Great Southern Touring Route: History & Culture - Britz

Three nights and 789 kilometres in a loop from Melbourne in a campervan, out through western Victoria and back along the Great Ocean Road.

Ballarat comes first, where Sovereign Hill is a working reconstruction of the 1850s goldfields and the Eureka Stockade rebellion of 1854 is treated locally as the beginning of Australian democracy, which is a claim with something behind it.

Halls Gap and the Grampians follow, a sandstone range with Aboriginal rock art shelters and a cultural centre run by the traditional owners, then Dunkeld at the southern end and Tower Hill, a volcanic crater that erupted some thirty thousand years ago and now holds a nature reserve. Port Fairy and Warrnambool come next on the coast, then Port Campbell and the Twelve Apostles, the Cape Otway lighthouse, Apollo Bay and Lorne on the Great Ocean Road, with Geelong before Melbourne.

Britz supply the camper and the day-by-day plan, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. Four days for 789 kilometres and this much to look at is a brisk itinerary, and the Great Ocean Road section alone is slow going in a long vehicle. The Twelve Apostles car park fills by mid-morning, so an early start on the last day is worth the effort. Sovereign Hill alone can absorb half a day, so this is a route that rewards deciding in advance what to skip rather than trying to fit everything in.