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Is the Great Ocean Road great?

Welcome to my first blog from Down Under. After we have been in Melbourne for already two weeks, where we had some interesting meetings with stakeholders and in which we started our research in groups, it was time for a nice weekend trip. Lotte and I rented a ‘wicked’ campervan painted in all different colours and illustrations which was perfect for a trip along the famous Great Ocean Road. After we got used to drive on the left side of the road, we headed to Warrnambool, the end point of the Great Ocean Road, since we decided to do the trip the other way around to avoid all touring cars departing from Melbourne during Chinese New Year.

After a lunch break in the harbour of Geelong and a walk on Logan’s beach, we slept on a campsite next to the Great Ocean. The next morning we took a fresh morning dive and continued our trip to the highlights along the Great Ocean Road, such as El Grotto, the London Bridge and of course, the Twelve Apostles. Although the Twelve Apostles is considered as one of the biggest highlight of the Great Ocean Road, I don’t actually agree. When arriving at the Twelve Apostles, we were guided by several traffic controllers to park our campervan on a crowded parking, after which you can enter the trails to the Twelve Apostles passing the Visitor Centre. All the trails were full of tourists, making it hard to walk and to have a quiet view of the highlight. In my opinion, it was to crowded to fully enjoy the beautiful sight. Since you can in fact stop almost everywhere along the Great Ocean Road, where you can have a beautiful and quiet view, I think the Twelve Apostles is not the number one highlight of the Great Ocean Road. From the perspective of future Tourism Destination Management, I think the Twelve Apostles need to find another way how to handle all the crowds of tourists visiting the highlight in the future.













After a long day of Great Ocean Road’s highlights, we found a free campsite in Beech Forrest, where we could just park our campervan and could stay overnight. The next day we hiked in the forest to see some waterfalls and we visited several villages such as Apollo Bay and Lorne. Nearby Lorne there was again a free camp in the middle of the forest, were there was even a wild koala in a tree above us who came to say hello. The fourth and last day, we drove the beautiful road along the Great Ocean to Torquay, a small surfers village. Unfortunately, the weather was not perfect for swimming or surfing, so after a lunch at the boulevard, we drove back to Melbourne.













It was definitely a nice and beautiful trip and I really recommend people to do the same. However, I also recommend to take your time when deciding to do the Great Ocean Road. Just take 3 or 4 days to visit also the places which are not full of tourists, such as villages along the Great Ocean or the free camps in the middle of the forests, because in my experience, these places were the highlights of my trip!


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