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The Great Ocean Road - Part One

© Kath Hobson

Well here we go, our first Virtual Tour of Australia is ready to take off. I hope you have all bought along some nice snug winter woolies. We are off on a little jaunt along the Great Ocean Road on the south coast of Victoria. This time of year in Australia it is winter and down here along the south coast the wind can be bitterly cold. It is a lazy wind too, it tends to go straight through you instead of around!

The scenery along here is spectacular. The Great Ocean Road would have to be one of the most spectacular and inspiring costal drives in the world. There are rugged cliffs, roaring seas and quiet safe beaches. As well you can also experiance beautiful, tranquil rain forests, historic shipwreck sites (Don dont forget to pack THAT scub gear THIS time!!!) and marvelous sculptures created by Mother Nature from the living rock. We can also expect to see dolphins and whales.

The Great Ocean Road was built as a monument to those who died in the First World War. In 1919 the returned service men carved out the road along the cliff face from Anglesea to Apollo Bay. The road now extends all the way to Warrnambool. Some of Victorias best surf beaches are also located in this area and for those of us interested in fishing there is a wide variety of fish just waiting to be caught. Some of these include salmon, mulloway, breem, mullet, whiting, yellowtail kingfish,squid, garfish, pike, shark, barracouta, blue fin tuna, trevalley, redfin and trout.

We will start our tour in Geelong and travel the 162 miles to Warrnambool along the Great Ocean Road. There are so many interesting places and so much information that I am going to split this tour into two parts. The first part will cover the area from Geelong to Lorne.

Geelong once rivalled Melbourne in importance and according to most of its residents it still does. It was proclaimed a town site on the 26th October 1839.It is Victoria's largest regional city and only Melbourne's superior harbour stopped Geelong from being the capital of Victoria. However during the 1851 goldrush days, Geelong was much favoured by the goldminers as it was much closer to the goldfields. Geelongs importance during the gold rush can still be seen in the size and beauty of some of its historic bulidings. The National Wool Museum is also housed here in one of the most historic wool stores in the city. It was often said in the past that Australia "rode on the sheep's back" sadly due to the fall in wool prices this is no longer the case although wool is still one of our major exports. However our long and glorious association with sheep and wool can be seen here in the National Wool Museum.

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