6 of the 7 Continents For The Budget Traveler: The Great Ocean Road Backwards

The start of the GOR Backwards from a road in Adelaide.
Long time readers may notice the buzz, shaved my head for the hell of it.

After celebrating New Year's in Sydney I found myself on an epic journey traveling around the rest of Australia. My final destination was Melbourne, after diving with Great White Sharks in Southern Australia I decided the best way to get to Melbourne for a traveler was of course the world famous Great Ocean Road. Now I am a linear guy, and I don't like to waste time. The classic route is to start in Melbourne. But since I was coming from the west I decided to do the Great Ocean Road backwards. Starting way out in Adelaide and going over 3 days to Melbourne where I would end an epic beginning to the year.

My first day was dedicated to getting to the start in Port Campbell, from there I made the next stop Apollo Bay (probably the most popular place to sleep), and last finished in Melbourne. The first day of driving was 7 hours road time, 9 or so hours total with meals and gas stops, fairly boring on a lot of it, but of course the end was an epic beginning to the GOR. The next two days had about 3 hours driving each. Almost the whole 3 hours on the road is scenic, with plenty of stops I will dive into here. Then of course I finished in beautiful Melbourne.

If you are coming from the west the first and best thing I can tell you, is don't worry, it makes no difference on views, some access had left side exits some had right, you will see all the same things. The benefit for me was starting at the legendary 12 apostles at 6 am, since I was already in Port Campbell I didn't have to wake up too early. Here's my tips and experiences on seeing the Great Ocean Road backwards or forwards:

If going by rental car, check the kilometer limit per day. I originally planned on leaving directly from Port Lincoln where I did the dive but the cars had limited km per day. It made more sense to pay $100 to fly to Adelaide where the cars had unlimited miles.

London Bridge, first epic sight. Photo taken around sunset
Dead and living Kangaroo's. The first photo on this post did not lie. I love the little and big hoppy guys, but you will see them everywhere alive and dead on the road, use extreme caution. I saw about 12 on the side of the road, may they rest in peace. My 2nd morning my GPS for some reason took me off road! I was racing (foolishly) in my rental to hit sunrise at the 12 apostles and 3 kangaroos flew out in front of me, yes flew! I didn't know they fly, but those guys can move! I avoided all 3 luckily.
Speaking of why that happened... If you are coming from Adelaide you will drive through a 30 minute time zone, make sure to update your clock! I didn't have digital service and forgot to do this. I recognized as I was getting ready thinking I had 45 minutes to make 6:15 sunrise, in reality I had 15 minutes.
For road gas station food, meat pies were my favorite!
The advice I was given was get to the 12 apostles early, I did this at sunrise and definitely didn't deal with any crowds, judging however by the lack of crowds at Loch Ard Gorge, London Bridge, and the Grotto, sunset time is also good, assuming you are staying in Port Campbell. I don't want you guys driving at night with those flying Kangaroos!
12 Apostles is in my opinion the high light of this journey. If you are limited on time skip other stuff to see this. After you see it from the high points where you park walk down to the beach. I am fairly certain people must not know this, because there were about 40 people in the viewing area and initially only me on the beach! Later joined by 3 or 4 people.
I stayed in a bar at both Port Campbell and Apollo Bay! Ok not quite, they were technically hotels/hostels directly attached to the bars. The 4 in Port Campbell and The Great Ocean Road Brew House in Apollo Bay. Cool experiences, however....
Night life is relatively non-existent on the Great Ocean Road. There's great bars, great beers, and great food, but as far as crowds, young people, dancing, clubs, you won't find any. It's better anyway since you will be driving the next day! 3 beers were good enough for me.

Sampling at the Great Ocean Road Brew House

Nothing beats walking home from the bar when it's connected! I stayed up stairs!
Camping: I wanted to camp part of it. Unless you camp illegally the GOR does not make camping easy. All camp sites during peak season had a minimum amount of days where I only needed one. You can rent camper vans, but parking is somewhat difficult also with these guys unless you are allowed to park in the town, the camp sites again had minimum stays.
Food and drink were terrific, plenty of wines, beers, cheeses, meat pies, chicken parm, etc. I stayed with mostly local food, but the GOR definitely offered some world plates as well. Everything was reasonably priced.

Steak dinner after day 2!

Wine Tasting In Apollo Bay
Admission costs to everything was also pretty cheap. Definitely cheap compared to what I was spending in Sydney!
If you are coming from Adelaide don't wait to long to refill as some stretches didn't have gas for awhile. Once on the GOR the towns are all pretty close to each other.
A GPS is nice, but once you are on the GOR it's pretty hard to get lost. I was VERY grateful to have it getting there and back to Melbourne but the road itself is 2 lanes most of the way and great signage to find everything.
Some of best spots however! Are not anything famous, there are many places you can legally park and just head down to a world class beach with 5 to 10 other people, or in some cases I was there completely by myself!
If you surf, the world famous Bells Beach was not as epic with waves as I was hoping to be Patrick Suaze in Point Break. They also don't have surf boards there, it's just the beach. No shops. You will have to rent one from town, either Torquay or another nearby town. Hopefully the waves are better for you the day you go!

Bells Beach! No good waves this day
Places I missed, Cheese World (got there too late on day 1 which I unfortunately knew I would), & Otway Fly Zip Line Tour (seemed cool, but I've done similar). I did however hike through the rain forest a bit at Otway.
Of course stop at the Cape Otway Lighthouse!
Angelesea Kangaroo Golf Tour was definitely worth it. You spot a Kangaroo or two fairly easy outside any city in Australia but the golf course has around 300!!!
I stopped at Kennett River as well, but didn't see any cute Koalas like my fist time in Oz unfortunately. I saw many people stopped on the side of the road with binoculars staring into trees, I didn't have binocs, and even with my glasses couldn't see em!
Can someone tell me the bottom left?

Lorne and Torquay are both pretty cool towns, part of me wishes I stayed longer in each one, but the other part tells me they are pretty similar to Apollo Bay where I stayed. Port Campbell had a much more quiet feel than these other towns. But either way take an hour or two to walk around these towns and have lunch, fish and chips, or coffee. And of course snap a photo of the start, or for the backwards route, end of the Great Ocean Road.