern side and towards Gibson Beach there are two more siblings of the Apostles, which are called Gog and Magog.

c. Loch Ard Gorge

A few minutes further from the Twelve Apostles, is the most famous shipwreck of Shipwreck Coast. Loch Ard was a Scottish clipper that sunk at exactly this point on the last day of its trip in 1878 (ironically, during the night after the celebrations that the voyage was finally over...). There were two survivors from the wreck, the story of whom is told on plaques around the area. The Gorge itself is beautiful, but we could easily imagine how difficult it would be for sailboats to try to maneuver around these cliffs in a storm that is pushing towards them. The cemetery where the four corpses that were recovered (from the 52 souls that were losts) are buried is a climax in the story of Loch Ard.

d. London Bridge

And a few more minutes further down the coast, we met this landmark called London Bridge. It used to be a two-arched rock platform, but one of the arches collapsed in 1990 so now there is an island formed. Two lucky (not ironic) tourists were stranded on that island the day the arch collapsed and had to be rescued by helicopter. 

e. The Arch

This is another beautiful formation at the coast. The photo is enough to explain

f. The Grotto

This was the last of the beautiful formations along the Shipwreck Coast. It was formed by a sinkhole in combination with the erosion from the ocean. From the top the beauty of nature is already obvious, but once we reached the bottom of the stairs we grasped the full image of it!

So after a total of five days we reached Port Fairy, the last point of our Great Ocean Road trip, having seen beautiful surf beaches, amazing geological formations and live and free kangaroos and a koala!