Chapter 4 of the our preferred section on our entire website: The Short Travel Stories. Here we can share with you some short, yet exciting and intimate stories about our travels and backpacking journeys. If you want to share any story of your own, or you like what you read, leave us a comment below!

Chapter 4: Driving The Great Ocean Road

We take off in the direction of the Great Ocean Road, we are excited that finally our car is fixed and we can leave the Mt. Gambier issues behind us, however, we’re on a tight schedule and we have only a day and a half to complete the road.

We pass through the Bay of Islands, the Loch and Gorge, the London Bridge and then we stop for lunch at a beach close to port Campbell.

We park in front of the beach and sit down under some pine trees to start cooking rice, that we mix with canned beans, cheap and easy. We sit down, eat and relax with a gentle breeze that refreshes us from the hot weather.

After lunch, like good backpackers that we are, we go to the public toilets to wash the plates and the pot. Who hasn’t done something like that when on the road?

We jump into the water after that, the sea is ice cold and so we have to get out immediately. The plan sort of failed. Therefore, we just grab the shampoo and soap and take a shower under the public showers. People are looking at us as if we are some kind of hobos, but the truth is that we are just trying to be resourceful.

We take off again, finally towards the 12 Apostles. We get to the parking lot, get down; it’ll be sunset soon so we have to hurry, but there’s heaps of people.

After making it through the crowd we manage to see them, those massive, monumental rock columns. I can count seven of them because there are two on the other side and three of them are almost destroyed by the sea.

It’s hard to describe how these rock formations can impress you. The enormity of these rock titans is just breathtaking. It’s hallucinating to realize how nature can produce such beautiful sceneries, towers of rock in the middle of the green ocean, and it’s taken millions of years to form them. And there you are, the size of an ant compared to them, observing them, so close but so far away at the same time, and they seem to invite you to touché them, to climb them.

As human beings we might be able to build all the skyscrapers in the universe in the craziest places, but it’ll never be the same as the jewels that nature produces. These jewels are better because they aren’t planned or designed and that’s why they capture us so much, because not even the smartest or more creative person can think about something so random as spectacular. It was time, wind and water that shaped them, three things that us humans can’t control.

Just like other tourists we start shooting some flashes and after appreciating and interiorizing the beauty we have to go. It’s getting dark and we have to look for a place to sleep.

The drive takes us through a thick forest, and then we pass through all the small towns, Apollo Bay, Sugarloaf, Lorne and then Torquay.

In Torquay we find a public parking, right next to the beach and sort of protected by trees that block the view from the street. We silently park there, cook dinner in the dark to avoid attracting the attention of the neighbors so they don’t call the police, and we finally fall asleep.

The next morning we hear voices everywhere, so we get out of the car to discover that the parking lot is full of surfers. We have a quick breakfast and follow the surfers to the beach. On the way we have to go down like a thousand stairs until we make it to a beach called Jan Juc.

It’s beautiful! The beach is all like organic sugar color. It has gigantic cliffs that have been washed by the sea water, the water is dark blue, and you can see big waves far in that make it all the way to the shore, bathing the sand and creating a mirror like effect, where the sky is reflected on the sand and it’s amazing.

And so we just sit down on a log to drink some coffee and watch the Aussies surf before going to work or whatever they had to do that day. Next to us there’s two birds, also chilling and watching. Everyone is on the same vibe, relaxed and shining with happiness, just like the beach.