Like a shiny black ribbon, the Great Ocean Road loops 280 kms along the South Eastern seaboard of Australia, on a roller-coaster ride through one of the most scenic coastlines in the world. Kilometre after magnificent kilometre, the sea and the land paint an unending vista of nature's fury and glory, a living panorama that changes continuously with the light, the weather and the screaming winds that travel upwards from Antarctica.
Along the way unspoilt beaches to surf, swim or just walk along; lighthouses, waterfalls, whales, grand forests, picture postcard towns, shipwrecks, and of course, the Twelve Apostles tempt the intrepid traveller to stay awhile.
Hand built with pick and shovel, work on the Great Ocean Road began in August 1918 by veterans of World War I to commemorate comrades who lost their lives in the conflict. After toiling along precipitous cliffs and navigating sodden rainforests, the road was finally completed in 1932. Today the long and winding road is as iconic as the kangaroo in Australia.
A chance reunion with a long-lost friend in Melbourne led the two of us in an attempt to catch up where we had left off and make what travel magazines dub as one of the 'top journeys of a lifetime'. Driving the Great Ocean Road can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. An uninterrupted five-hour stint at the wheel will get you to the end of the road, but the stop-and-start-as-you-please trail is a great way to do a great road.
With time on our hands and a brand-new SUV at our disposal, we decided to do an overnighter as it would allow for time to explore the environs along the route.

Day 1: 7 am
Geelong is our point of departure. An hour's drive from Melbourne, Geelong is the state of Victoria's second-largest city. A multi-million dollar facelift for the millennium has restored the glamour to the city's waterfront on Corio Bay. Exciting new attractions, a steam carousel, fabulous restaurants, artworks, landscaped gardens and regular events have transformed it into one of Australia's leading coastal destinations. Not to be missed is a photo op with the colourful wooden bollard characters made from recycled timbers of the old pier and painted by local artist Jan Mitchell.
From Geelong, Torquay is a 20-minute drive, the official start of the Great Ocean Road and the starting point of the fabulous Surf Coast. The sun is a golden-orange ball of fire as we drive into the town of Torquay. Bells Beach is where the action and the scene of the Rip Curl Pro Surf event is every Easter, where wave riders the world over come to compete. Surf City Plaza is our first stop of the day. This all-surf shopping centre is a great place to pick up the latest surf gear and for the Surfworld Museum located right next to it. The museum with its impressive display of vintage boards, photographs and interactive movies is homage to how Torquay became the cultural home of surfing in Australia. But what gets our adrenalin really going is a flight in an open cockpit of a vintage aircraft, the Tiger Moth aircraft at Tiger Moth World. It's a thrill not to be missed especially when the pilot at our request does a loop.
With our hearts still beating a mile a minute, we hit the road making our way past the laidback town of Anglesea, briefly stopping at Airey's Inlet to visit the Split Point Lighthouse built in 1891. A tour of the lighthouse, which some say is haunted, allows us to climb the original cast-iron stairs, view the new million-dollar crystal lens and step out on the balcony at the top of the 35-metre tower. The view, a 360-degree vista, is magnificent.

Day 1: Noon
Our next destination before lunch is Lorne. For two reasons: The Memorial Arch and the Shipwreck Walk. The arch was erected in honour of the soldiers who built the Great Ocean Road literally with their bare hands. Shipwreck Walk is an hour-long walk marked by plaques that tell the stories of ill-fated vessels which went down here: the Osprey (1854), the Rebel (1854), the Otway (1862), the Anne (1863), and the Henry (1878).
Walking whets our appetite and we decide that Apollo Bay, an hour's drive up the coast is as good a place as any to halt for lunch. Along the way, we leave behind the picturesque little hamlets and pass our first kangaroo.

Day 1: 2 pm
Originally called Paradise by the first European settlers, Apollo Bay, a former whaling port nestles in the picturesque foothills of the Great Otway National Park. Lunch is fresh seafood, warm bread and some delicious pasta at a café decorated with portraits of women of Rubenesque proportions.
Further up the road is Port Campbell, our final destination of the day before sundown. Just out of Apollo Bay, the Great Ocean Road leaves its coastal brief and veers inland as it heads through Lavers Hill, the highest point in the Great Otway Park, which totals around 142,000 hectares. The scenery switches to a leafy tunnel of mountain ash, gum, beech and mighty fern gullies that cuts out most of the daylight. We half expect to see a T-Rex thundering through the vegetation around the next bend! For a chance of a lifetime we decide to take a small detour and do a walk through the canopies of some of the tallest trees in Australia via the Otway Fly Treetop Walk. This 600-metre-long walk allows us to see the magnificent rainforest from a different perspective, 25 metres above the ground.

Day 1: 5.30 pm
Since making it to Port Campbell before sundown is near impossible, we decide to climb to the top of mainland Australia's oldest lighthouse. Built in 1848, the Cape Otway Lightstation towers over 80 metres above the surging waters of the Bass Strait and Southern Ocean. Cape Otway was the first landfall for vessels sailing the Great Circle Course from South Africa's Cape of Good Hope to the eastern Australian colonies. Riding the gales, ships were swept through savage seas before coming abruptly to this rocky cape. With only the 90-kilometre wide Bass Strait separating Cape Otway from King Island, making it through this gap was known as 'threading the needle'. To fail was to end up as scraps of wood and canvas against the mighty cliffs. Little wonder then that the next 130 kms of the road has earned the name Shipwreck Coast with over 80 major shipping disasters.
The view like much of the Ocean Road we have covered is amazing. The sun sets like a nosebleed, painting the vast expanse of the ocean and sky, hues of red and gold; it is one of those moments that leave you speechless.
We opt to stay the night at the Light Keepers heritage-listed cottages. Paul Thompson, the manager, keeps us regaled with tales of ghosts, drunken lighthouse-keepers and exploding sheds. The sandman visits as soon as my head hits the pillow in the comfy cottage. Vivid dreams of shipwrecks, vintage airplanes, and Rubenesque women mark the passage of the night.