THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD

The Great Ocean Road covers some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. It winds past the magical Twelve Apostles, stunning stretches of coastline, iconic surfing beaches, lush rainforests, misty waterfalls and seaside villages.

Few other roads in the world can boast 240 kilometres of such awesome beauty as can the Great Ocean Roads. The coastline is magnificent. 

VITAL CONNECTION

The original inhabitants of this region along the Great Ocean Road were the Gunditjmara and the Wathaurong  people. These indigenous people have a very deep relationship with the land and the sea. Every aspect of their lives is connected to it. They have a spiritual, physical, social and cultural connection with the land and the ocean. And their lives are closely intertwined with these elements and the forces of nature. 

This vital connection is expressed in every Aboriginal art form and ceremonial performance, whether it be theatre, dance, music or painting. And they have lived in awe and wonder of the beauty, majesty and power of this fabulous coastline. 

The Great Ocean Road region and its diverse ecosystems teem with wildlife. Some of it lives nowhere else in the world. Along this coastline it’s common to find iconic Australian animals, like kangaroos and koalas. 

The Great Ocean Road region is sprinkled with seaside villages, surfing communities, resort townships and regional hubs. Names such as Torquay, Anglesea, Aireys Inlet, Lorne, Apollo Bay and Port Campbell are popular destinations along the road. 

Vincent van Gogh said, 

“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.” 

The great Southern Ocean is often windy and stormy, even along this beautiful coastline. 

This week we drive along the Great Ocean Road to explore why more than 5 million people a year visit this part of Victoria, Australia, and how spending time surrounded by the wild wonders of the ocean is good for us all.

Research is finding that even brief experiences of awe, such as standing on a beach and looking towards the horizon of the ocean, can lead us to be more attuned to the common humanity we share with one another. 

This morning I climbed down the 86 Gibson steps to the beach here at the foot of the 12 Apostles. We had to time our visit here to low tide, as the sea is dangerous, and at high tide waves smash against those cliffs that are 70 metres high. 

Today we spend more time working and commuting and less time in wild places like the Great Ocean Road. 

Join me on a journey along the Great Ocean Road to learn more about the 3,000 men who laboured with their hands to carve this iconic road from the mountains, and to understand how the enormity of their sacrifice and the greatness of the landscape combine to fill the soul with awe and wonder.

GATEWAY TORQUAY

This is the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia. About 5 million people every year travel along the winding curves of this road. One of the world’s greatest coastal drives, for the past 80 years it has drawn visitors from all over the world.

The Great Ocean Road brings people to the edge of Australia, where the waves of the mighty Southern Ocean ceaselessly roll onto beaches or roar at the base of dramatic cliffs. 

The Great Ocean Road officially begins here at Torquay and spans some 250 kilometres, to just outside Warrnambool. Construction on the road was started in 1919 and completed in 1932.

Torquay is an appropriate gateway to the Great Ocean Road, as it has always had a close relationship with the ocean and a strong surf culture. It’s recognised today as the home of Australian surfing and where iconic brands such as Rip Curl and Quiksilver began.  

The Australian National Surfing Museum is located here and is the world’s largest beach culture museum, a fitting reminder of the close connection it has with the ocean and the road that winds along its rugged shore. 

HUMAN MASTERPIECE 

The Great Ocean Road is a masterpiece of human achievement. It was built basically by hand, with help from a few explosives to break rocks. More than 3000 men worked to build the road, using little more than a pick and shovel. 

Doug Stierling, Lorne Historical Society:  Well, it was built by soldiers from the First World War, tough fellows they were, we call them ‘Diggers’ in Australia, and these men were big fellows mainly, that were used to hard work. And they picked up these particular type of people who could stand up to the rigours of outdoor life. They loved doing it because they weren’t inside. 

Now this was during the Depression mostly, and most people are out of work, and they were struggling to find work, but when these fellows were given the job to work and build the Great Ocean Road they thought it was Christmas. They were getting a good income, married men a lot of them, so they could support their families.

There were diggers that fought in World War I and were used to tough conditions, and they had a great camaraderie. Now as you can imagine, in the war they all stuck together, in thick and thin,and when they were discharged, they’re on their own. And they had to make up their own mates. 

And this was very difficult for them to change into civilian life, but when they worked on the Great Ocean Road with all their cobbers they had that same camaraderie they had during the war.                

This sculpture, named the The Diggers shows one of the workers handing the other a drink. It reflects the great Australian mateship, that was not only a part of the building of the road, but was so often on display in the First World War. The sculpture is set on a plinth of rock especially brought here from Port Fairy. The Diggers overlooks the Southern Ocean and the Great Ocean Road. 

Doug:  Now the difficulty they had building the road was the rock, now they had to drill holes in the rock for a start. They just drilled it with a chisel and a hammer, and blew the big stones over the side of the cliff to the sea. And when they did this they made all the side of the coast bare, because it pushed the grass, the scrub and everything off, and all the rubble went down to the beach, so it looked pretty hairy. Nothing to stop your view between the road and the beach. 

Now these fellows who were blasting really upset their mates, because a lot of them were shell-shocked and they’d just come out of the trenches. When the blasting went off around the road it really upset them.

The challenges they had when [they were] making the road was mainly that terrain they had to work in, because it was right along the cliff face of the mountains that ran right down to the sea, and they had to tie themselves to trees and lower themselves down on rocks, dig a hole up in to stand upright, and the digger that was beside him did the same. 

And then they dug a track between the two, and that’s how it all started, and when they got around to the road a bit there’s a couple of old farmers, and they said to they farmers, “Would you like to contribute [to] it, give us a few bob to build the road.” 

And they said, “Look, we haven’t got two bob, but we’ll work on the road for a mile in this area, for nothing.” And that’s what they did, these farmers. That was a type of patriotism they had, building the Great Ocean Road. All the little towns and villages along the Great Ocean Road ran dances and different things to make money to pay the diggers, because they knew it was to their advantage that they’re going to have a beautiful road – this Great Ocean Road that would give them free access out of their villages.

WAR MEMORIAL

Now this Great Ocean Road is not only a memorial to those who dug it but it was a memorial to the fallen from the First World War. The Great Ocean Road has been called ‘Australia’s largest war memorial’. Many visitors to the Great Ocean Road don’t know the history of how it was constructed and why the construction of this road is so special.

Doug:  They built the Great Ocean Road because it was to open up all the little settlements around the Otway coast. Prior to the Great Ocean Road being built they were all landlocked, depending on the weather. Once the Great Ocean Road was built it gave them access right through to wherever they wanted to go.

The Great Ocean Road was built …in 1919 it started. It was a concept of the Minister for Lands and the Minister for Repatriation, to give the returning diggers a job. 3,000 men worked on the road, mostly returned diggers. They had foremen who kept them on the job. 

They lived very, very well and in tents – one man to a tent – and they were paid very well. They were paid ten & six [A$1.05] a day, where they had come out of the trenches at five bob [$0.50] a day, and they were really well off.

It took about ten years all through, twelve or thirteen years to complete the road, right through from Torquay to Allansford, which was near Warrnambool. Now a lot of the road was in pure rock and that’s where the tough bit came. One particular place is called Mount Defiance, and that really defied them because it was pure rock. 

And the rest of the road, a lot of it was aggregate, which was pick and shovel work – and that’s all they had basically, was picks and shovels, and horses and scoops and wheelbarrows – and they had to do it all by muscle.

Well, I was born here in 1922, lived here all my life except [when] I was in the army for 4 years, mostly up in the Solomon Islands, and it’s a lovely place here because we’ve got this Great Ocean Road that we can move about on. Every bend you come around there’s different views and you get the rolling surf, and the moods of the sea changes, so ever-changing vistas, and it’s beautiful all the way around.

OCEAN DELIGHTS

We think around 80 percent of the world’s population lives only an hour or two from the coastline of an ocean, lake or river. There’s something about water that draws us and fascinates us. Our human bodies are about 70 percent water and they say that the water in ourselves is comparable to that found in the oceans.

The ocean delights, inspires and intimidates us. When we think of the Great Ocean Road we may think that the word ‘Great’ applies to the road construction. While the history and meaning of the construction of the road is important, it is the ocean that provides the meaning of the word ‘Great’.

We are surrounded by water, and along with air, it’s the primary ingredient for supporting life. Water covers more than 70 percent of Earth’s surface, and 96 percent of it is found in the ocean. In fact, it’s so vast we’ve only explored 5 percent of our world’s oceans. 

From one million miles away our planet resembles a small blue marble. Author Arthur C Clarke once commented,

 “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when it’s quite clearly Ocean.”

Surfers are a constant presence along the Great Ocean Road, with world champion surfing events held at Bells Beach every Easter. Since the 1960s surfers have flocked to Bells Beach. In 1973 the Easter event became Australia’s first pro surfing contest.  

Surfers have an intimate connection with the ocean, and many surfers  have tried to articulate the feeling of riding the power of the sea. 

Pioneer of big wave surfing, Buzzy Trent, said one of the most famous lines in surfing circles: “Waves are not measured in feet and inches, they are measured in increments of fear.” An element of greatness is power. Along the Great Ocean Road the ocean and bush that are so beautiful also have the power to make us afraid.

DARK SECRET

The dramatic seascapes and spectacular scenery hide a dark secret, because not only is this stretch of coastline among the most beautiful in the world, it is also by far the most rugged, hostile and treacherous coastline in the world. Cape Otway light station is the oldest lighthouse on the Australian mainland. It has operated continuously since 1848.

Before Bass Strait was discovered by Matthew Flinders around 1799, ships had to sail around Tasmania, taking an extra week to ten days, but sailing the waters between King and Flinders Islands and the mainland is still treacherous. 

During the early years of European settlement over 500 sailing ships were wrecked along this coast. In fact, over 80 ships were lost between Cape Otway and Port Fairy alone, so this section of coast can well be called the ‘shipwreck coast’. Virtually all of these shipwrecks occurred in a period of about 30 years, between the mid-18800s and the early 1900s. Most of these ships sank at night, or in a howling storm.

in the Bass Strait the mighty Southern Ocean is forced through a passage merely 90 kilometres wide, and up onto the continental shelf where the sea bottom becomes relatively shallow. In these parts the wind blows and swells of ten to twenty metres aren’t rare. 

FEELINGS OF AWE

The 86 Gibson steps lead to the beach here at the foot of the 12 Apostles. The cliffs tower 70 metres above me, and I can see large rocks at the base of the cliffs that have fallen before. The view of the sea here fills the horizon. The waves don’t whisper here, but roar onto the sand. It’s a wild place. It’s a beautiful place. 

And I am a little bit frightened at how small I feel. All this great power and beauty fills me with an important emotion – Awe. Recent research tells me that feeling awe like this is good for me!

In the upper reaches of pleasure and on the boundary of fear is an important emotion – Awe. Awe is an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration or fear produced by something grand, sublime or extremely powerful.

Recent research has shown that when we feel awe we are more likely to feel a greater connection with others, to feel part of something bigger than ourselves. Researchers have demonstrated that even watching a five-minute clip of vast natural beauty like the Great Ocean Road helped people feel awe and changed their behaviour. 

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

It’s not clear why this area is called the 12 Apostles. There have never been 12 rock pillars, and constant pounding by the great Southern Ocean means that some of the current pillars are very fragile. Perhaps the name was used by the locals because awe is central to the experience of religion, and when this view took their breath away they could only liken it to a spiritual experience.

The research showed that those who experienced awe in the tests were less likely to cheat or take money that wasn’t theirs. Apparently it doesn’t take much—even just 60 seconds of looking at an amazing view such as this is enough for us to experience awe. 

My entire journey along the Great Ocean Road has filled me with awe, from remembering the great sacrifice of the 3,000 returned World War One soldiers who built this road in memory of their fallen mates;  to remembering the great sacrifice of the firefighters who saved families in the Christmas Day bushfires. 

And now I stand here with other visitors, one of the millions of people who visit the Great Ocean Road to soak in the awesome wonder. And my soul is singing…

“Then sings my soul, my Saviour, God, to Thee

How great Thou art, how great Thou art

Then sings my soul, my Saviour, God, to Thee

How great Thou art, how great Thou art…” [Audio]

JOURNEY OF LIFE

Yes, we’ve just completed one of the world’s great coastal drives. It’s the journey of a lifetime – a journey through some of the most exciting, enchanting and exquisitely different landscapes in Australia .

But as well as being an iconic tourist destination, the Great Ocean Road plays a deeper, more spiritual role. It’s a reminder that we’re all on a journey – the greatest journey: the journey of life. And there’s a spiritual aspect to this journey.

One of the most helpful ways of thinking about the Christian life is to see it as a journey. This is a theme that runs through the bible. The Bible tells of the forty year journey of the people of Israel from Egypt to the promised land.

It tells of Abraham, setting out in faith to leave the land of his ancestors and journeying to a place chosen by God. He didn’t know where he was going, but he did know who he would be travelling with. That was enough for him!

One of the earliest terms used to refer to Christians was “those who belong to the Way”. They were seen as travelling on their way to the eternal city. Thinking of the Christian life as a journey through the world offers us a helpful and vivid way to visualising  the life of faith. 

It reminds us that we are going somewhere, not just anywhere. We are on our way to our eternal home. It encourages us to think ahead, and look forward with anticipation to the joy of arrival. One day we shall finally see our Lord face to face. If you would like to start that journey, why not make that decision right now as we pray?

Dear Heavenly Father,  today we have made a journey along one of the great coastal roads. The natural beauty, the coastal scenery, the history and heritage have filled us with awe and wonder. We’ve also been reminded of our journey through life and our spiritual pilgrimage. Please give us courage and assurance as we journey towards our eternal home. And grant us the privilege of seeing you face to face. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. 

[Background music – How Great Thou Art]

Our journey along the great ocean road fills us with awe and wonder. But it also plays a deeper, more spiritual role. It reminds us that we are all on a journey – the greatest journey – the journey of life. And there is a spiritual aspect to this journey.

One of the most helpful ways of thinking about the Christian life is to see it as a journey.

This is a theme that runs through the Bible.

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If you’ve enjoyed today’s journey, be sure to join us again next week when we will share another of life’s journeys together, and experience another new and thought-provoking perspective on the peace, insight, understanding and hope that only the Bible can give us.

The Incredible Journey truly is television that changes lives!  Until next week, remember the ultimate destination of  life’s journey:

“Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth…and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”  (Revelation 21: 1, 3)