Go west: the Great Ocean Road
Few tourists visit Melbourne without a trip along the Great Ocean Road. Hurried day trips or two week slogs, glamping or slumming it – everyone makes the pilgrimage. 10 km along the coast.. I joined Kris, a Danish student, Mark, a lively Tibetan who lives in Melbourne, and Sophie, another student from Germany and we piled into Mark’s rattling old Toyota.
For three days we looped high and low, heading NE from Melbourne to Halls Gap, a strange bivouac of a general store and a few campsites wedged among Grampian Mountains. Onward across endless brush and past Aboriginal shelters, descending through green English fields and damp forests of tropical ferns, we reached the sea – and terrible weather. The roads were packed with tourists, many in garish camper vans and coaches, but the views were beautiful.