How to drive from Melbourne to Adelaide on the Great Ocean Road
Our Great Australian Road Trip
The great road trip — our great journey — began with picking up a rental car from Avis in Melbourne. We scored a great deal for our 10-day rental by using a corporate discount code that eliminated a $350 one-way fee, costing us just $368 for 9 days. We had one last breakfast with Yuki’s parents, bought some clothes from Uniqlo, and drove Yuki’s parents to the airport so they could fly back to Thailand while the two of us continue our adventures in Australia.
Melbourne to Kennett River
The highway from Melbourne to Torquay, the start of the Great Ocean Road, is pretty uneventful. We actually skipped Torquay and our first stop was the Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery. Boasting more chocolate than I can explain, there are 1 kilogram bars of chocolate, 1 meter long bars, chocolate from around the world, and chocolate in the shape of kangaroos. We weren’t feeling like having any chocolate but decided on a double scoop of dark chocolate and berry sorbet in a waffle cone. It was delicious. Our server gave us heaping scoops and almost twice as much as the other ice cream stand in the building. The sorbet was delicious and I was able to eat lots of it because it wasn’t dairy. I particularly enjoyed how flavourful the sorbet was with chocolate and actual berry pieces, without being overly sweet. This ice cream was like nothing we’ve had before and definitely up there with the Tickleberry’s shop in Canada’s Okanagan Falls.
Not long after the chocolate factory, we reached the coast at Anglesea where we stopped at the mouth of the river to see the beach. We couldn’t get to it from the car park because a river was in the way, and we didn’t want to take our shoes off so we got back in the car and drove up the road to a lookout on the side of the road.
The Great Ocean Road is 243km of Australian national heritage between Torquay and Allansford, just before Warrnambool. It was built by returned soldiers between 1919 and 1932 and dedicated to soldiers who were killed during World War I. As such, it is the world’s largest war memorial and there is an archway and monument commemorating the road.
It is easy to draw parallels between the Great Ocean Road and the Oregon Coast, of which we’ve driven several times. Both have long stretches of beach that are great for surfing, as well as dramatic cliffs that are great for photography. Both roads have pullouts for picture-taking and both are known for being a great road trip destination.
We were excited to be on the road and quickly stopped at a wide open beach called Guvvos Beach for some photographs. Even under an overcast sky, the colour of the ocean is a turquoise blue and rich in colour. At the edge of the beach, I asked Yuki to stand on a rock for a photograph but she got her feet soaked by a wave.
We drove through Aireys Inlet and Lorne, where we ate Mexican food for dinner. The road is adjacent long beaches and we saw some surfers taking on the waves. At the end of Lorne, we stopped at a pier that had several fishermen and a fish and chips place. It was a nice place to get some more photos and take in the view.
From Lorne to Kennett River, the road follows the edge of the hillside, which drops quickly into the ocean below. Our accommodations for the night was an old monastery that had been converted into a 16-room AirBnB, had keyholes that were locked with two-pronged keys, and a few cows grazing in the field. It was full for the night, occupied by other travellers doing a similar Great Ocean Road drive.
Kennett River to the Twelve Apostles and Warrnambool
On Day Two of our road trip, we backtracked slightly to Kennett River to visit Kafe Koala. It’s a small cafe beside the road and is popular because there are koalas in the trees across the road. We grabbed fruit toast for breakfast and watched cars pull up and empty out to go see the koalas, smartphone in hand and leading the way. We joined them after breakfast to walk down the Great Grey Road, a gravel road where we spotted two koalas sleeping in the trees as well as parrots greedy to be fed. Because it is an open road, we decided to drive down the road which winds up into the hills. The koalas are rare and high in the trees, but we spotted 4 more. We tried to explore further down the road but without cell service or offline maps, we didn’t know where it led and eventually had to turn back before we went in too far.
The next major town on the Great Ocean Road is Apollo Bay, about half an hour down the coast. We originally wanted to stay here the night before, but we couldn’t find anything in our price range when we tried to book last-minute. We arrived at lunch and while there are a few expensive restaurants, we chose to get freshly baked pies from a bakery instead. We took the pies to the end of town to eat in a parking lot beside the beach. It seemed like a good place to have a nap so we relaxed in the car and enjoyed looking out at the beach.
After Apollo Bay, the road heads inland through the Great Otway National Park. There’s a turnoff for Cape Otway and the Cape Otway Lighthouse but with a $20/person entrance fee, we only went as far as the front door. Fortunately, the detour wasn’t a complete loss because we saw koala #7 and #8 (her baby!) on the way out.
I’m glad that we were able to see koalas on the side of the road because we hadn’t seen any wildlife at Uluru. I was hoping we would see kangaroos, lizards, snakes, or scorpions, but there was nothing. Just an arid flat landscape. To see koalas in the trees beside the road gave me hope that I’d see a kangaroo too, but by the end of the road trip the only kangaroos we’d see were the dead ones that got hit on the road and those in the zoo.
Between Cape Otway and the Twelve Apostles, there’s only one viewpoint of the coast, the Castle Cove Lookout. It’s worth stopping at to take a break and stretch our legs.
Other than the viewpoint, there’s nothing but cows and sheep on rolling hills and crazy foreign drivers. The first that we encountered was a Chinese couple taking pictures in the middle of the road. I went around a corner at the 80km speed limit and had to brake hard to avoid running over the the guy standing in the middle of the road taking a photo. After we stopped at the Castle Cove Lookout, we got back on the road and were stuck behind the same couple. The girl decided to drive really slowly with her wheels over the double middle line — literally in the middle of the two-lane road — and only moved over when traffic came from the opposite direction, while braking hard. When we saw a chance to pass, they were in both lanes which made it difficult for us to pass. At the second chance, I honked at them to pass. She didn’t seem to appreciate that, because not two minutes later she sped past us and another car in a construction zone!
A second crazy driver tried to cut us off as we were turning right into a parking lot (in Australia you drive on the left). We made it by him and turned across the street only to see him turn into the oncoming traffic at the T junction. After that incident, we stopped chuckling at the many signs along the road reminding drivers to “Drive on the left in Australia”.
The major attraction and most significant part of the Great Ocean Road is the last stop before the end. The Twelve Apostles are a series of rock stacks on the edge of the coast that are the remains of headlands after the waves have eroded bays into the cliffside. A few years ago, one collapsed into the sea and not long before that, an archway also fell into the sea.
The area around the Twelve Apostles has three main stopping points. Arriving from the east, the first stop is Gibson Steps. There is a decent-sized parking lot and a staircase cut into the cliffside that leads down to the bottom, where there is a nice sandy beach.
At this beach it was my turn to get my feet wet getting a photo of Yuki. It was, however, #WORTHIT!
The second stop is the main attraction and has a sizeable parking lot as well as a visitor centre for the Twelve Apostles. We arrived late in the day, but the sun was above the rock formations and cast a very bright light directly onto the viewing platform, so the photos weren’t very good. On top of that, it was very busy, with a lot of tourists trying to get their own pictures. We decided that we would come back the next day and see it at sunrise.
The third stop is the Loch Ard Gorge and the Twelve Apostles Marine Park. There are several walking trails but none of them take very long to walk along. Each trail has a view of the narrow bays and inlets that have been eroded by the sea. Because the erosion is still occurring, the viewpoints are set back from the edge and therefore aren’t the greatest. We did the necessary walk to see the sights, but after working our way through the crowds at the Twelve Apostles we were pretty spent and tired, ready to get to our AirBnB in Warrnambool.
Sunrise at The Twelve Apostles
The Great Ocean Road really ought to end in Warrnambool, which is a large town, instead of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town Allansford at which we had no reason to stop.
When we came back to our AirBnB after dinner, I had a sudden allergy attack like nothing I’d felt before. It completely knocked me out and made me feel like my entire head was inflamed.
The next morning, we got up at 5:00AM and I still felt off. However, not wanting to miss sunrise at the Twelve Apostles, we drove the hour-long drive back and arrived to a cold morning sea breeze. There were a number of other people there waiting to see the sunrise; we all looked like penguins huddled in bunches and bundled up in jackets waiting for the sun to come up.
There are two rock formations to the east of the lookout, and the remainder are to the west. We started out on the east side, watching the sky get noticeably brighter and wishing that it would hurry up and warm us up. The sun was miserably slow to rise and burn off the mist collected against the cliffs and the scattered clouds covering the sky. It seemed to take forever to rise up into the sky because we were so cold.
When we moved to the west viewing spot, the sun was just beginning to shine on the Twelve Apostles. We huddled together trying to stay warm while watching the professional photographers send their drones out for close-up videos.
We got some epic photos and some great images to stitch into panoramas. Regrettably, with the loss of my computer I don’t have the computer software to stitch those photos into panoramas and the iPad just can’t do it. Until I get a new computer, I don’t have any way to show these.
Our early morning wakeup call was not without consequence. When we’d finally had enough of the cold, we retreated to the car to warm up and Yuki promptly fell asleep. I slept soon after, but couldn’t sleep long because what I thought was an allergy attack turned into a cold.
Things to do in Warrnambool
Our AirBnB host told us about three great things to do in Warrnambool. The first was a platform on the coast for whale watching. Unfortunately, it was the wrong season for whale watching. The second was the Merri Marine Sanctuary. This nature park is significant because it contains two islands that are home to the only mainland penguins that are guarded by dogs. The penguins used to be eaten by foxes until Maremma dogs were trained and introduced to the island to protect the penguins. The penguin colony is now thriving and the trail we took to see them was a good walk.
Apart from the penguins, there are some interesting rock formations along the coast and what looked like offshore reefs. We took a short walk and would have liked to say longer, but I wasn’t feeling good so we went back to the house to rest.
We saw the third and best part of Warrnambool on our way out of town after checkout. Tower Hill is an extinct volcano that has been turned into a wildlife refuge. When you drive into the park, you drive down into the rim of the volcano. This was an exciting driving experience for me, because it quite obviously looks like a volcano. I was driving in a volcano!
At the base of the volcano is a lake and island. We had to stop briefly for a turtle to cross the road and then visited the visitor centre. We bought some koala roadside stickers and asked the ranger about the various walks on the island. He wasn’t very informative, so we headed out to the Lava Bed walk because it sounded cool. We saw two emus, giant walking birds that are the second biggest in the world after the ostrich. The Lava Bed walk turned out to be a swamp and we knew we wouldn’t see koalas or kangaroos there, so we turned back. The second walk was the Old Wagon trail where we saw two more emus and finally spotted a koala at the end of the walk. It was actually a mother koala with a baby, making #9 and #10 on the koala kount.
There is also a road along the rim of Tower Hill and a few viewpoints where you could see the entire volcano. We stopped to see if we could get some good photos but it was overcast and about to rain so we couldn’t see to the coast. It would have made a great sunset viewing spot on a clear day.
Warrnambool to Robe
Most people do the Great Ocean Road as a day trip or a weekend trip, turning around to head back towards Melbourne after they’ve seen the Twelve Apostles. We wanted the drive to continue West towards Adelaide. I was disappointed that the roads West of Warrnambool were through farmland and cow fields. The coast looks appealing on Google Maps, but there isn’t a paved road along it.
We detoured to Portland in the hopes of seeing the coast and ended up at Cape Nelson State Park. This is a worthwhile detour, with two ways in and out. The one we took is reasonably close to the coast and there are several places along the road to stop and get some photos.
The Cape has a lighthouse and dramatic landscape. It was super windy and so we couldn’t get very close to the water, but found that we could easily lean back into the wind without falling over.
We spent two nights in Robe doing absolutely nothing in our hotel room. It was great. I caught up on some blogging while Yuki browsed the internet, and we watched some game shows on TV as well as We Bare Bears on our devices. If you’re ever in Robe, we recommend the Guichen Bay Motel and the Adventurous Spoon cafe next door.
On the day we left, we went out to The Tip, based on the advice of the motel owner. We were surprised to find a photogenic rocky cliff with a navigation obelisk and crashing waves below. The stormy day gave us a fun experience watching the waves smash on the rocks and send water spraying into the wind.
Robe to Adelaide
The drive from Robe to Adelaide wasn’t very interesting and the scenery changed from cows to sheep to pine forests once we entered South Australia. We tried to get to the beach by taking the “scenic route” through Coorong National Park but that just led to a dirt road and an outhouse.
It seems that there are places to drive and beaches to drive on if you have a 4x4, but there isn’t a paved road beside the coast. This seems like a shame and a missed opportunity to me.
We only made one stop on the Princes Highway at Jack Point Observatory. This was a short 20 minute walk to a viewing shelter, where it’s possible to see pelicans 150m away on some islands. This was too far for us to see without binoculars and the only white birds we could see were seagulls.
Things to do in Adelaide
Adelaide was a bizarre city to us. Similar to Sydney, the downtown was absolutely dead the two times we tried walking around. There wasn’t anyone around and most of the shops were closed even though it was the middle of the day.
Unlike the empty city streets, the two coffee shops we sat at to journal and blog were lively with patrons coming for a meal and social time. Unlike in Canada where Starbucks is a work/study lounge, the cafes here are used for having tea and coffee and catching up with friends. We were out of place, sitting at a table not talking to each other much while we did our own thing.
One of the things we found todo in Adelaide was kayaking with dolphins. Apparently not many locals know about it which is strange because it’s not that hidden but we booked online and arrived the next morning for a 2 hour paddle. We started by kayaking through some mangroves and then saw dolphins in the water as we made our way towards some shipwrecks. They got as close as two meters off our bow which was really exciting. You can see them in Yuki’s Instagram video below.
The main reason we came to Adelaide is because it’s in South Australia, where it is still legal to hold koalas. Apart from making a great one-way road trip, we wanted to experience holding koalas!
There are several locations near Adelaide where you can get up close to koalas. One is Kangaroo Island, which requires a day-trip from Adelaide and costs well over $400. Another, and the one we chose, is the Gorge Wildlife Park, which is an hour away from Adelaide that only costs $17 and includes a ticket to hold a koala.
In addition to koalas, the park also has kangaroos, wallabies, camels, peacocks, wombats, meerkats, dingos, alligators, otters, echidnas, and a ton of birds.
To top off a great koala holding day, we went to the Adelaide beach and walked on the Semaphore jetty. There, we saw two dolphins swim past and a seal under the dock. The seal was stealing fish bait from the crabbers and we got some good photos of him.
The afternoon was warm and the ocean water was surprisingly calm. We imagine that this would be a wonderful beach to hang out in because it’s very sandy and shallow for a long way out into the water.
It’s reassuring that the traveling we’ve done has felt natural. Though we realize that we’re moving too quickly from place to place and haven’t had enough rest days, it feels great to be traveling and it feels like we have a natural rhythm and way of life. I hope this continues with us as we road trip around New Zealand’s South Island and continue to travel beyond that.
