The Great Ocean Road trip

At last the day came when I started on my first of many road trips, which turned out to be great. It’s going to be a long post, so I hope you don’t get TLDR feeling (too long, didn’t read). As there are plenty of places to visit along the Great Ocean Road and the Great Otway National Park, I had to do some planning beforehand as I chose to be on the road for three days. Also, as it is winter time in down under and the sun sets around 17 (5pm as locals would say), I had to make sure I don’t run out of daylight.

Day 1

I had booked the car pickup at 9am on Friday and jumping in from the right side of the car wasn’t so exciting anymore as I already had the first time with my rental van few months earlier. And as most of the driving would be outside of city streets and with a small car, the left side traffic and driving on the other front seat would be easier. I still of course had to make sure I pickup a car with automatic transmission because operating gears with left hand would be too much. I had heard that some manufacturers differ on which way the light and windscreen wipers controls are. Since my moving van was a Volkswagen, it had them the way I have used to. But in this Hyundai, they were the opposite way. Well we wouldn’t want it to be too easy.

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First stop was You Yangs Regional Park 60 kilometres away from the city, which contains a Flinders Peak trail that I chose beforehand. It’s about 1,6 kilometres long uphill route to the highest point of the park at about 350m above sea level. The trail itself has 200m of elevation with 450 steps, so it was quite nice walk in sunny weather. It was also good exercise for my knee as my close neighbourhood doesn’t have many hills. At the start of the trail it read that there might be koalas in the gum trees. I didn’t see any, but I don’t know if wintertime is so good time to spot them.

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After the You Yangs I hadn’t chosen any more locations on the way to my first accommodation and I only had about 75 km left to drive. I just stopped in Geelong to have sushi for lunch. I wanted anyways to arrive early to the first Airbnb place in Fairhaven, so I have enough daytime to see a local lighthouse and the coastline. The apartment was in first floor in the same town house as where the host lives but this time they were on their own trip, so I didn’t meet them. The check-in procedure was quite easy as they had just left the key to the door for me. Before coming to Australia, I had heard that in classic British style older houses here don’t have quite the same insulation as I have gotten used to in Finland. Well this apartment was good example of it. The front door was just a sliding door with single or double glass without any sealant. After I came back from my walk/beer/pizza, which was well after sunset, the temperature was already under ten outside. The split system AC heated the living room nicely, but the toilet floor was very cold. For the night I turned the heating off since I closed the bedroom door.

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Summary of day 1:

• 18210 steps
• 12,3 km walking
• 140 km driving
• 2 times wiped windscreen when changing lanes

Day 2

The bedroom window and sliding door to the terrace had probably the same quality insulation as the night was quite cold. Under the covers it was warm, but I could estimate from my nose that the temperature inside was well below 20 degrees. And again, the bathroom floor was freezing. I had brought woollen socks form Finland, but they didn’t warm my feet being back in my place in Melbourne. The host had left all sorts of breakfast supplies that I could have used, but I decided to have early start since the day two had fuller schedule. When I got to my car at 8am, the outside temperature showed 3°C and the moisture from the night was actually a bit frozen to the windscreen. The wipers started clearing it shortly after turning the heat on. After breakfast in nearby local café, it was time start the Great Ocean Road.

My first stop was Erskine Falls, which was a bit inland from the coast. On my way there I got first taste of the twists and turns that this route has to offer. I only had to make sure I didn’t cut left turns too much into the bank of the road. The falls was the first time I saw the lush nature of southern Victoria, with lots of fern trees. The wintertime is not the best time to see the local fauna except some birds, but on the other hand the temperature is more pleasant than the heat of the summer.

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Before heading back to the Great Ocean Road, I stopped by a nice lookout spot to take a few pictures. There were also some few kilometres trails, but I decided to skip them since I had a schedule to keep. I saw close by great looking white Sulphur-crested Cockatoo and took few quick photos of it. Afterwards I discovered that those photos failed miserably since I had the camera on manual mode and over exposure was highly present. The first time I saw nice fauna and had good camera on hand, I failed it.

The other falls I visited wasn’t far away. To see Sheoak Falls there was about 15 minutes of walk from the car with bit of steps and nice views. Also, some strange rocks that had smooth round crevices. After taking a few photos of the falls, I turned back to the car. There would have been again some other places to walk to, but I stuck to my schedule.

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After driving a while along the coast and grabbing a quick mediocre hamburger lunch at local café, I turned the car inlands for the most interesting road towards Californian Redwoods. It consisted about 30 kilometres of narrow road fitting barely two cars side by side at some points with numerous blind tight corners. Luckily, there wasn’t much traffic as almost every corner was exciting as you didn’t know that is there car coming behind the corner. Also, the side of the road was covered with wet foliage so you couldn’t clearly see the edge of the pavement. After the thrilling drive I arrived at the Redwoods, which contains as the name points, the redwoods that grow originally in California. They were planted here as an experiment back in 1936 so it looks like that after about 85 years, you can say that the experiment was a success. Of course, they are not as tall as in California, but still they are very majestic here in Victoria. Last time they were measured back in 2004, they reached to almost 60 metres in height and 107cm in diameter.

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Then it was time to head back to the coast towards the last sight of the day, the Cape Otway Lightstation. The drive was a bit more relaxed as the route wasn’t the same twisty narrow road I drove there. The schedule of the day aimed for arriving to the lighthouse early enough that I had time to check it out before closing time. The plan was a success as I arrived there before 4pm, which left 45 minutes to see the grounds and the lighthouse itself. It’s the oldest and most important lighthouse of Australia. It was originally built in 1848 because the before that hundreds of lives were lost along the shipwreck coast. It was also an important place in World War 2 as they built there a radar bunker in 1942 to monitor enemy movement. I climbed the 20-meter tall lighthouse sitting about 90 meters above the sea among the last groups before the park started closing for the day.

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As the sun was setting when I left the park, I drove towards Apollo Bay that was close to my second accommodation. I walked around the Apollo Bay for a while trying to find decent enough place to eat. The corona restrictions aren’t making that any easier when trying to find place to dine in. I finally found a good Indian restaurant and after some delicious naan bread and tikka masala, I went and bought few beers for the evening and drove to the Airbnb place. It was actually a motel and my room could have housed 5 people as it had a king bed and three bunk beds. Also, as the split system AC unit was in the same room as the bed and it was silent, I knew that at least it wouldn’t get as cold as the previous night. Just as I went to bed, another group in the next-door started singing songs accompanied by a guitar playing and from what I determined, a bongo drums of some kind. It was quite annoying but as I knew I didn’t have early wake up, I was patient enough and had a good night sleep after they were done.

Summary of day 2:

• 12021 steps
• 7,1 km walking
• ~212 km driving
• 1 time wiped windscreen when changing lanes

Day 3

After breakfast in Apollo Bay I drove to the scenic spot above the Apollo Bay before heading back to the Great Ocean Road. The last day before the drive back to Melbourne would be just about the massive tens of meters high limestone structures along the coast. First stop was the main attraction, the Twelve Apostles that is one of the most popular attraction in Australia. So, I finally arrived at the place my blog welcoming image is from. I got nice photos but of course it’s not the same as the stock photo at sunset. Again, the wintertime was an advantage (and maybe the corona situation had an effect) as there wasn’t too much people during that day. The sea erodes the limestone bit by bit, which first forms caves and arches. Those eventually collapse and form the stacks. At some point also the stacks collapse to the ocean. For example, originally there were nine stacks forming the twelve apostles, but one of them collapsed in 2005 and another in 2009, leaving just seven standing today.

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In addition to the main attraction, there were several locations along the road I stopped at to marvel the variety of limestone wonders. Loch Ard Gorge had the most famous shipwreck along the shipwreck coast in 1878, which only had two survivors who washed to shore at the beach of the Gorge. The ship crashed on to the cliffs of Mutton Bird Island, which has a spectacle during spring and summer time, consisting of thousands of mutton birds flying at dusk back to their nests to feed their chicks. I may have to make another trip here during the summer. The London Bridge was originally connected to the mainland, but the arch collapsed in 1990. I saw plenty of penguin tracks on the beach below, but they probably would have come back from the sea during dusk, so I had to settle for the tracks.

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By the time I was at the last stop in Bay of Islands, the sun was getting low and I got some implications of how much better photos the setting sun offers. Then it was time to turn the car towards Melbourne along more direct route inland. Obviously, the roads back weren’t so interesting as during the Great Ocean Road, as it was getting dark and they were mostly straight roads with 90 degrees corners and intersections along lots of farmland.

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Summary of day 3:

• 15325 steps
• 9,6 km walking
• 388 km driving
• 0 times mishandling indicators / windscreen wipers 😎

All in all, the road trip was very successful. The planned schedule of the second day kept good and I managed to see all the spots I selected and didn’t feel too rushed. Maybe next time I’ll do some longer day hike so it’s not so much driving, but I think driving these roads was an attraction itself.

The corona here in Melbourne has surged a little after breach in a quarantine hotel and certain hotspot suburbs have seen rise in infections. They decided to go back to the lockdown for four weeks in July for certain postcodes and I’m in one of them. I got quite lucky that the lockdown didn’t start week earlier before my road trip. So, I’m back to the stay home restrictions with only a few reasons going out. Just yesterday they put nearby 20-floor public housing buildings into hard lockdown for at least five days that during the residents can’t leave their apartments. The buildings are densely populated with some shared spaces, so they fear that corona has spread widely there. It’s also possible that they will put rest of the post codes to the “soft” lockdown. The daily new cases have gone to triple digits on last Friday first time since the end of March. I must think positive that now I have time to plan my next road trip and I still can go for runs and bike rides. This time though police might randomly stop you on the street asking that where I’m going, but I guess if they see me running, they deduce that I’m exercising.

Hey if you got this far, congrats of staying with me and reading the long post. The corona numbers in Victoria are 531 currently active cases with 2469 cases confirmed from the beginning of the epidemic. Jone over and out (literally as I’m heading out for a run).