Driving the Great Ocean Road

From Tasmania we flew to Adelaide and spent a few days there. The highlight was a winery tour of the Barossa Valley, which is one of Australia’s premier wine regions, with over 150 wineries. Shiraz is the primary grape, although they do produce lots of other red and white wines.

The group tour was a lot of fun, helped by the generous pours and tastings of nearly 25 wines at 3 wineries (we got good at pouring out those that were just so-so and drinking only the ones we liked!). It was amazing how different each of the wines was!

And we ended the day with a gin tasting. While I’m not a big fan of gin, I could definitely drink the Shiraz gin, a wonderful marriage of Shiraz grapes and gin.

Of course, we could have probably saved a whole lot of time and money going through one of these drive-through liquor stores…

…but I’m sure it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun!

On the drive from Adelaide towards the Great Ocean Road, we passed through beautiful countryside, and many rural towns with quirky claims to fame. Like the town of Coonalpyn, where a local artist has decorated silos with portraits of local school children.

And then there was the town of Hamilton which claimed to have the best tasting tap water – they won the Australia wide contest in 2018!

After that, it was on to the Great Ocean Road, which is a 240 km scenic stretch of road along the south eastern coast of Australia. This coastline is also called the Shipwreck Coast because there have been over 800 shipwrecks since 1797. The Bass Strait, the only practical route between Melbourne and Europe, is notorious for its changeable weather and treacherous currents.

A unique feature that creates many of the attractions along the Great Ocean Road are the limestone stacks, like this one at the Bay of Islands. The harsh and extreme weather conditions from the Southern Ocean gradually erode the soft limestone to form caves in the cliffs, which then become arches that eventually collapse, leaving rock stacks up to 50 m (160 ft) high.

My favorite of all the attractions was the Grotto. The formation is so beautiful, with the colors of the rock showing off the beautiful blue of the ocean.

The most famous wreck provided one of Australia’s greatest rescue stories and gave its name to the Loch Ard Gorge.

During a winter storm on June 1, 1878, the clipper Loch Ard, having departed from England, crashed on the rocks of nearby Muttonbird Island. Only one of the 54 on board, apprentice sailor Tom Pearce, managed to struggle to shelter, in this gorge. He then heard the cries of the only other survivor, Eva Carmichael, 19, clinging to wreckage at sea. Pearce plunged back into punishing surf against all odds to save her.

We ended the sightseeing at the mighty sea stacks mislabeled the Twelve Apostles, which many consider to be the climax of the Great Ocean Road trip. I say mislabeled because there are only eight of them, Number Nine having fallen into the sea some time ago.

Actually, there were never 12; authorities adopted the name as a stronger tourism pull than the previous moniker, Sow and Piglets. Hacked out of the coast by the relentless surf, the massive Apostles attest to the power of the treacherous Shipwreck Coast.

And then we headed off to Melbourne, since that is where we would catch a flight for the next leg of our journey. While most of the days were clear, and we had a few good wanders around the city, the smoke covered the city during the last day and that was when we had an unplanned meeting with Australia’s Finest. The fire alarm went off in the apartment building where we were staying (at midnight, no less!), a false alarm caused by the smoke from the bush fires east of the city coming into the foyer! Our apartment was air-conditioned so we were fine while we stayed in it.

We were happy to leave Melbourne, as even at 9am the sun was blocked by the smoky haze at the airport.

And off we go to New Zealand!