red center or great ocean rd/ Phillip island

mannequinhands

hey looking for some advice from anyone who might have done these. Im thinking of getting a open ticket for me and my girlfriend for her brithday present to either , ayers rock kings canyon or doing a day trip on the great ocean road and then phillip island the next day see wildlife highlight being seeing the penguin parade at the end of the day. Has anyone any experience doing either of these tours and did they enjoy them

woolymammoth

I've don the great ocean road, but none of the others you've mentioned. You can drive it in a day, but you'll not get a chance to see anything interesting. I would say take at least one night for a stop somewhere along the way. Myself and the missus drove from adelaide to melbourne. Took two stops, one at port fariy and the other at torquay, then flew back to adelaide. We loved it but my only regrets are not stopping at the Otway fly treetops and, i remember passing a sign for an "irish village" somewhere, but we kept driving.. never did find out what that was about!

In Exile

Did the Great Ocean Rd on the weekend just gone. Drove from Melbourne to Port Fairy on Friday night, went inland. Saturday morning drove from there to Angelsea and stayed the night. Back to Melbourne on the Sunday.

It can be done in one day but like woolymammoth said, you won't see much. You will stop at the main stops but that will be it.

To be honest I was a little disappointed in it. The views between Warnambool and Apollo Bay are spectacular. The thing is though, you need to have time to stop and walk to each place. You won't see that many from the road.

From Apollo Bay to Angelsea is like driving the The Ring Of Kerry and passing through about 5 Dingles.

It's worth doing but I'd give yourself a full weekend to do it properly.



On a side note, I spotted the Irish Village sign myself. and took a detour through it. It's an old village. The host from our B&B told us it's not a visual Irish village, you need time to explore and visit the museum/library as it was a place a large amount of Irish settled in the 1800's

mel.b

Phillip Island is in the opposite direction to the great ocean road. As others have said you'll want a couple of days to make the most of the great ocean road. Phillip island including the peguin parade can be done as a day trip, but it also depends on the time of year. As the penguins don't start to come up until it is almost dark, if you go during summer you would be getting back to Melbourne very late. Winter better, but it's absolutly freezing sitting on the beach so rug up well and take blankets.

Personally though i would go for ayres rock. The great ocean rd is coast line and you can get spectacular coast line in any country in the world. However ayres rock is completly unique.

mannequinhands

cheers might go with ayers then