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Apollo Bay Portland Torquay Warrnambool Great Ocean Road

12 Apostles - One of the most photographed landmarks of the great ocean road.

APOLLO BAY
Apollo Bay is a pretty coastal town on the Great Ocean Road nestling against the tree-clad Otway Ranges 118 km from Geelong and 187 km south-west of Melbourne. It was an important harbour in the last century, but the harbour silted up, restricting its use to the fishing fleet that now has about 30 vessels. The town started when a whaling station was established by the Henty family at Point Bunbury south-east of the town in the 1830s, though there was no serious permanent settlement until 1856 when the town became important in the timber trade. Timber was sawn, dragged to the beach and floated out to ships anchored in the harbour. The village was gazetted in 1860.
Apollo Bay is now a popular stopover for cruising yachts and the whole area offers some fine sailing. It is also a good base from which to explore the Otway Ranges. Shelly Beach is off the Great Ocean Road about 10 km west of Apollo Bay, with picnic facilities and a short walking track. Mariners Lookout, a few kilometres from town, provides excellent views along the coast.
There is an historical museum open on Sundays and school holidays which has a collection showing local history, including the story of some of the famous shipwrecks along the coast. The Bass Strait Shell Museum is open every day of the week.

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PORTLAND
Portland is 72km west of Port Fairy and 75 km from the South Australian border. This is the oldest settlement in Victoria, established in 1834 by the Henty brothers, thus predating Port Fairy by one year. Portland Bay was discovered by Lieutenant James Grant in the Lady Nelson on the first passage through Bass Strait in 1800. He did not enter the bay but named it after the Duke of Portland. It is possible, indeed highly probable, that whalers knew of it before this date, but the fact is not recorded.
In 1828 the sealer William Dutton visited the area and the following year landed and built a house in which he lived for 12 months. The Henty family arrived in 1834 and began a sheep run and whaling station. In 1837 Captain James Fawthorp brought 700 sheep to the settlement in the Henty's ship Eagle. Soon whalers and sealers were operating out of the bay, but the industry declined between 1840 and 1860. In 1839 the town was proclaimed and in 1855 the municipality was incorporated. In 1950 the Portland Harbour Trust was established to develop a deepwater port. Work started in 1952 and the harbour was finished in 1961 at a total cost of $16 million.

The town has many classified old bluestone buildings, including the old Steam Packet Inn, owned by the National Trust. This is a working port, the only deepwater anchorage between Melbourne and Adelaide. Portland is an important industrial and commercial centre for western Victorian pastoral and agricultural areas with good shopping, good beaches and great fishing. There are some excellent walks - short ones nearby and the 250 km Great South-West Walk which swings out and back in a magnificent loop.
The Cape Nelson State Park has superb coastal scenery and a lighthouse at the tip of Cape Nelson classified by the National Trust but not open to the public. There is a petrified forest and blowholes at Cape Bridgewater.
The 200 km Great South-West Walk goes around the coast to Cape Nelson finishing at Sheoke Road. The track starts and finishes at the Portland Tourist Information Centre: it meanders across the countryside to Nelson, and then doubles back to follow the coastline to Nelson Bay, 5 km south of Portland. It takes about ten days to complete the walk and sixteen camp sites are dotted along the route. The walk can be taken in easy stages.

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TORQUAY
Torquay marks the eastern end of the Great Ocean Road, although it does not officially start until you pass under an arch a few kilometres out of town. Torquay is 22 km south of Geelong and is an ideal place to base a tour of the Great Ocean Road and the country behind. Just outside town is Bells Beach, arguably one of the greatest surfing championships held at Easter. At Bells waves can reach 6 metres or more; it is not a surfing beach for beginners. Another surfing beach, nearer to Torquay, is Jan Juc.
The Surf Coast Walk takes 11 hours if you cover the full distance at one go, but it can be taken in easy stages. It follows the coastline from Jan Juc to Airey's Inlet and the tourist information office has leaflets describing the walk in detail.

TORQUAY is the centre of surf culture on Victoria's "surf coast", which extends from Point Lonsdale, on the Bellarine Peninsula, to Aireys Inlet; two local beaches, Jan Juc and Bells Beach, are solidly entrenched in Australian surfing mythology. If you're not here for the surf, then there's not really a lot happening: in hot weather the place is boisterously alive, but out of season it's somnolent and low-key. The big event here is the Surf Classic, held at Bells Beach in Easter, which draws national and international contestants and thousands of spectators. Local buses run between Geelong and Torquay via Jan Juc - call Bellarine Transit (03/5223 2111) for the latest information.

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WARRNAMBOOL
Warrnambool is 262 km south west of Melbourne, on the shore of Lady Bay, where the Princes Highway meets the Great Ocean Road. It is a provincial centre distinguished as the "Nursery of the Southern Right Whale". Off Logan's Beach, female whales calve during Winter.

Warrnambool is the fifth largest regional centre in Victoria. The city has first-rate-sporting and cultural facilities and it has won the prestigious Premier Town Award three times.
The French navigator Nicholas Baudin entered Lady Bay in 1802 and sealers and whalers used the anchorage sporadically during the early years of the 19th century. The first permanent settlers did not arrive until 1839 and the municipality was proclaimed in 1855. Warrnambool was, for a time, a major point of entry for immigrants. Sadly, miscalculations in the design and sitting of the jetties and breakwaters caused both the river entrance and the town foreshore to silt up. The name of the town was originally spelt Warnimble, possibly from an Aboriginal word meaning 'plenty of water'.

Gun emplacements intended to repel the Russian invasion that Australia feared in the 1880s can be seen near the lighthouse. This is now the site of Flagstaff Hill, a 19th-century maritime village, with a museum and restored ships - the Rowitta, one of the few surviving Tasmanian steamers, and the Reginald M., a restored sailing vessel, among them - and port buildings of the era. At Logans Beach there is a platform to view the annual visitation of southern right whales.
The lighthouse, cottage and store were built in 1859 by W.K. Paterson and are now classified by the National Trust. The town has a performing arts centre, art gallery, botanic garden (designed 1876) and the Lake Pertobe Adventure Playground.
A colony of fairy penguins live on Middle Island off Pickering point. Many shipwrecks have occurred in the area and there is a shipwreck trail, macabre as it may sound.

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