When I asked my friend Cath for recommendations of things to do in Melbourne, the 1st thing she suggested was a drive along the Great Ocean Road. I hadn’t heard of it before and wondered what could be so special about it. I did some research online and found out that on TripAdvisor, it was rated as number 1 in the list of things to do in Melbourne with the reviews all gushing about how amazing it was! I looked into tours of the road and booked one for my 2nd day including an optional helicopter tour. I had never ridden in a helicopter before so was excited! I left my friend’s house at 7am for the tour which was going to take the whole day!

The Great Ocean Road is a coastal drive which starts just outside Melbourne and promises spectacular views. I can honestly say that it seriously surpassed my expectations and was easily the most beautiful place I have ever seen! It isn’t really a single place I guess, but over the course of the day, we made up to 9 stops along the road at spots that were so beautiful, I don’t really have the words to describe them so here are some pictures instead! 🙂

Our 1st stop was at Bell’s beach, a popular surfing beach:

Followed by a stop at the sign for the road to commemorate those who built it:

We stopped at a place called Lorne for morning tea, and then headed to a place called Otway National Park where koalas are known to hang out and we saw a few there although they were all curled up sleeping in the trees. Apparently koalas sleep for 20 hours a day!

We had lunch in an area called Apollo Bay, and then headed to a place called Maits rest where we did a rainforest walk:

We then headed to the 12 apostles where I did the helicopter ride! It was incredible and the views were just amazing!

After coming off the helicopter, I strolled down to the 12 apostles just to see them close up.

After this, I thought I had seen it all. I was ready to go home when our guide said if you thought that was cool, wait ’til you see the next stop! I couldn’t believe it could get any better, but he took us to a place called Loch Ard Gorge:

We stopped at a place called London Bridge after that, but my phone had died by that stage after taking hundreds of photos throughout the day! We then stopped at a small town called Colac for dinner, and then drove back to Melbourne. We didn’t get back until 10.30pm so it was an incredibly long day but totally worth it!!!