Need advice.
We have time for a day trip from Melbourne and are thinking of doing the GOR, probably up to Port Campbell before returning via the inland route. Problem is - it would be on a Friday in mid-January. Would traffic condition make it too tedious an exercise for it to be enjoyable? And do people on this forum generally agree that the GOR lives up to all the hypes?

Don't know about hype, I don't thinke that applies here. But the good reputation of the GOR is justified in my opinion.

Depending where you are staying in Melbourne it makes more or less sense. The closer to Geelong, the better.

You can do it in one long day, but you'll miss out by being in such a rush. If you read up on the GOR there are many places worth stopping, not just the apostles and the London Bridge (what's left of them...). Just one of these - the detour down to Cape Otway on the shipwreck coast, is worth considering.

It's not a freeway, much of it is quite slow, not always possible to drive the 100km/h limit that applies for long stretches. It doesn't always follow the ocean, it veers inland through forests quite a bit.

If you encounter roadwork, slower campers, etc., you just have to give in, so lower your expectations as to how long it will take, or - much better - decide to spend the night in one of the nice places along the trip, like Lorne or Apollo Bay or elsewhere.

If you are going to visit Australia you might as well see some of the best the country has to offer and the GOR ticks that box. It is a beautiful stretch of coastline that has enthralled thousands of travellers over many years. It is a coastline of great natural beauty togrther with the fact that it also presents the opportunity of seeing two very famous Aussies i.e. Kangaroos & Koalas in the wild. Don't miss it whatever the time, date or season!

Being an Australian who had lived in Victoria a number of years and been along various stretches of the GOR a few times not so much to go and gawk at scenery be it considered spectacular or whatever, but just to enjoy the drive, I could see that doing it too rushed could leave you with less than a splendid memory of it.

I'd suggest a bit like the DL that it would be more than a giggle to organise accommodation out of Melbourne on the evening before, and in January with Daylight saving you will have ample time to get somewhere, so why not depending on how much time you have, either:

1. take a drive down the Mornington Peninsula and stop at Sorrento (or Portsea) or if you can make Sorrento for a 7 pm sailing., you can take the ferry to Queenscliff - http://www.searoad.com.au/

Queenscliff is a delightful older real authentic heritage town with several hotels and guesthouses and of course accommodation would need to be booked in any of the locations - it'll sure beat the hell out of the drive down the geelong road and through Geelong.

You might be about to say, BUT! we do not get back from Phillip Island until about midnight and that's no giggle either and No!, I'm not going to suggest you do a moonlight escape down the peninsula and park up, but for people intending to do both, I merely suggest they combine them and stay at Phillip Island after kissing the penguins goodnight and then get an early morning start to drive around to the Mornington Peninsula (about two hours Cowes to Sorrento - do it pre breakfast, and grab a coffee and whatever on the ferry).

But do what you can to extend your hours so you can stop somewhere for lunch, a morning and faternoon tea etc. and soak in the environment a bit.

On the way back, I'd suggest that heading across to Ballarat and to the airport(if that is where you need to go) from the Great Western Hwy is as quick and a more interesting return journey, and either way it'll be tireness as much as feeling hyped you'll feel.

Thanks for the elegant replies above. They have given me much food for thoughts. Bushranger's suggestion got me to think outside the box a bit more. Downunder got me to google for koalas spotting on the GOR and Kennett River came up as a place to look around, and the Dalai Lama is telling me to slow down and smell the roses.

Hi eschaton, as said by everyone else do try and stay overnight. It will be a much more pleasant experience. Also, I hope you are not thinking of doing this on Friday, 23 Jan because that is the start of a long weekend (the Monday is Ausralia day) so it will be particular busy.

If that is the only possible time, you need to allow plenty of leeway in your time estimations. The Saturday and Sunday shouldn't be too bad, it will be the Friday when everyone is heading down to the coast and then again on the Monday when everyone is heading back home. In particular there is a huge rock concert held in Lorne during that weekend, and the traffic coming back through Anglesea on the Monday becomes a bottleneck and causes long delays. If that is the day you have to travel, let me know, and I will give you some explicit directions on how to miss a lot of the traffic jam.

Also, if you are going to overnight, anytime during January I would be prebooking accommodation as it is school holidays.

Thanks Shandy; that would indeed be a nightmare. I checked - It would be the Friday before that long weekend.
I'm taking on board everyone's advice here by reducing a night in Melbourne - from 4 to 3.

One thought just came to mind. In everything I've read so far on the GOR, the assumption is that one travels from east to west along the coast, with the advice to take the inland route on the return leg to avoid the traffic.
What about doing it the other way around, ie, go via the inland route to get to the western end of the GOR, and then do the drive from west to east??
Anyone done that before? Would that mean that one would get a better run on the road by going against the traffic flow? Or would that present other problems like turning into coastal towns from the wrong side of the road?

Most go east to west eschaton to
1. keep the sun behind them as much as possible in doing it as a morning drive.
2. As we drive on the left side of road centre here, your passenger at least is getting a better view of what's off the side of the road and possibly getting nervous if there is no confidence in the driver or as some drivers are want to do - is having a bit of a geeza too!!
(There are pull offs and lookouts along the way)

You could do it west to east and I've done part in that direction but my preference/recommendation would still be east to west.

Thinking outside of your box a little more to get some seamless touring going, have you thought of:

Scheduling your stay in Melbourne so that instead of heading back into Melbourne and then taking off again to head to Canberra.

You go GOR - Ballarat(you can stay at http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/ and do the Blood on the Southern Coss dinner show[if you can get in of course] and if not, I found http://www.emubottom.com.au/taste_of...hern_cross.htm by accident and it says corporate groups but you can only but ask!

The sovereign Hill show and stay will however better place you for a drive by Daylesford way the next morning and if it's history and quaintness of times gone you're interested in, then http://www.maldon.org.au/ should at least be a lunch stop.

From Maldon, it'd be >Castkemaine [ and if you could not get into Under the Southern Cross, a pity http://www.oldcastlemainegaol.com.au...raft_1_003.htm is closed for you could have slept in an old gaol] > Calder Hwy > Malmsbury > Heathcote > Tooborac > Seymour and across to Mansfield and then Beechworth [or could become a too long day] but Ok if you have given yourself another day by not going back into Melbourne anyway.

Alternately, you head up the Hume Freeway a bit from Seymour, bypassing Euroa, Benalla and Wangaratta to get onto the Beechworth Road, it being about two hours Seymour to Beechworth that way, and you would want to allow four hours going via Mansfield, allowing for a coffee break and geek about there.

You'll have crisscrossed a bit of the Golden Triangle and Ned Kellys bushranging country.

Going East to West makes compelling sense. Thanks for explaining and saving me from being too smart for my own good.

We have actually visited Ballarat's Sovereign Hill on a previous trip. The show exceeded our expectation.
Nonetheless the route otherwise does makes good sense even if to avoid backtracking into Melbourne.

Our reason for returning via Geelong is to drop in at some relatives (and free overnight accommodation!). We can't do it on the leg there because we've booked to see 'Wicked' the night before in Melbourne.

eschaton, on thinking about it a bit more it needn't be a disaster travelling on the long weekend.

You would need to be getting an early start anyway in order to fit the long trip, and as a lot of people will be working the Friday, they won't be heading off until late afternoon anyway.

Consequently you should be ahead of most of the traffic. As you intend to come back via the inland route (very sensible) you will be against the traffic, if you are stilll doing it as a one day trip. The Saturday and Sunday shouldn't be too bad as most people will be at their destination and staying put.

I wouldn't think of doing this as a one day trip on the Monday though because, although you would be against the traffic as you do the GOR, there simply will be so much traffic going the opposite way it just won't be as enjoyable.

My plan is to do Friday to Sat on the weekend before the long one. I got a fairly good idea now how to make the best of a Jan GOR trip.
The sort of local knowledge on this forum cannot be easily found in travel books.
Thanks for all the invaluable advice and tips.

Just got back from our visit to Melbourne, and our Great Ocean Road trip. I thought this report might be helpful.

We hired a rental car and drove from Melbourne to Phillip Island initially it took about 2 1/2 hours.

We went and saw the Penguin Parade that night, and left the next morning at 7.45am and drove to Portsea to catch the ferry to Queenscliff. We arrived at the ferry at 9.45am and caught the 10am ferry. 45 minutes later we were in Queenscliff and starting our drive down the Great Ocean Road. We made it as far as Port Campbell, stopping on our way at Bells Beach, Anglesea for lunch, and various other places to take ohotos. We took time to see the Twelve Apostles, and then intended to stay at Port Campbell but there seemed to be a lot of no vacancy signs so drove back to Apollo Bay, it was approx 5pm by the time we found a motel. The drive was great, miles and miles of golden sand beaches, beautiful scenery and well worth the trip.

The next morning we drove to Cape Otway and did the tour of the Lighthouse, stopped to look for koalas on the drive out. We back-tracked to Apollo Bay, I think it was 11am when we left there to take the internal route back to Melbourne via Geelong. We arrived at our hotel near Melbourne airport at about 3pm.

You definitely need two days to get the most out of the trip, if we had, had another day we would have driven as far as Port Fairy.