Great Ocean Road Tour (9/9/2025)

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Instead of driving along the 243km/151-mile Great Ocean Road, we took the advice of Sharon and Colin and flew to Melbourne to then take a tour. We left the driving to an Autopia guide, departing at 7:35 to head west.

After 150 km/93 miles, we stopped in Colac...

...for breakfast (a lamington/Australian cake coated
in chocolate sauce and rolled in desiccated coconut...

...and a pit stop at a row of individual lavatories 

Colac is surrounded by a volcanic plain full of
sheep and cattle stations, and agriculture

Being a "reverse" tour, we headed to the western section
of the tour, and would work our way back east to Melbourne;
you can see the new black and white Saddle Lookout
 (2024) that is cantilevered over the cliff

Originally called the Sow and Piglets, the name was
changed to the Twelve Apostles to attract tourists;
however, there were never twelve limestone rock stacks -
only nine of which seven remain, and they are eroding

Saddle Lookout juts out along a rock ridge called Castle Rock

Looking back at the Twelve Apostles near another stack

Some of the Twelve Apostles from the lookout northward

Now looking southward at Gog and Magog

It was a noisy crashing surf; looking out
along Castle Rock with a sentry tower at the tip?

Kent and Tamiko with the Twelve Apostles (it was windy!)

Tetragonia implexicoma/Bower Spinach is in the ice plant
family like much of the vegetation on the US West Coast (KSS)

Passer domesticus/House Sparrows in a row

We actually went a bit farther west to Loch Ard Gorge;
this is the Tom & Eva Lookout view of two prominent
limestone sea stacks, remnants of the collapsed Island Arch

Southward is Razorback, the ridge directly in front (KSS)

Loch Ard Gorge is where two teenage survivors of
the shipwreck of the Loch Ard ended up, perhaps in a cave...

...or on the beach

From Island Arch Lookout, we could see another arch

Strong splashing surf

Ham & cheese and chicken sandwiches were provided for lunch.

Correa backhousiana/Velvet Correa (KSS)

Heading southeast on the Great Ocean Road

Next a hike in Melba Gully, a temperate
rainforest in Great Otway National Park,
with bracket fungi on tree trunks

Kent spotted the Victaphanta compacta/
Otway Black Snail, a rare carnivorous
land snail endemic to this area

The trail incuded boardwalks

Dicksonia antarctica/Tasmanian
Tree Ferns and/or Sphaeropteris cooperi/
Cooper's Tree Ferns (KSS)

Melba Gully stream (KSS)

Anne's Cascade

We were told to look up in the Eucalyptus
viminalis/Manna Gum Trees for
Phascolarctos cinereus/Koalas

We could not focus on the fur balls in the trees (KSS)

But then the bus became mired in mud;
it took over an hour of passengers trying
different methods to free the bus; we did
manage to get ourselves out and we still
had three hours to return to Melbourne

But our guide/driver made sure we made every stop,
including ice cream from Dooley's in Apollo Bay; we
tried vegemite-flavored ice cream as well as a chocolate;
vegemite ice cream is more palatable than plain vegemite!

Vegemite is essentially leftover brewer's yeast extract, and is chock full of B vitamins. It is fed to babies, so that they acquire the taste for it.

Cape Patton Lookout Point (KSS)

Cape Patton Lookout Point where the road
follows the edge of the water (KSS)

Memorial Arch at Eastern View was first built in 1939
to honour the 3,000 returning WWI soldiers who worked
on the Great Ocean Road from 1919-1932; the road itself
honours those who lost their lives in the war, making it
the longest war memorial in the world; the arch
was rebuilt after the 1983 bushfires (KSS)

Statue of soldiers taking a break from
working on the Great Ocean Road (KSS)

Next: Phillip Island Tour.