A 3-Day Trip To The Great Ocean Road Victoria

Last updated on 27 December 2024

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If you do one thing on your trip to the state of Victoria, make it the Great Ocean Road.

Running along the coast of Australia‘s southern mainland state, Victoria, is the stunning Great Ocean Road that winds its way past beautiful beaches, cliff-top lookouts, incredible natural rock formations rising from the waters and sweet little towns dotted throughout. On our trip to Melbourne, we spent two and a half days on this coast, exploring the sights and avoiding the kangaroos.

Our main reasons for heading on a mini-road trip was to visit the Twelve Apostles. These are stunning limestone piles of rock rising from the waters, and they were incredible. I’ll get to those in a second, but the main reason I bring it up now is because two more interesting-location stops after the Twelve Apostles was going to be our turnaround point on our road trip. The Apostles are about a four-hour drive from Melbourne, and we broke up the journey by spending two nights in a little town called Lorne, which was around halfway.

Let me break it down for you.

Day 1: Melbourne to Lorne

We picked up our rental car in the city and I struggled with about three hook turns in the CBD, before we made it out of the centre of town and into actual roads that don’t have trams running down the middle. With a quick stop in at the Brighton Beach Huts just south of St Kilda and a stop in at UNI QLO to pick up a rain coat (that’s a long story in itself, perhaps I’ll tell it one day. For now, I’ll leave you somewhat intrigued but knowing your life is probably not any better if I had actually told you the story in this post), we were on our way.

Aireys Inlet and Split Point Lighthouse

Our first stop between Melbourne and Lorne was mostly accidental. We saw a lighthouse in the distance, saw the sign, took the exit and found backstreet that lead to a path you could walk up to get to the lighthouse. Definitely worth it. It was gorgeous.

Lorne

We arrived in Lorne about 4pm and were greeted by a flipping flock of cockatoos! We were definitely not expecting that, so we pulled over and jumped out of the car along with some other tourists and snapped some photos. I knew that cockatoos were in Australia, but didn’t realise they hung out in flocks! In New Zealand we only really see pet cockatoos or ones at the zoo, and there’s only ever max of about two. Welcome to Australia.

Shout out to the Grand Pacific Hotel, where we stayed. What a beautiful building! The rooms were really comfortable, the staff super lovely, and the view was beautiful. Because it was a Monday night, the town was really quiet, so instead of eating out, we ordered pizza and watched Charmed in our room. As one does.

Day 2: Lorne to The Bay of Islands and back

We woke to catch the sunrise at around 7am and thought we had missed it, but it was just as we were pulling out onto the road that we spotted it climbing up over the horizon. We pulled over and, well I think this photo speak for itself.

Cape Otway Lightouse

Off we went along the Great Ocean Road, with a few spots in mind of places we wanted to pull over but in no real rush or tight schedule. The first stop along the way was Cape Otway Lighthouse. We pulled in, paid AUD $20 and took off through the bush to find some dinosaurs. True story. The first section of the walk around the lighthouse area was a sandpit with dinosaur bones in it.

Around the site, there are several huts with information about the lighthouse, the history of the region, the tools and equipment used by sailors and whalers back in the day. There was a little walk through the bushes (complete with ‘warning, snakes’ signs – did not see any snakes at all on the entire trip, thank goodness), with a hut full of old stone tool heads and a roaring fire pit.

The highlight, of course, was climbing the lighthouse. The top had stunning views up and down the coast, and while it was incredibly windy it was amazing to be able to see so far. Which, I guess is exactly what a lighthouse is for.

The Twelve Apostles

The Twelve Apostles were amazing. It’s amazing how breathtaking a pile of rocks can be, but these piles were pretty darn awesome. There’s only about 8 of them, and at least one has crumbled into the sea, but what remain are spectacular formations that are truly weird and wonderful. I can only imagine what they would look like a sunset or sunrise. (Spot the helicopter in this photo!)

We joined the hordes of people around the platforms and helped take some photos for people (I think I took photos of about 3 couples in a row at one stage). If you ever get the chance to go and see them, do. They really an amazing sight.

Loch Ard Gorge

A little after the Twelve Apostles was the Loch Ard Gorge, a beautiful mini-bay with cliffs surrounding it and an opening in the rocks out to the ocean. The gorge has a super sad story behind its name, which you can read on the Wild Life Tours website.

You can climb down the steps to get to the beach below, which have these awesome caves with huge stalactites hanging from the ceilings. We nearly got swept away by a huge incoming tide wave, which made us leave promptly after we got some snaps in.

After a full day of mostly sunshine, it started to rain.

The Arch

The other interesting rock formation nearby is The Arch, which is literally an archway in the stone. Not much more to say on this, but it is super neat!

The London Arch (formally London Bridge)

Not to be confused with the above Arch, the London Arch used to be attached to the cliffs, and called London Bridge, but after it fell away, it was renamed the London Arch, and stands cut off from the rest of the land.

The Grotto

We spent the next two stops soaking wet (despite the fact that I picked up that raincoat mentioned earlier), I didn’t want to risk my camera getting damaged in the weather, so alas, no photos. I imagine in the sun, they’re amazing. The Grotto is described on the Great Ocean Roads Melbourne Tours website as ‘part-blowhole, part-archway, part-cave’ and from what we saw, it’s exactly that. It’s a combination of all the previous hot spots along the road.

The Bay of Islands

Similar to the Twelve Apostles in formation, the Bay of Islands is a … bay with little islands in it. I guess it’s aptly named. It was definitely bucketing down with rain when we got there, but we had come all that way so there was no way we weren’t going to venture along the soggy path to check it out. Much like the Grotto, no photos. Apologies.

Back to Lorne

Around 3pm we headed back to Lorne via the inland route. It was still raining, hard, so it was a little slower going. But by the time we reach Lorne it had stopped raining so we made one quick detour to Erksine Falls, which is a couple of kilometres into the bush behind the township. It’s a 30 meter cascade of water, and there are two look out points. One which is right near the top, the other alllllll the way down about billion steps (accurate). Down was fine, coming back was painful. Especially after a long day exploring.

Day 3: Lorne to Melbourne

Our last day out in Victoria was a simple drive back along the coast, past all the great places we stopped off at on the way to Lorne, and into the city. We arrived around midday, which was perfect. After dumping our bags in our room at the hotel, we started our Melbourne city adventures.

So there we have it! A full day’s driving around to hot spots along the Great Ocean Road! I’d love to know if you’ve done the trip and what you saw along the way!