KEY POINTS:
Melbourne and Adelaide are 700km apart as the magpie flies. You can fly between the capitals of Victoria and South Australia in an hour. You can take the Hamilton Highway — the inland road — and drive from one to the other in about 10 hours. Or you can drive along the coast of Victoria into South Australia, taking the route known as the Great Ocean Road.
Melbourne's harbour, Port Phillip, is like a giant keyhole cut into the coast of Victoria. It takes a full hour's driving to put the towers and suburbs of Melbourne behind me and make my way around the keyhole to Geelong, then on to Bells Beach. From here it's not far to the start of the Great Ocean Road, but as a one-time surfer I can't resist calling in to Bells Beach.
Bells Beach is to surfing what Lords is to cricket. The waves of Bells have helped make world champions. Parking areas and viewing platforms have been built along the crests of the cliffs, grandstands for viewing Bells' famous wave breaks. I park the car and walk to the nearest platform.
The cliff is about 20m high. Its top is edged with bonsai-sized vegetation, giving 180 degree views of Bass Strait. Today the water is like blue-green glass and the mottled rocks of the reef which extends from the base of the cliff are visible. The waves appear first as long low mounds a kilometre or so out in the strait. The mounds gradually swell and steepen, building into glassy walls which rear up, then hover, crests fluttering, before breaking and peeling away from the reef.
The waves aren't huge, as they are in Oahu in Hawaii or Teahupoo in Tahiti, but they are perfectly formed. Today there are half a dozen riders. When the right wave comes, the riders thrust themselves forward, then glide down the face of the glassy wall, ducking, swerving and pirouetting. It's enough to get an old surfer salivating, and I'm reluctant to tear myself away from the spectacle, but this is just the beginning. From here it's not far to the start of the Great Ocean Road.
The road is aptly named. Alongside it is a great ocean, and it's a great road. Construction began in 1919, with labour provided by soldiers back from the battlefields of World War I. Diggers in every sense of the word, the ex-soldiers hewed the road into the coast's cliffs and headlands with picks, shovels and crowbars. As sections were completed, they opened as toll roads, but the tolls were abolished when the trust which had been set up to finance the project handed the road over to the Victorian State Government, in 1936. There's a monument to the Herculean labours of the workers — a sturdy wooden arch across the road — at Eastern View, half an hour's drive west from Torquay.
Glancing at the map, I see that the coast here is like a series of sprockets bulging into Bass Strait, separated by deep bays. As far as the driving goes, the most obvious thing is the smoothness of the two-lane road and the lightness of the traffic. Heavy vehicles have to take the inland Hamilton Highway. And the other drivers here are considerate, exhibiting none of the impatience and aggression that characterises driving in New Zealand. The road winds around promontories, then levels out and passes alongside the blue satin sea and long empty beaches.
My first stop is Apollo Bay, a holiday settlement and fishing port tucked on the eastern side of the biggest sprocket on the Victoria coast, Cape Otway.
From the boat harbour at Apollo Bay there's a fine view looking back at the curving beach and the bush-covered hills behind the town, but a holiday resort on this winter evening, lacking people, always has a forlorn aspect, so I get back into the car. Then, looking up, I see a hotel on the headland above the harbour. In the fading light its glowing windows look inviting, so I drive up, park the car, go in and order a beer from the bar.
Again, the view looking back across the beach and town is attractive, and I imagine that in summer Apollo Bay must become a special place, lively and full of surprises.
"Another drink?" the barman asks, and I accept the offer.
He's a cordial chap, asking where I'm from and what I'm doing in Apollo Bay in the height of the off-season, and the second beer slips down quickly. The barman says, "Another drink?" I'm about to say yes, when I look at the time. It's nearly six, I'm hungry, and I want to try one of the restaurants in the town. So I say goodbye to the barman, and drive down the hill and into the town's main street. The closed shops are on the left, the deserted beach on my right.
Halfway along the street a policeman steps out. In one hand he holds a torch, in the other a device for detecting the presence of alcohol on a driver's breath. He holds his torch hand up, gesturing me to stop. I do, and in the long moment between seeing the policeman and halting the car, many thoughts race through my mind. Why did I have that second drink? Why didn't I walk to the end of the town? How does a travel writer researching a driving story cope if he can't drive? It's a Monday night, what sort of a fool gets caught drink driving on a Monday night?
I stop the car and wind down the window. The tall cop has to stoop to come close to the window. He's about 35, with a long, creased face, grey eyes and big ears. It's an unmistakably Aussie face, a Chips Rafferty face. Squinting at me, he says gruffly, "You drive here from Queensland?"
Confused briefly, I then remember the car's licence plates. "No, no. I've just come from Melbourne. This is a rental car." Flushed with embarrassment, I decide to come clean. "Look officer, I've had a couple of drinks and I ..."
The cop's big face comes closer. "That right? It's impossible to tell if the confession has helped my case or not. The "That right?" carried a note of heightened interest. He thrusts the breathalyser in front of my face. "Say your name and where you come from into this. Slowly."
I do so, the cop takes the device away and looks at it closely. Now I've gone cold all over. The cop bends down again, then says in a slow, amiable Aussie voice, "No worries, mate. On yer way."
I feel like hugging him. But I don't. Instead I drive the 100 metres to my motel, pour myself a large glass of duty-free brandy and vow that I will never again let another glass of alcohol pass my lips before driving.
The biggest sprocket on the Victoria coast is Cape Otway, which is also a national park. Covered in temperate rainforest, the cape is bisected by the Ocean Road, with a branch road leading out to the cape. This road passes through groves of identically contorted eucalyptus trees and ends at the beginning of a path to the Cape Otway lighthouse.
The lighthouse stands on the apex of the triangular cape, commanding a breath-sucking, wind-blasting view over the western entrance to Bass Strait. The lighthouse, bright white and shaped like a giant's salt cellar, was built in 1848, making it the oldest on Australia's mainland. The light cast by its multiple lenses once made a beacon for every sailing ship arriving from Europe, a light of hope for the passengers and a symbol of their arrival in the New World after months of privation and illness at sea.
I climb the spiral stairs inside the lighthouse and walk out on to its balcony. The wind wraps itself around me like a straitjacket. Below me, Bass Strait is wind-driven, white-capped, livid.
It is 80km from the cape across to King Island, in the centre of Bass Strait's western entrance, but such were the perils of passing through here by sailing ship that negotiating this passage was known as "threading the needle". Ships by the score came to grief along this coast, driven on to the rocks by gales in daylight or unable to make their way in the dark.
Is there anything quite like an old lighthouse to stir the imagination? Still buffeted by the wind, I can't tear my eyes from the raging sea. Bass Strait, Australia's stormy portal. The Ocean Road goes on, heading directly west.
I'd seen photographs of the Twelve Apostles, but nothing prepared me for the sight of the real thing. A series of colossal rock formations standing just off the coast, in geological terms "stacks", they're remnants of mainland left after wave and wind have eroded the softer surrounding strata. To get them properly into scale, they're best viewed first from the foot of the Gibson Steps, near Princetown, which descend 70m down the cliff face to a sandy beach.
Standing on the beach looking west along the irregular line of stacks, I can fully appreciate the immensity of the Twelve Apostles. Sculpted by the waves rolling relentlessly in from the Southern Ocean, their horizontal, multi-coloured bands of limestone strata can be matched clearly with those of the adjacent mainland which the stacks were once joined to. Today the wind's off-shore, soothing the sea, but the waves are still huge, breaking far out and sweeping forcefully on to the shore. What must it be like here, I wonder, when the sea is driven by a southerly gale?
I walk along the cliffs' base, dodging the wave surges, staring upwards. The land is the colour of gingernut biscuits, and like a biscuit dunked in tea, it becomes soft, then dissolves. In this way the continent of Australia is slowly becoming smaller, at a rate of about 2cm a year. Maybe in this part of the country, I think idly, they need to change the title of the national anthem to Retreat Australia Fair.
The drive for the next 15km, from Princetown to Port Campbell, provides exhilarating views of the Twelve Apostles. Even better are the views from the boardwalks and platforms placed along the tops of the cliffs, or the walking tracks winding through the heath beside them. This was a fatal shore, too, known as the Shipwreck Coast. More than 300 ships have been lost along here, and countless lives with them, victims of the violent weather, navigational error and unseen reefs.
Warrnambool is the largest settlement on the Shipwreck Coast, a town of 28,000 people. It's most notable for being a nursery for Southern Right whales, who come up from the Antarctic to give birth to their calves beside Logans Beach — just outside the town — from May through to September. Two days before I arrived a whale calved and today there's a big crowd watching her and the baby lolling about in the calm green water, only a few metres from the boogie boarding boys zipping about in the glassy waves. A little way away another huge Southern Right (they grow up to 15m long and can weigh 60 tonnes) broaches, and the crowd exclaims at the sight. How things have changed. Throughout the 19th century these majestic creatures were harpooned mercilessly all along this coast, hacked to bits and rendered into liquid, their bones left to litter the sands. Now they're watched, studied, revered.
I recall this welcome turnaround the following day, too, when I'm being buzzed about in an inflatable among a fur seal colony on Cape Bridgewater, 60km further along the coast, near Portland. The cape is knuckle-shaped, and beside the remote rocks at the end of it dozens of fur seals are frolicking about the boat, turning corkscrew, flipping on to their backs and honking at us, then diving deep into the translucent water. They shelter on rocks in a cavern on the cape, and it's a grand sight to motor into this chamber and watch the glossy, chocolate brown seals heaving themselves from the water, honking at one another and sliding back down the rocks like children on a hydroslide.
If this was the 1800s these lovely, playful creatures too would have been mercilessly slaughtered for their skins.
"Where else are you staying on the Ocean Road?" a woman from Melbourne asked.
After checking my itinerary I replied, Port Fairy, pronouncing it as it's spelt.
The woman gave me a reproachful look. "Port Ferry," she corrected.
The place was named after the cutter Fairy, by its skipper when he sailed into its river mouth in 1827 in search of fresh water. Whalers and sealers followed and many pubs and trading stores were built. By the 1840s the whales had all been killed, but the town survived. Today it's the prettiest place on the Shipwreck Coast. Every March Port Fairy hosts Australia's largest folk-singing festival, and nearby Griffiths Island, at the mouth of the river, is a sanctuary for short-tailed shearwaters.
With considerable regret I head inland towards South Australia. Driving through pine forests, I see lots of kangaroo carcasses beside the road, some of the carrion being pecked at by fat black crows. The 'roos, I'm told later, are the victims of the big trucks that roar along the rural roads at all hours.
I feel sorry for the kangaroos.
I feel sorry for myself, too. Already I'm missing the Great Ocean Road.
The Shipwreck Coast
The coastline between Moonlight Head and Port Fairy is known as the Shipwreck Coast. "I have seldom seen a more fearful section of coastline," explorer Matthew Flinders wrote when rounding Cape Otway. Thick fogs and wild seas led to the coast claiming many convict transport and immigrant ships as they sailed through the approach to eastern Australia.
Shipwreck history is everywhere along the Victoria coast. An Historic Shipwreck Trail goes from Lavers Hill in the east to Port Fairy in the west. Markers along the trail indicate the sites of 25 shipwrecks, and include relics such as the anchor (pictured left) from the wreck of the Loch Ard, at the Visitors Centre at Port Campbell.
The Loch Ard, an iron clipper, foundered in 1878 at a place now called Loch Ard Gorge. A dense fog caused the ship to go on to the rocks and it sank quickly. Only two passengers survived, Tom Pearce, who clung to an upturned lifeboat, and Eva Carmichael, who held on first to a chicken coop, then a spar. The strong seas swept the pair into the gorge. Tom dragged the semi-conscious Eva into a cave and went for help. Only four bodies were recovered from the 52 who perished when the Loch Ard went down.
Otways Ranges
Some of the finest natural attractions to be seen along the Great Ocean Road are in the Otways Ranges, just west of Apollo Bay. The district's elevation and the protrusion of Cape Otway into the sea, mean rainfall is high (average 2000mm), supporting lush rainforest and producing spectacular waterfalls such as the Hopetoun Falls. The Otway Fly Treetop Walk is a 600m-long, 25m high, treetop walk, inland from the Great Ocean Road. The walk ascends at a gentle grade through a stand of cool temperate rainforest featuring Myrtle Beech, Blackwood and Mountain Ash.
TRAVEL NOTES: GREAT OCEAN ROAD
GETTING THERE
Qantas offers twice daily services to Melbourne.
MORE INFORMATION
Officially the Great Ocean Road is the B100. It is 263km long and its general direction is east-west. It begins at Torquay, south of Geelong, and ends at Warrnambool. Towns along the route (east to west) are: Torquay, Lorne, Apollo Bay, Lavers Hill and Port Campbell. The road is one lane in each direction and the speed limit varies from 80km/h to 100km/h.
WHEN TO VISIT
Hottest months on the Victoria coast are January and February, with a mean maximum temperature of 23 deg C. Summer humidity is moderate. July is the coldest month, with a mean maximum of 6 deg C. Winter average temp is 13-14 deg C.
USEFUL WEBSITES
www.greatoceanrd.org.au , www.visit-melbourne.com , www.australia.com .
BOOKING
Contact your nearest Aussie Specialist Premier Agent on 0800 151 085 or talk to your local travel agent.
COMPETITION
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