The Great Ocean Road

Surely there is no greater contrast between safety and danger than that represented by the border of land and sea. On one side you can sip cocktails and enjoy the magnificent vista. Two meters away the sea can rage in God made fury and yet offer no threat unless you cross the threshold from terra firma to water.

The Great Ocean Road provides this contrast better than anywhere else on earth. The might of the Southern Ocean has been battering the land for millions of years and has created cliffs and coves that pockmark the coast like a broken saw.

And yet you can stand at the many well maintained viewing points and review in comfort the raging torrents below. It’s like standing on the edge of the world, but the world has you safely tucked in its arms.

There are many places in the world that have had the arrogance to place the word “Great” before their title. I think you should only be allowed to call yourself “Great Something” if a smaller version of yourself is close at hand. Such as Great Snufflebottom and Little Snufflebottom. But throwing a “Great” in just because you feel a bit up yourself is a different matter. Who decided that Britain was great for example? Great at invading other countries perhaps. I suspect it derives from a state of national insecurity, brought on from trying to convince the Scots and the Welsh that they weren’t really being annexed by England.

Australia seems to revel in the “Great” prefix. You have the Great Barrier Reef, the Great Dividing Range and the aforementioned Ocean Road. Their titles no doubt derive from the Australian requirement to be the best in the world at everything but I prefer to think that the names arose because Australia’s large Irish community would have been the first to witness these places.

I can picture a freckly red head with a pig under his arm. He’s just cut through the uncleared bush land of Western Victoria to reach the wild and untamed shore. As he stood upon the cliff top and admired the twelve limestone stacks that stood imperiously against the on-coming tide his face broke into a toothy grin and he exclaimed “Ah, sure that’s just Great”.

My other theory is that Australians like adding Great before place names because of their shocking lack of imagination when it comes to naming things. The Snowy Mountains, Snowy River, Blue Mountains and Mount Beauty suggest that poets were not included in the naming process. It seems more likely that it was left up to sheep farmers to do the business. Bruce would have turned to Dougy and said, “What’ll we call them Dougy? To which Dougy replied “Well it’s got lots of snow on it. We could call them the Incandescent Peaks of Celestial Majesty, but I can’t spell that, so bugger it, why don’t we just call them The Snowy Mountains”.

The Ocean Road would sound a little weak without its prefix though. Great gives it an importance befitting its wonder. There are few comparable drives in the world where each corner turned elicits a gasp of astonishment from the viewer. There are bigger cliffs elsewhere, stronger waves, more beautiful hamlets tucked in sleepy bays. But none of these come together in such natural serendipity as on the Great Ocean Road.

The weather plays an important role in the magnificence of this and other Australian attractions. The sun shines most days here and this means that the tourist is almost guaranteed a view of the coastline at its finest. The light catches the limestone stacks of the Twelve Apostles and provides a brilliant contrast to the bluey green of the surrounding ocean.
The day we got there was overcast but the light still danced along the coastline like a proud shopkeeper displaying its wares. The wind was calm and yet the waves still crashed against the shore as though an angry ocean was screaming for attention. A few brave souls had taken to surfboards but the rest of us just stood and admired the fury of the open sea and the quiet resistance of the land to the ceaseless pounding. At night we camped by the beach and fell asleep to the comforting rhythm of the waves as they caressed the shore.

I compare this to Ireland which has comparable sights of natural wonder. But on the three occasions when I’ve visited the Cliffs of Moher you couldn’t see the ocean for all the mist and rain and the wind blew you back every time you went within 100 meters of the edge. They’ve built a large interpretive centre there now. This is to allow visitors the chance to enjoy the beauty of the cliffs without having to brave the elements. For those unwilling to pay the ridiculously high admission charge to see a computer generated cliff, there is always the well appointed car park in which to huddle from the Atlantic rains.

Rain is a problem in Victoria too. Except here it is the lack of it that causes people to worry. Drought reigns (if you’ll excuse the pun) and the occasional shower is enough to make people run into the street and stand with hands outstretched and face pointed skywards. The dry and parched earth of the countryside seems incongruous beside the expanse of the Southern Ocean. But that just adds to the colour and beauty of the drive.

I’m slowly ticking off the places I want to see in Victoria (the rest of Australia and New Zealand are a different matter). But as we drove back along the Great Ocean Road I wondered about those other things I wanted to see here. Wildlife. The search for the first Kangaroo goes on. It’s been 10 months guys, when are you going to say hello? I’m beginning to think it’s all a myth and that Kangaroos, Koalas and Emus are only a tourist ploy. I blame Skippy. He set an expectation that the Australia countryside is sadly failing to live up to. What will I do if I’m ever stuck down a well?