The Great Ocean Road Road-Trip

One item on the top of my list of "Places To See & Things To Do" was to drive The Great Ocean Road, one of the world's most famous and beautiful coastal drives, and see its most prominent landmark- The Twelve Apostles. The road stretches 151 miles along the bottom of Australia through seaside towns, beaches, country hills and rainforests. I shared my desire to drive the road with Aubrey, and she was all for taking a road trip! While there are many guided tours of the road, we decided it would be more cost effective and fun to rent a car and drive the road ourselves.

Monday morning we woke and set-off to rent a car for the day. At the shop they informed us that they only had manual cars left, which I thought was a major problem considering that I don't have a clue how to drive stick. Fortunately, Aubrey's first car as a young teen was a manual car so she volunteered to be the designated driver for the day.  We grabbed the keys, hopped in the car and were off! The car rental place had given us both horrible directions and maps (the index page was missing so I had no idea which map was for which area of Melbourne) so it took us nearly an hour just to make our way out of the city and onto the highway. However, after stopping a couple of times for help we made it onto the correct highway which turned into The Great Ocean Road. Finally, we were cruising off on our road trip adventure!

We enjoyed driving along the windy road, taking in the beautiful scenery around us. One moment we would be staring at the gorgeous ocean coastline, and the next we would be rolling through the country side surrounded by cattle and sheep. Our final destination was to reach the Twelve Apostles which from Melbourne was about a 4 hour drive, but the whole fun of driving the road is stopping at the small towns and sights along the way. First, we stopped at the Sheoak Falls. We walked through the rainforest for about 20 minutes until we reached the lovely waterfall hidden in the brush. After resting by the falls, we resumed our drive. Due to our desolate location, we had no radio reception and thus no music to accompany us on our drive. While I was not bothered by this static silence (thanks to the hooligans who stole my radio in New Haven), it drove Aubrey nuts.  She was desperate to find some sort of music to listen to on our drive, and at any opportunity would pull up to parked cars and pedestrians and ask them, "Excuse me fine gentleman. You wouldn't happen to have any CDs that you are looking to part with, do you?" I cracked up laughing every time she did this (at least 5 times), and each time they would shake their heads no. Everyone she asked was either in a rental car like we were, or they had ipods. To make up for this lack of music, Aubrey and I sang. We sang Christmas carols and 90's music hits (Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Will Smith were the favorite artists) at the top of our lungs as we drove along the road. I wish we had recorded our performances, because they were pretty spectacular. Undoubtedly grammy worthy.

Brye ready to rock-and-roll as the DD

Cruising down the highway

At the start of the Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road

The Sheoak Falls

Our next pit stop was at Apollo Bay, a seaside town located midway between Melbourne and the Twelve Apostles. We noshed on crackers, cheese and watermelon while sitting by the ocean, and then carried on. We arrived at the Twelve Apostles around 5:00 p.m. The Twelve Apostles are limestone rocks that jut from the water right of the shore of the Port Campbell National Park. I'm not sure why they are called the Twelve Apostles (there are only 8 rocks), but they were awesome and a unique site to see. We arrived just in time to see the sun set behind the rocks. Then it was time to make the trek back to Melbourne. It was such a fun day, and I am so grateful that Aubrey a) knew how to drive stick and b) was willing to drive the entire length of the trip. It was a long day and she was a trooper. I thanked her repeatedly for making my Great Ocean Road-Trip dream come true! It was the perfect end to an awesome weekend in Melbourne.

The Twelve Apostles

The seaside coast

The end of the trip: sunset and our sturdy car