CURVESCOUTThursday Ride #1 · 12 November 2026
Melbourne · Great Ocean Road and Otway Rainforest
A loop from Torquay surf coast · Australia
- 329 km
- 5 h 40 min riding
- 5 stops
- loop
This Thursday: Melbourne · Great Ocean Road and Otway Rainforest. 329 km as a loop from Torquay surf coast in Australia, about 5 h 40 min in the saddle. In November the southern hemisphere is in its riding season - long days and warm roads.
Keep this if you want a coastal ride with a story behind it. About 3,000 servicemen returning from the First World War cut the Great Ocean Road's 243 km from Torquay to Allansford into a rugged coastline, and it opened in 1932 as the largest war memorial in the world. The cliffs and bends are what you see from the saddle; the history is why it is worth slowing down and stopping. Pass on it if you want an empty road or a fast run, because this is a coast to take slowly, one viewpoint at a time.
- Kenji, CurveScout scout
The map loads with the stops and the ride's road.
The ride, stop by stop
1Torquay surf coast
Torquay is where the Great Ocean Road really begins, even though the famous arch and the signage are a little further down the coast. This is surf town in the proper sense: Bells Beach is a few minutes away, the Easter surf contest there is one of the oldest in the world, and brands like Rip Curl and Quiksilver grew out of garages and sheds in this exact patch of Victoria. With around thirteen thousand residents it is a proper town, not a village, so fuel, coffee, bakeries and a good supply of wetsuit shops are all right here.
For a rider, the coast road from Torquay to Anglesea is the start of something good rather than the good bit itself. The surface is generally excellent, the corners flow with the dunes and heathland, and the sea shows up and disappears behind coastal scrub in a way that keeps your head turning. Further on, past Aireys Inlet and its lighthouse, the road begins to cling to the cliffs and the traffic begins to compete with the view. Victorian speed limits are enforced firmly and the cameras on busy holiday weekends are not shy, so treat the signed limits as real.
2Lornekm 53
Lorne is where the Great Ocean Road stops being a seaside drive and starts behaving like a mountain road. The town sits on Louttit Bay with the Otway Ranges standing right behind it, steep and thick with eucalypt, tree ferns and the odd waterfall. About twelve hundred people live here, a number that swells enormously in the Australian summer holidays, when Melbourne decamps to the beach and the main street fills with surfboards and ice cream.
For a rider, Lorne is the natural place to eat. The strip along Mountjoy Parade has bakeries, cafes and fish and chips, and the pier is a good place for a coffee with a view of the bay. There is a fuel station in town, which matters because the road beyond is long, and the nearest other sizeable town back along the coast is Anglesea. Weekends and school holidays are busy, and parking a bike is easier than parking a car, though a sand-covered bay can be tricky underfoot.
3Apollo Bay overnightkm 103
Apollo Bay is where the Great Ocean Road takes a breath. The town sits in a curve of the Otway coast, with a long beach on one side and the wooded Otway Ranges stacked up behind, and it has about fifteen hundred permanent residents, many more in holiday season. It began as a timber and fishing settlement, and the working harbour is still there, with a fishermen's co-operative selling fresh seafood. After a day on the coast road, with its endless bends, it is a relief to stop somewhere that feels like a normal town.
The road itself has a history. The Great Ocean Road was built between 1919 and 1932 by returned soldiers from the First World War, and it was conceived as a memorial to those who died. Much of it was dug by hand and carved from steep cliffs, and the stretch east of Apollo Bay clings to the edge of the Southern Ocean with the limestone formations of the Twelve Apostles still some way to the west. Inland, the Otway rainforest is a surprise, with tall mountain ash, myrtle beech and tree ferns, fed by rainfall that is higher than almost anywhere in Victoria.
4Twelve Apostleskm 173
Everyone calls them the Twelve Apostles, which is generous. There were never twelve, and the original name was the Sow and Piglets, a rather less holy image that tourism officials decided to retire. Today about eight limestone stacks stand in the surf off Port Campbell National Park, and one collapsed in 2005 in front of a crowd of onlookers. The cliffs are made of soft limestone, and the Southern Ocean is working on them constantly, so the view is never the same twice.
The stacks form because waves cut caves into headlands, the caves become arches, and the arches fall to leave isolated pillars. Eventually the pillars fall too. It is a process that is visible in a lifetime, and this stretch is called the Shipwreck Coast for a reason. A short drive west, Loch Ard Gorge marks the site where the clipper Loch Ard struck the cliffs in 1878, and only two young people survived, Tom Pearce and Eva Carmichael.
5Torquaykm 329
Torquay is where the Great Ocean Road begins, or ends, depending on which way you ride. It is a town of about thirteen thousand people on the edge of Bass Strait, and it has a reputation that has little to do with motorcycles: this is the capital of Australian surfing. Bells Beach, a few minutes down the coast, hosts one of the world's oldest surf competitions, held every Easter, and the town gave birth to brands such as Rip Curl and Quiksilver that have since gone global. Surf World, the museum in town, tells the story with boards, photographs and a lot of sun-bleached nostalgia.
Coming back to Torquay at the end of a day on the coast is a pleasant thing. The town has everything a rider needs: fuel at several stations, supermarkets, cafes, and motels and holiday flats in all sizes. Its main street has surf shops and bakeries, and the esplanade lets you wander along the beach with a coffee and watch the surfers in their wetsuits. Jan Juc, a few kilometres away, is another surfing village that is quieter and more residential.
Before you go
329 km loop, about 5 h 40 min of riding. Check the weather and any road closures before you leave; mountain and coast roads change with the season.