We rented a car from Hertz on Flinders Street in Melbourne, with original plans to drop the car off in Adelaide. We ultimately ended up having to turn around and head back to Melbourne halfway through our road trip to catch a flight back to the US due to the coronavirus. But before the unfortunate turn of events, we did have a great drive along the Great Ocean Road! We spent two full days along the Great Ocean Road before turning north and heading through wine country to Adelaide.
Day 1
We started in Melbourne, with our first night destination at Apollo Bay, specifically staying at the Chocolate Gannetts (#4). The drive straight through would have been about 3 hours, but we took our time! Our stops along the way were as follows:
- Bell’s Beach: famous surf beach, home of the annual Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach competition. It was a little rainy and chilly when we stopped, but still plenty of surfers out! We watched for about 15 minutes from the upper platform before continuing on our way.
- GOR Chocolaterie and Ice Cream: picked a few chocolate truffles and nonpareils for some car treats.
- 4 Kings Coffee & Food in Anglesea: Good “toastie” sandwiches and coffee for lunch.
- Anglesea Golf Club for kangaroo spotting: for a fee of 12 AUD/person, a “guide” takes you out a very short way onto the golf course to look at the kangaroos. He had some kangaroo facts, but definitely overpriced. Lots of kangaroos though and we were able to get pretty close to them! An expensive, but guaranteed way to see kangaroos.
- Teddy’s Lookout in Lorne: wind your way up, off of the Great Ocean Road to a nice overlook of the Great Ocean Road and coastline.
- Kennett River for koala spotting: peaceful, easy nature walk along Kennett River, specifically looking for koalas! They eat the eucalyptus leaves, but are only active for about 4 hours/day, so spotting them can be difficult. Fortunately, we found one! And he was awake and actively eating! We were entranced for around 30 minutes. There is also a lot of good informational signs along the walk that describe the nature in the area.
- Chocolate Gannetts in Apollo Bay: our home for the night, although we would have stayed a week or more if we could have. This place was absolutely incredible. Great views of the ocean in unit #4. Two bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms, plus a jacuzzi bathtub with see-through fireplace (wood provided). We loved it. Also, there was a delicious breakfast spread for us to cook ourselves in the morning (breads, jams, eggs, milk, fruit, juices). And a great porch with chairs to enjoy the views. Can’t recommend this place enough!
We had dinner at La Bimba, a cute small restaurant in Apollo Bay. We ordered the 2-person seafood paella and 2-person fish meal – very delicious!
Day 2
We traveled from Apollo Bay to Port Fairy on our second day along the Great Ocean Road. It was another action-packed day with the following stops:
- Maits Rest Rainforest Walk: we attempted to stop here, but it was closed due to maintenance. It is supposedly a nice 30-minute walk on a boardwalk through the rainforest.
- Cape Otway Lightstation: first and foremost, a lighthouse on the coast that you can climb for views. This is also a lot of history here with great signage/information including at the old house where lighthouse operators lived with their families, a WWII bunker where lookouts/messages were transmitted, and an aboriginal house (free talks two times per day). This stop does involve some walking to get to all the sites, but an overall cool complex. There is also a café with food and drinks. Apparently during WWII the Germans secretly commandeered an Australian ship and proceeded to drop minefields along the coast. Later, an American ship, headed for New York City, hit a bomb (everyone survived), which then sparked the Australians to find/disarm the bombs, but based on German war records, they haven’t found them all!
- Otway Fly Treetop Adventures: a walk across an elevated boardwalk through the rainforest (25 AUD per person). To get to the elevated boardwalk, you have to walk 10-20 minutes down (and then back up) from the visitor center. However, they run a golf cart down and back if you need it. I will also note that it’s a long walk from the parking lot to the ticket building. The elevated walk is well worth it. There’s also a viewing tower where you can get almost as high as the treetops and it sways a bit so you get the full “tree” effect. Another feature is the cantilever walk that can supposedly hold 20 plus elephants. The walk took us about an hour in total. Plus, there weren’t many people, so it was a great experience.
- Twelve Apostles: the famous rock features themselves. Since we were here in the late afternoon, the three to the north of the viewing point were cloaked in sun/shadow, but the two to the south were lit up beautifully to see all of the rock layers. It is about a 10-minute walk from the parking lot to the viewing point. A must-stop and definitely the busiest/most crowded stop on our GOR tour.
- The Arch: quick stop to see the Arch rock formation.
- London Bridge: another quick stop, this rock formation was neat!
- Port Fairy, the Penthouse 2A Ritchie Street (AirBnB): A 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom second floor condo, but unfortunately, there was a cricket infestation when we stayed! We killed a few dozen and the worst was that one fell (or jumped?) onto my face while we were sleeping. The ocean views were nice though.
We ended up skipping Tom & Eva’s Lookout, Lord Ard Gorge, and The Grotto due to time constraints. Dinner in Port Fairy was pizza at Coffin Sally – decent, but nothing special.
Day 3
While technically our journey on the Great Ocean Road ended in Port Fairy, we were continuing on to Coonawarra, a small wine town on the way to Adelaide. The drive was about 2 hours and 45 minutes with no planned stops along the way. The countryside was pretty – lots of grazing lands for cows and sheep, rolling grass hills, and small roads lined with big trees. A very scenic drive!
We got lunch in Penola, a small town about 10-minutes from Coonawarra, at Vintage Café. We got a few meat pies and sandwiches – delicious! Then we continued to our two respective cottages to relax and refresh. Patrick and I stayed at Pyrus Cottage and my parents stayed at Coonawarra Cottages. Both were very cute! It was at the Pyrus Cottage that we all saw our first huntsman spider. It was inside our cottage, and terrified me to my inner core. They are huge! Our host tried to grab it for us to relocate it outside, but it squeezed into the smallest crack in the wall to escape. I should note that the spiders are harmless, just unnerving.
We went over to Wynns Coonawarra winery for a free tasting of about 8 wines! This was the first winery in the region and has been operating/producing grapes since 1891. Plus, it was only a 5-minute walk from our cottages. The wines were very good and the guy providing the tastings was very friendly and chatty. A great experience!
We ate dinner at the Chardonnay Lodge for dinner. We thought it was closed at first since no one was in there, but alas, the coronavirus had already started affecting the tourist industry. We ordered scotch fillet steaks and enjoyed them. The next morning, we were provided with fresh eggs, homemade fresh bread (from our cottage host!), and ham-like bacon so we could make breakfast.
Unfortunately, while in Coonawarra, we realized that our trip was officially coming to an end sooner than we had wanted. Australia was closing its borders and we were worried that if we waited much longer, we wouldn’t be able to get home quickly. So, we booked flights from Melbourne back to Denver (where Patrick and I were headed) and Phoenix (where my parents were headed). We would be on the same flight to Los Angeles first and were fortunately able to get some great flight deals with points (the silver lining in all of this).
Day 4
Instead of heading towards Adelaide, we turned back around and headed to Warrnambool, which is along the Great Ocean Road. We took a different, still scenic, route back to mix it up, taking about 3 hours total. We tried our luck at the Deep Blue Hotel (didn’t have reservations) and were fortunate to snag the third-floor penthouse with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. A lot of places were already closing up due to the coronavirus, so we ordered dinner from the hotel restaurant to eat in our penthouse suite.
Days 5/6
From Warrnambool, we drove 3 hours to the Melbourne Airport, dropping off our Hertz rental car here before checking into the Holiday Inn. Hertz was awesome in accommodating the change in our itinerary. We relaxed in our rooms until eating dinner at the hotel. We checked out the next morning and walked over to the airport for our 10:30 am flight.
It was a long 14-hours to Los Angeles, but we made it back to the US. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, we expected to get questioned or temperature checked, but NOTHING. It was so easy – there were no lines except the line to re-check our bags after customs. We were really shocked that there was no coronavirus screening in place. We didn’t have to wait too long before boarding our next flight to Denver. It was about 24 hours of traveling, but we had made it home, where there was 8 inches of snow on the ground (and we thought we were going to miss winter!). Although it was much earlier than planned, we were glad to be home safe.