As an international student, I ended up meeting a lot of other international students as well, and a big part of studying abroad, for many people, is traveling and exploring the country. I have been pretty conflicted regarding the amount of traveling I want to do because while I want to explore Australia, but I also want to feel like I am truly living in Melbourne. With most things in life, I feel like a balance between traveling and staying in the city is the ideal because you get to explore, but also don’t feel like every week you are on the hunt to simply cross things off of your bucket list. One of the places that I have seen almost every international student go to is the Great Ocean Road and Twelve Apostles. Weekly I will see someone’s post on Instagram from their trip, and it makes sense that this is such a popular destination because it is super close to Melbourne. It seemed like this was a must-do trip, so I decided to go on it myself.
Many companies offer different packages for this trip, ranging from AU$60 for day trips all the way to AU$300 for weekend trips. You do not have to go with a tourist company for this trip, but many people choose to do so because of how practical it can be. I decided to go with a club at Swinburne University called the Explorers Club. This club organizes different trips around the Melbourne area and gets people to travel together. I found out about it because one of my friends was a member last semester, and she encouraged me to go to meetings. The great thing about this trip was that it only cost AU$80 for a three-day trip. The club helped us organize cars and who could give who a ride. I just paid the price of gas to the driver and the rest of the money went into paying for the hostel in Apollo Bay.
On Friday afternoon we began the three to four-hour drive from Melbourne to Apollo Bay and made it there just in time to enjoy the sunset by the beach. Once everyone had arrived, we began to cook a communal dinner at the hostel and just hung out for the rest of the night. I have stayed in a fair number of hostels and must say that this is by far the nicest one I have ever been to. The place was extremely modern, clean and cozy. Even though it was on the pricier side for hostels, it was worth every penny for such nice accommodation.
Saturday morning we woke up and started to drive from Apollo Bay towards the Twelve Apostles, which are limestone rocks in the middle of the ocean. The drive takes about an hour, but we stopped along the way in a couple of spots to enjoy the view from the Great Ocean Road. We also decided to do part of the Great Ocean Road walk, which took us about two hours of walking to make it to the Twelve Apostles. The views throughout the walk were breathtaking, and it was amazing to slowly approach this natural beauty. After the walk, the group headed to Port Campbell, a small town nearby, to eat at a fish and chips shop. On our return to the hostel, we stopped at a few other spots to enjoy some of the beautiful views.
On Sunday, we started to slowly make our way back to Melbourne, stopping at a cafe to see Koalas and eat a Golden Gaytime ice cream, a popular Australian ice cream. We also stopped to do two hikes before heading to Lorne for lunch, another small beach town. We ate some amazing food, walked on the beach, and drove back to Melbourne through the winding Great Ocean Road. This road is the biggest war memorial in the world, as it is a memorial for those who died fighting in World War I. The entire drive is on the coast and allows for some breathtaking views.
I found the trip to be very fun and I enjoyed how slow paced it was. Another thing that I really appreciated about it was the fact that many people that went were Australians, and some had even done this trip before. This allowed me to get the true experience of this trip as well as insider knowledge such as the best restaurants to go to and so on. It can be hard to know how much one should travel while abroad because you do not want to solely travel and not enjoy the city you are living in but also it is amazing to explore the country you are in. The best thing is to find a balance and enjoy every moment you have while abroad.
