Late Arvo Coastal Magic: Great Ocean Road Dreaming

The Great Ocean Road is a tourist road. Once quiet and winding along deserted beaches, it’s a mecca for international travellers, motorcyclists (we had a friend from England once who hired and Ducati and just drove up and down it for days), weekenders, Melbournians on a surfing day trip, and tourists buses. Whereas once it was deserted in winter, it’s now busy all year around. Places like Angelsea, Lorne and Wye River are jam packed on a good, warm weekend and if you don’t get off the beach by 10 or 11 in the summer, you’ll be surrounded by the thousands of hoardes.






Yet, like the spaces between the in-breath and the out-breath, there are quiet moments and quiet places that you can find the beaches deserted. An early dawn patrol can see you surfing waves alone for a half hour or so, maybe even until 9 when everyone else gets there. Sometimes, we feel like the cleverest people in the world when we’re leaving the beach by 11, having had hours of play time, only to see the tens of cars lining up all the way to Torquay to get to the beaches along its winding stretch.

There’s also the nooks you can find – places that tourists don’t think to go, in their bee-line for icecream shops and surf meccas. Little coves and hidden stretches of beaches that invite dips into turquoise waters, and the black cockatoos screeching into the trees beyond as the sun goes down. Ah, you think, in the words of Talking Heads, this must be the place.