Coastline and hills meet on The Great Ocean Road

By Dewi Anggraeni

MELBOURNE (JP): One of the reasons more and more Australians flock to Bali for their holidays is the compactness of the island's beauty. One does not have to travel for hours to find a beach or a mountain.

This is such a novelty for Australians, so used to expanses of land stretching from nowhere to nowhere. On the reverse, visitors from Indonesia usually feel dwarfed by the vastness of the country, and overwhelmed by the distances to be traveled from one place to another.

While it is a fact that hills and forests are concentrated around coastal areas in Australia, it still takes several hours' drive to go to the hills from any coastal resorts. This of course is not necessarily a disadvantage, as both elements have their own beauty and characteristic attractiveness.

It is a pleasant surprise however, to discover a stretch of coastal region in the state of Victoria, aptly named The Great Ocean Road, southwest of Melbourne.

The Great Ocean Road extends some 250 kilometers from Anglesea to Warrnambool. And here, the two elements, the hills and the coasts, while in a scale beyond the imagination of a first time visitor from Indonesia, actually meet, and court, so to speak, for hours and hours.

To the mortal visitor, the courtship manifests in extremely scenic, though somewhat rugged, winding road, where the passengers more than the driver, can enjoy the magnificent feast for their senses.

As a visitor, you are most likely to depart from Melbourne, being the capital of the state. The first leg of the trip is a boring 75 kilometers almost straight drive southwest along the Princes Freeway to the city of Geelong.

If you have to drive yourself, it would be advisable not to do this journey in the late afternoon, because you would be driving against the sun for at least an hour.

From Geelong the drive south along the Surf Coast Highway is initially as uneventful, but halfway down you begin to feel the promise and the stir of what is to come, as the ocean breeze reaches you.

When you reach the township of Torquay, you will know your holiday is beginning. Not only can you smell the saltwater and see the surfs coming in, down the road, Bell's Beach is the location for a well-known surf competition called Rip Curl.

From there it is only 16 kilometers to Anglesea, the entrance to the adrenaline rushing drive of the Great Ocean Road.

If you have set aside a long weekend or part of a week for this trip, Anglesea is a nice place to spend your first night.

The beach is friendly and inviting. Accommodation ranges from the local hotel to private bed and breakfast arrangements. If you want more adventure than lying around or walking along the beach, there are walking tracks further away from the beach, among the forests.

The drive from Anglesea onwards needs a lot more concentration than that from Bogor to Puncak.

The road you travel is hugging the mountains of the Otway Ranges, while on the other side the land disappears in varying abruptness, into the ocean, where the surfs rise several metres high.

Every so often you come to a roadside lookout provided for visitors who want to take photographs or merely absorb the views better. More important, the driver may want to have a rest and enjoy the vista too.

Wherever the road is almost level with the sea and a beautiful beach is in sight, there is also a township providing eating places, convenient shops and accommodations.

One of the towns offering more than basic conveniences is Lorne, a resort comparable to the Cote d'Azur in the south of France in beauty, yet with a great deal less razzmatazz and commercial hoohaa.

In summer, swimsuit-clad holiday-makers of all ages move around with admirable nonchalance, completely at ease and at peace with the world, it seems.

Lorne has a cinema, beautiful and colorful shops, numerous cafes and a few sophisticated restaurants. Hotels and other accommodations are comparatively expensive, yet national and international tourists tend to linger in Lorne during their Great Ocean Road trip.

The next reasonably large town after Lorne is Apollo Bay, surrounded by magnificently lush and undulating farmlands. Some of these farms offer accommodations for those who want to sample farm lives, ideal for families with children.

Since these farms are high up on the hills, the sweeping views of the ocean and the surroundings often bring tears to your eyes, even if you are not particularly religious or poetically inclined.

Beyond Apollo Bay, while you never leave the mountains, you are also regaled with unusual rock formations seemingly emerging from the depth of the ocean.

The most famous is The Twelve Apostles near Princetown. The group of rocks, tall, dark and mysterious, stand guarding the windswept coastlines, privately invoking primeval fear in mere mortals, while the sound of waves breaking against the cliff walls remind you how high you are standing, or how far you can fall.

If the ocean road reminds you too much of your own mortality, you can always drive inland into the hills and have lunch or afternoon tea at scenic Lavers Hill.

You can go further in to Gellibrand, on the edge of Carlisle State Park. You don't have to drive far to find yourself in a paradise lookalike, such as Tanybryn, where you can stop and browse at a cafi cum art and craft shop, while still enjoying the views. The shop is situated on top of a hill, walled by glass windows.

The only disadvantage of this trip is sooner or later you have to go home.