Great Ocean Road (19-27 Apr) - Part 1: The Plan

With the Easter Public Holidays and ANZAC day falling in a great order this year we managed to get a 10 day holiday for only 3 days of leave.  That left the important question - what should we do?

We tossed up a few different options, before finally settling on a Great Ocean Road drive.  This is one of Australia's most iconic drives and we thought this would be a good way to get back into camping and also to reconnect with Australia after being away for so long.

The Great Ocean Road covers most of the south coast of Australia between the South Australia/Victoria border and Melbourne.  The last time we had driven the Great Ocean Road was in November 2007, when Alana was almost 3, Cameron was 1 and Kristine was only just pregnant with Tomas.

Alana on the Great Ocean Road for our first trip (2007)

Cameron on our first trip

The Great Ocean Road is about 243km long and runs from Allansford in the west to Torquay in the east (just outside of Melbourne).  It was built in the early 1900s (1919-1932) as a project to provide jobs for soldiers returning from World War I and dedicated to their fallen comrades.  This actually makes the road the worlds largest war memorial and a suitable road to drive on ANZAC day (a day to commemorate the first wartime engagement of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp at Gallipoli in WWI).

The original road was hazardous, sometimes only wide enough for a single car and with steep cliffs on one side.  It was later widened and now is one of the major tourist attractions in southern Australia.

Location of Great Ocean Road in Australia

Great Ocean Road

The last time we'd driven Great Ocean Road, we drove from east to west, so this time we decided to flip it around and start from the west.  Since it was the Easter break, we needed to spend 4 days at our first location (minimum stay due to the popularity of travel over the break), so we picked Horsham to start.  We planned to spend 4 nights there, then spend a night each in Ballarat, Lorne, Warrnambool and Mount Gambier.  In end we swapped a night in Horsham for an extra night in Ballarat (unfortunately forfeiting the night we'd paid for in Horsham) and doing a little side trip to Sunbury to visit a friend.  The final route was:

Day 1 (Good Friday 19-Apr): Drive Adelaide to Horsham. 427km, ~5hours drive. Staying at Horsham Riverside Campsite.

Day 2 (Saturday 20-Apr): Horsham

Day 3 (Easter Sunday 21-Apr): Horsham, including the Grampians Mountain Range

Day 4 (Easter Monday 22-Apr): Drive Horsham to Ballarat. 187km ~2hrs.

Day 5 (Tuesday 23-Apr): Sovereign Hill open air museum.

Day 6 (Wednesday 24-Apr): Drive to Sunbury then to Lorne- 262km ~3.5hrs

Day 7 (ANZAC Day Thursday 25-Apr): Drive Great Ocean Road, Lorne to Warrnambool. 203km, ~3hrs

Day 8 (Friday 26-Apr): Drive Warrnambool to Mount Gambier. 182km. ~2hrs

Day 9 (Saturday 27-Apr): Drive Mount Gambier to Adelaide (via Robe). 461km ~5hrs

Map of our Trip

Our Route

We ended up taking a more circuitous route home as there was a crash on the main road and we tried to avoid it, hence we headed via Robe and then back home.  In the end we got home around 5:30pm and then needed to unload, drop the camper trailer off to Kristine's parents and pick up our dog Oscar from my mum's.  We finished up around 9pm.

For the trip we borrowed Kristine's parent's camper trailer, nicknamed the Taj (Taj Mahal).  We'd used it previously on our trip to Pink Gum and it was a great size and had plenty of storage.  It was pretty big and heavy to drag, but it was worth it and made a great base for our travels.

One final note before I start on the trip details.  We took our brazier along but were only able to have a campfire on the final night, due to fire restrictions.




The Australian fire restriction chart is pretty worrying.. the 2nd lowest level is "High" and the lowest is "Moderate".  'Code Red' is a Victorian nomenclature, South Australia uses Catastrophic as its highest level.