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The Great Ocean Road is not an experience that is meant to be written about--it is meant to be driven. Roughly 200 kilometers, the coastline and uncommercialized towns are packed full of fish and chips shops, second hand book stores, and weekend fairs. Australia has a habit of declaring things Great but the The Great Ocean Road definitely deserves its superlative. We drove the road east to west, from the Grampians to Melbourne, and started with the stretch that is most visually impressive.

After thousands of years of waves beating against the coast, fragments of limestone have eroded, leaving arches, islands, and stacks of former coast standing alone in the middle of almost unbelievably blue green water. We stopped at every turn off from the Bay of Islands to the Twelve Apostles, each one a dazzling piece of geological puzzle, alive in the sea.

The road is packed during the holidays with backpackers, foreigners and locals alike and accommodation is booked out from caravan parks to the highest end hotel. Nights found us parking on small side streets or at the back of a willing hostel and mornings found us washing up in public bathrooms, but it was spending a full three days taking in every view. It was on our last day that we succeeded in spotting koalas in the wild; curled up in tall trees right on the road, loads of koalas slept, ate and moved from branch to branch. We left the coast around Torquay, the capital of all things skate and surf, and took the highway to Melbourne.

To see photos of the Great Ocean Road, please click me