There is a beautiful stretch of the southern Australia coastline, called the Great Ocean Road, and today we explored it with the help of Peter J from Tours by Locals. This was a somewhat unusual excursion from the port of Melbourne, as it is a 3-hour drive to get there, and then three hours to get back again. Some may have called it risky, we thought of it as a calculated risk. Either way, for this to work, we had to be off the ship as soon as we had clearance to do so, as there was a good 10-minute walk just to get off the pier. Luckily, we were off the ship by 7:20 and in the van and on our way by 7:35am.

Another element to make this work was that we had to take faster inland highways to get to the best stretch of the Great Ocean Road. Marshall and I did most of the 151-mile length of the GOR in 2020 and for that tour, it took 12 hours. Today, as we had only 8.5 hours, we had to be content with seeing just the major landmarks based in the Port Campbell National Park: London Bridge, Loch Ard Gorge, and the famous Twelve Apostles.

The Great Ocean Road was constructed as a memorial for WWI. Built by returned soldiers between 1919 and 1932, and dedicated to soldiers killed during World War I, the road is the world’s largest war memorial. At the time, the rugged south-west coast of Victoria was accessible only by sea or rough bush track. It was envisaged that the road would connect isolated settlements on the coast and become a vital transport link for the timber industry and tourism. Approximately 3000 servicemen worked on the road, which was dedicated on 26 November 1932.

This is probably a good time to introduce our friends Rose Caputo and Len Schirelli. Like the Syfrigs, we met them on the 2024 World Cruise and became fast friends. They hail from Toronto and joined the Coral Princess in Sydney. The six of us were on this epic excursion today to see this amazing coast of Australia.

Back to the Great Ocean Road, a final piece of this plan was that we had to keep to a tight schedule; frequent but short restroom breaks and a short lunch break. Peter knew the best locations for clean toilet facilities, and we enjoyed a quick but tasty lunch at Café on Lords in Port Campbell. While we probably wouldn’t want to do this type of tour on the daily, we think that it was well worth the extra effort to see these magnificent sites. We hope you enjoy the photos.

P.S. We arrived back to the ship 2 hours before departure, with plenty of time, thanks to Peter and his expert guiding and driving.

Tomorrow: Sea Day

Recommended: Peter J on Tours by Locals. https://www.toursbylocals.com/tours/australia/melbourne/tour-details/great-ocean-road—85-hour-tour-from-melbourne-flexible-start-time-664d2334f7e596905bd22127