The Great Ocean Road is a 240 km (149 mile) coastal road in Victoria, Australia, running west from Torquay to Allansford near Warrnambool and signed B100. It was built by returned servicemen between 1919 and 1932 as a memorial to the dead of the First World War, which makes it the world's largest war memorial, and it was added to the Australian National Heritage List in 2011. It is two lanes the whole way, with limits between 50 and 100 km/h. This guide covers the sections, the Twelve Apostles, wildlife, fuel and the southern-hemisphere season (verified August 2026).
Two roads wearing one name
Riders who come here expecting 240 km of clifftop corners are half right. East of the Otway Ranges the road hugs the coast along what is called the Surf Coast, and this is the part that appears in every photograph — a two-lane ribbon cut into the hillside above Bass Strait, with sheer drops on the seaward side and rockfall warning signs on the inland side. Between Anglesea and Apollo Bay you get a genuinely good motorcycling road: constant radius changes, sightlines that open and close with the headlands, and almost no straight long enough to be boring.
Then the road turns inland and climbs into the Otways through cool-temperate rainforest around Lavers Hill, which is a different kind of riding entirely — damp, shaded, tighter, and often ten degrees cooler than the coast you just left. West of Cape Otway it comes back out onto the Shipwreck Coast, and the character changes again: open farmland on your right, limestone cliffs and stacks on your left, and the whole Port Campbell stretch where the famous rock formations are.
Knowing that the road has three personalities matters for planning, because riders who allocate a day and treat it as one continuous coastal run end up rushing the middle and arriving at the Twelve Apostles in the worst light and the heaviest traffic.
Route at a glance
| Length | 240 km (149 miles), Torquay to Allansford |
| Route number | B100 since 1996; signed State Route 100 from 1986 to 1996 |
| Road type | Two lanes, one each way, limits varying between 50 and 100 km/h |
| Built | 1919 to 1932 by about 3,000 returned servicemen; opened 26 November 1932 |
| Status | Australian National Heritage List since 2011; world's largest war memorial |
| Main towns | Anglesea, Aireys Inlet, Lorne, Wye River, Kennett River, Apollo Bay, Lavers Hill, Port Campbell, Peterborough |
| Season | Open year round; southern-hemisphere summer is December to February (as of August 2026) |
| Sensible pace | Two days with an overnight at Apollo Bay or Port Campbell |
Open the Torquay to Allansford route in Google Maps — it runs Torquay, Lorne, Apollo Bay, Port Campbell, Allansford, so you can send the full sequence to your navigation before you start.
Torquay to Apollo Bay, the coastal section
The road starts at Torquay, where a sign tells you so, and reaches the memorial arch at Eastern View about 40 km on. The arch is the third or fourth version of the original, which was built of timber logs in 1939, rebuilt when the road was widened in 1973, rebuilt again in 1983 after the Ash Wednesday bushfires destroyed it, and rebuilt once more after a storm brought it down in 1990. That history tells you something useful about this coast: it is not a benign environment, and the road has been closed by fire, storm and landslide repeatedly since it opened.
From Eastern View through Lorne to Apollo Bay the surface is generally good and the corners are the reason to be here. Teddy's Lookout above Lorne gives the classic view back down onto the road. Wye River and Kennett River are small enough to blink past, and Kennett River is where most of the tour buses stop looking for koalas in the roadside manna gums, which means slow traffic and people stepping off the verge without looking. Ride that bit expecting pedestrians.
The Twelve Apostles are not twelve
The limestone stacks off Port Campbell National Park are the reason a large share of the traffic is here, and the naming is worth getting straight because it changes what you expect to see. There were never twelve. The formation was known variously as the Pinnacles and the Sow and Pigs, and was officially renamed the Twelve Apostles to attract visitors despite only ever having had nine stacks. Seven remain standing. One 50 m stack fell in July 2005, leaving eight, and another went in 2009, leaving the current seven. Six are visible from the main viewing platform and the seventh sits a short walk along.
The rock is Port Campbell Limestone, deposited in the mid to late Miocene roughly 15 to 5 million years ago, and the stacks were carved by Southern Ocean weather eroding caves into arches and arches into stumps. They are up to 50 m (160 ft) high. The same process is still running, which is why the Island Archway collapsed in 2009 and why headlands along this coast will become stacks in the future.
Nearby, Loch Ard Gorge, London Bridge and The Grotto are all within a few kilometres and all worth the stop. Parking at the Twelve Apostles is on the inland side with a tunnel under the road to the platforms, so you are not crossing traffic on foot.
Wildlife, heat and the things that actually catch riders out
Animals on the road. Kangaroos are the species most commonly hit and killed by vehicles in Australia, and dusk and dawn are the times of highest collision risk. In the Otways you can add wallabies, wombats and koalas crossing between stands of gum. The standard advice for a large animal is to slow in lane rather than swerve — a sudden swerve on a two-lane coastal road with a cliff on one side and oncoming traffic on the other is usually worse than the impact. The practical version for a motorcycle is simple and unglamorous: do not ride this road in the last hour of light or the first hour of the morning if you can arrange not to.
Heat and fire. This is southern Victoria, so summer means December to February, and summer here means both peak traffic and peak bushfire season. The road has been closed for fire before, and the surrounding forest is the kind that burns. Before a summer ride, check VicEmergency for fire warnings and VicTraffic for road conditions rather than assuming the road is open because it was yesterday.
Traffic. Tour coaches, hire cars driven by people not used to left-hand traffic, and cyclists all share this road. Overtaking opportunities on the coastal section are short. Ride it early on a weekday if you have the choice; the same corners at 8 am and at 1 pm are effectively different roads.
Fuel. Fuel is available in the coastal towns, but the inland stretch through Lavers Hill has long gaps between anything open, and small-town pumps keep small-town hours. Fill at Apollo Bay before the Otways rather than after.
Gear notes for a road with weather on both sides of it
Two things about this route punish a setup assembled for city riding. The first is coverage. Mobile signal drops out in the Otways and in the gullies along the coastal section, so a navigation setup that streams its map from the network stops working exactly where the turnoffs get confusing. Downloading the route before you leave Torquay and running it on a screen you can read in hard coastal glare makes the difference — our guide to choosing a motorcycle GPS setup covers what offline capability really means, and a JADO S6 riding system keeps the route and your cameras on one display with the phone shut inside your jacket, out of the salt air.
The second is the temperature swing. The Otways sit cooler and wetter than the coast, and a summer afternoon at Port Campbell can be twenty degrees warmer than a foggy morning at Lavers Hill. Air temperature moves tire pressure, and pressure matters more than usual on a road that alternates fast sweepers with damp shaded corners — why tire pressure falls in cold weather explains the mechanism, and a TPMS sensor tells you about a slow leak before the next set of cliff-edge corners rather than after. If you are riding at either end of the day when the animals are moving, low-light visibility for riders is worth reading first.
FAQ
How long does the Great Ocean Road take on a motorcycle?
You can ride 240 km in a long morning, but that misses the point and the traffic will not let you. Two days with an overnight at Apollo Bay or Port Campbell is the pace most riders settle on, which gives you the coastal corners fresh in the morning and the Twelve Apostles outside the middle of the day.
Which direction should you ride it?
West from Torquay puts you on the seaward side of the road, closest to the views and the lookout pull-offs, since Australia drives on the left. Riding east from Allansford means the traffic and the cliff are between you and the ocean. Most riders go west.
Is the Great Ocean Road ever closed?
Yes. It has been closed by bushfire, by landslides near Lorne and by storm damage over its life, and a cutting collapsed after heavy rain in January 2011. There is no seasonal closure, but there is no guarantee either. Check VicTraffic and VicEmergency the morning you ride.
When is the best time of year to ride it?
Remember the hemisphere is flipped: December to February is summer, which brings the best weather, the worst crowds and the fire risk. March and April, or October and November, give you softer traffic and mild temperatures. Winter is rideable but wet and windy off the Southern Ocean.
Are there tolls on the Great Ocean Road?
Not today. Tolls were charged at Eastern View and Cathedral Rock from 1922 to help repay construction costs, and were removed when the road was handed to the state government in 1936. Parking charges at some attractions are a separate matter and change, so check current terms locally.
