Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road Self-Drive

Seven nights out of Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road, self-guided and tailor-made, with the price quoted on application.

The Great Ocean Road is among the finest coastal drives anywhere, built by returned soldiers after the First World War as a memorial, and the Twelve Apostles are the stretch everyone comes for: limestone stacks standing offshore where the cliffs have eroded away behind them.

Melbourne opens it with a local-led walk through the laneways, the galleries and the small shops, which is the only sensible way into a city built on them. The coast road follows west, hugging the southern shore, with southern right whales passing between May and October, though no sighting is ever promised. The Grampians come next inland, a sandstone range tilted on edge with walking trails, wildlife and seasonal wildflowers. Phillip Island follows, home to a colony of over twenty-six thousand little penguins along with seabirds, fur seals and dolphins, and the inland pastoral country between them has old homesteads, vineyards and an oddly English feel.

The rental car, the local-led Melbourne exploration and the accommodation throughout are included; international flights, fuel and most meals and activities are not. The price is given on application. Spring and autumn are the best of it, with the whales between May and October and the wildflowers in the Grampians in spring, and the Apostles are at their best in the hour before sunset once the coaches have gone. Eight days is enough to drive the coast slowly and still take in the Grampians and Phillip Island, which a long weekend would force a choice between.