240 kilometres of surf, rainforest and sea-carved stone.
Built by hand between 1919 and 1932 by returned soldiers, and dedicated to their fallen comrades, the Great Ocean Road is the world's largest war memorial — and its most scenic. Most visitors blitz it as a brutal 12-hour day trip from Melbourne. Don't. Stay a night near Port Campbell and you'll see the Twelve Apostles at sunset and sunrise while the buses are elsewhere.
Torquay opens proceedings as Australia's surf capital — home of Rip Curl, Quiksilver and the Australian National Surfing Museum. Ten minutes on, Bells Beach hosts the world's longest-running professional surf contest each Easter; the clifftop viewing platforms are spectacular even on flat days.
Pass under the Memorial Arch at Eastern View (the classic photo stop), then wind into Lorne, the road's prettiest town, for lunch and a detour to Erskine Falls in the cool fern gully behind. The stretch from Lorne to Apollo Bay is the drive's most dramatic — the road clings to cliffs with the Southern Ocean exploding below. Stop at Kennett River, walk 200 metres up Grey River Road, and look up: this is the most reliable place in Australia to see wild koalas dozing in the manna gums, free.
Overnight in Apollo Bay — fishing-town calm, good pub, sunrise over the harbour.
The road turns inland through the Great Otway National Park. Detour to Maits Rest (30-minute boardwalk through moss-cushioned temperate rainforest, ancient myrtle beeches) or push to the Cape Otway Lightstation, mainland Australia's oldest lighthouse, past another well-known koala colony.
Then the coast returns with force. The Twelve Apostles — limestone stacks up to 45 metres tall, carved from the cliffs by the Southern Ocean — need no selling; go at golden hour, and take the Gibson Steps down to beach level first for the giant's-eye view most visitors skip. Two minutes on, Loch Ard Gorge tells the reef-wreck story of 1878's Loch Ard, whose two teenage survivors washed into this exact cove; its sheltered beach and blowholes deserve a full hour. Finish with The Grotto, London Bridge (one arch collapsed in 1990, stranding two tourists on the new island) and the Bay of Islands near Peterborough — quieter, and at sunset arguably the equal of anything before it.