Tourists!
The Great Ocean Road begins in Warnambool and continues right along the coast until Torquay just south of Geelong. Not all the road follows the coast but the part that does is spectacular. The road was built by returning soldiers from WWI as a memorial to their fallen commrades. It will be there long after trees have died and plaques have fallen down.
When you think that it was all done by pure manual labour and see the scale of the task you appreciate just how impressive it really is. The part of the road that was constructed by the soldiers was from Aireys Inlet onwards. Along the way are all the popular photo stops – Bay of Islands, the Grotto, Loch Ord Gorge, the Twelve Apostles, Gibsons Steps….. I started at dawn so for the first few hours it was nice and tranquil, I had lookouts to myself and no traffic on the road. But it is Labour Day weekend so by mid morning it was really busy and by the time I got Loch Ard Gorge it was getting uncomfortably busy.
The Twelve Apostles further down the road was a whole other level altogether. It was total madness! There were queues of people waiting at the lookouts to take a picture. Most of them Asian. There were busloads arriving every minute, powerwalking to the lookouts, taking the obligatory picture and then powerwalking back to the bus. It was stressful, there were so many people pushing and shoving so I moved on quickly. God only knows why people would want to come see it at a time when they know that it will be wedged. Pure madness!!!