Great Great Ocean Road
Hi there!
It’s Roxanne again.
This is almost the end of my internship at Eastside Radio and the end of my journey in Australia. Don’t be sad, this is just an “Au Revoir”, as we say. So to do a last trip before to go back, we decided with some friends to discover Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road. Just to make my french friends jealous one last time.
Here is a little sum up of this last adventure (but not the least).
Melbourne is Sydney’s big rival, I know. I won’t tell you which one I prefer. The truth is probably that I like both, like parents can’t choose between their children. The atmospheres are just different. So, after two days walking into Melbourne’s streets, getting involved by random in a demonstration against racism (big story in which a water bottle takes part), we rented a car and hit the road to the 12 Apostles.
And once again we fall in love with Australia. It was cold, cloudy, sometimes raining but always overwhelming. The cliffs, the ocean, the waves… You can’t become tired of that. My friend even asked me if you can marry a road, because she just wanted to spend her life there. This road was planned for the first time after the World War I, to give a work to all the soldiers coming back from the war. At that time, it was really hard to travel in the south of Victoria. It was built between 1919 and 1932, and dedicated to soldiers killed during the World War I and became the world’s largest world memorial. 243 km, from Torquay to Allansford where you see really surprising and amazing landscapes, cliffs. Where you feel successively in Australia, Scotland, Ireland depending of the weather…
But hurry up! Everyday, the ocean and the waves are destroying them… Indeed, the London Bridge became for example the London Arch after one of his part collapsed in 1990.
This road became one of the most visited, involving of course some issues: pollution is one of the most important. Indeed, around 8 millions of tourists drive on this road every year. So if you are really courageous and/or feeling concerned, you should know that The Great Ocean Walks does exist. 104 km of walk trails, from Apollo Bay to the twelve Apostles. I’m sure it’s worth it.