Which Tour to Take in Melbourne, Australia? Part 2 - Great Ocean Road

We took this excellent boutique tour by MelbourneCoastalTouring and my family and I enjoyed our trip immensely, due to their good service and excellent itinerary. We started bright and early from the hotel and took a medium-ly paced drive down to Angelsea for morning tea. We were supposed to go down, check out the view and stretch our legs but unfortunately it was raining quite heavily so our tour guide served us snacks and drinks within the van. It was still quite fun (sort of like a picnic in the car) :D

Our guide was a really nice fella as we requested quite a few stops for toilet breaks and he complied. Sometimes he even informed our whole van about possible rest stops and whether any of us would like to go. This is quite good as there are no toilets onboard like the usual bigger tour buses.

On to the Great Ocean Road and we stopped for the "Great Ocean Walk". It is about a 15-20 minutes walk (600m) to a very picturesque view of the 12 Apostles. Some of the guys went down to the beach for a further walk but we stopped at the boardwalk area.

I forgot what this plant is for but it has some sort of usage

Actually I couldn't exactly remember which is which from all the photos but I think we basically covered the Gibson Beach Walk under the same place. I might be wrong but...oh well.
When we reached the main stop (12 Apostles Lookout), there were quite few people as we made great time. Thanks to our savvy guide.Plenty of photo-taking opportunities and as it was quite cloudy, it is very comfortable outside. Of course, depending on where you came from, this might be quite a disappointment (weather-wise) as Asians generally like the sun as much as cats like water.

 

Onwards to more walking next to the centre, it is quite a relaxing walk where you can check out the birds and some lizards (Ugh). Pleasant regardless, and we took our time walking slowly around.

After that, our journey continued to Apollo Bay where lunch was included in our package.Well, I think...it was in Apollo Bay because I checked their website and it said so cos I forgot the name of that place. We had an amazing lunch. The food was really good. We had the pulled pork and the beef burger. OMG! NYUM! But we couldn't finish because the portion was really huge. Hmm, some people in our group had no problem polishing them all off and were asking us if the food was not to our liking. Honestly, the food was really, really good but it's just bigger than the usual portion we are used to. LOL

After a quick lunch, we rushed out to walk around the small town. You can linger if you wished but we were just too excited to sit still. They provide drinks and all so..really it is up to you.

My sis decided to purchase a postcard to post back to Malaysia so there we were, on holiday and looking for postcards. LOL. Apparently a lot of people do this because the shop above sells everything from stamps to postcards. Talk about catering to all type of customers.

Then I spied a small shop selling home made ice cream. I know, I just explained before this how we couldn't even finish our meals right? Then I managed to stuff ourselves with more food but just so we are clear, this is ice cream. Practically flavoured liquid. :P

After all the eating, it's back to the van and to the next spot! Otway Ranges was one of the oldest rainforest around and with all the interesting anecdotes from the guide, the walk felt shorter than it actually was. Although we were probably lagging behind as the group walked along. It was interesting and I would say educational.

Along the way back, we stopped somewhere and took photos of wild kangaroos and lambs/sheep etc I think. I couldn't recall the name of the spot but since I found the photos, we must have stopped then.

We even went to a neighbourhood where there was this gentleman who actually kept a whole family of kangaroos and cared for them. He got a special license to do so and the furry fellas all seemed to obey his instructions. So adorable!

We went to the Teddy's Lookout after that and then the town of Lorne for some snacks and coffee. We actually had a vote on whether or not we wanted to go in the van. LOL. Democracy even during the tour. As we weren't hungry we just had coffee again at Lorne. Especially since when we were at Teddy's Lookout it was quite windy and we were all chilled to the bones.

And let's not forget the last thing on the itinery. The historical archway to the Great Ocean Road! This was just a pretty quick stop.

Even without writing much about all the places we covered, this turns out to be a rather long post so as you can imagine, we were pretty worn out by the time everything came to an end. In a nutshell, I would say this tour was worth every penny! I had no complaints and we managed to avoid most of the crowd. I didn't even feel like I missed out on anything even though we went really fast unlike during some tours. Excellent job, Melbourne Coastal Touring!