All roads lead to a destination... well almost all roads. There are those like Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia, which by itself is the destination. The story of the road begins about one hundred years ago, after World War One. The returning soldiers needed some method of earning a living and wages from the construction of the road was the answer. And what these “diggers,” as the road makers were christened, achieved was a 243 kilometres road to the southwest of Melbourne which is also the world’s largest memorial for their fallen WW 1 colleagues. They worked under arduous conditions, often sharing water bottles, limited rations and sleeping in tents in hostile terrain. The Road snakes along the picturesque coast with several remarkable places to stop by and enjoy the natural beauty.
The Road starts at Torquay which is a hundred kilometres southwest of Melbourne. Bells Beach, one of the foremost surfing beaches in the world which attracts hordes of surfers is virtually right after Torquay. To our luck, our driver-cum-guide, Pete Burley, was not only born in a hamlet along this road but was also a surfing coach in a local school. For a complete novice like me, he explained the basics of surfing. For example, only one surfer to a wave, the surfer closest to the peak of the wave gets the priority.
There is a memorial arch to the “diggers,” astride the Road a few kilometres from Bells Beach. Adjacent to the road are statues of two “diggers” at work. Our pitstop at Lorne, was remarkable for two things. We had a glorious view of the Road from Teddys Lookout built on an elevation. And while I was munching on my sandwich sitting at the outdoor table at quaint café The Bottle of Milk I had the misfortune of my sandwich getting “stolen” by a sulphur-crested cockatoo, these birds swarm the kerbsides of the cafes!
Talking about birds, a little while later in a eucalyptus forest at Kennet river we saw some exotic birds like galahs with their greyish backs and pink bodies and lorikeets with their colourful plumage and red beaks. The excitement of course was spotting of our first koalas, those furry little marsupials peering at us from their perches high up on the eucalyptus trees.
The highlight for all travellers on the Great Ocean Road is the Twelve Apostles. These are limestone stacks clustered rather close together in the ocean. The limestone over millennia got carved into caves and over time the cave roofs got eroded leaving just the horizontal standing walls or stacks. As we alight the Gibson steps, we see the first “apostle” (Pete, our guide, calls it “Peter”) and tucked behind it is the skinny one, “Paul”.
The funny thing is that there never were twelve stacks to start with, there were just eight. Pete quipped that someone with a keen marketing sense observed that calling it Twelve Apostles might attract more people to this place. Now just seven stacks stand with the eighth having collapsed more than a decade ago. Yet, this features in many a list of places to see before you die!
The last stop for us on this route was Loch Ard Gorge. This is named after the ship Loch Ard which ran aground at the nearby Mutton Bird Island. Of the 54 people on board, only the ship’s apprentice, the nineteen-year-old Tom Pearce survived. He drifted for hours under an upturned lifeboat and found himself badly injured in the gorge. Soon after, he heard cries and saw another survivor, the eighteen-year-old Eva Carmichael clinging on to a rocky outcrop. Tom swam for an hour and after a grim struggle brought Eva to the beach.
Apparently, they could find a case of brandy that washed ashore from the shipwreck. This kept them comforted and warm through the night. The following morning Tom climbed out of the gorge — the mind boggles at this feat as the gorge walls are tall in sheer — and got help from some villagers he could spot.
As Pete was narrating the little story, one nearly hoped that these teenagers would marry and live happily ever after! But that was not to be. Eva sailed back to England after three months and Tom, now hailed as a hero, stayed back till he died a few decades later. They still remain at the spot in a manner of speaking. The arch of a nearby Island Archway collapsed leaving behind two pillars which have now been christened Tom and Eva!
And Loch Ard Gorge was the place one Igor chose to propose to his lady love Rachel. These were clients of Pete. For one of his drives on the road. Igor handed his smart phone to Pete, fished out a ring, went on his knees and proposed! Needless to say, as Pete narrated this little anecdote to us, Rachel had no option but to accept! Life altering events do occur along the Great Ocean Road!
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