Erskine Falls and Lorne: the coast stop and the forest behind it

What you actually stop for in Lorne

Of the 242 kilometres of memorial road running between Torquay and Allansford, the length through Lorne is the piece most visitors put their feet on; more than 3,000 returned servicemen cut it out of these hillsides across the years from 1919 to 1932, and the road and its surrounds went onto Australia's National Heritage List in 2011. Everything people stop for in town is within a few minutes' walk: the pier at the eastern end, the beach in front of the foreshore reserve, and a main street of cafes, bakeries and shops looking out at the water.

Eat here, and eat early. Cafes and bakeries along this coast often stop serving by 2:30pm, and the two dependable eating towns on the route are Anglesea to the east and Apollo Bay to the west. A mid-morning stop or an early lunch in Lorne leaves the afternoon free for driving.

Lorne is the last sizeable town before the slow part of the drive. Fill the tank, buy water and download your maps here while you still have a signal.

Teddys Lookout, above the river mouth

Teddys Lookout stands on the hill at the western edge of town, above the point where the river reaches the sea. From the platform you see how the coast is put together: the road swinging around the headland below, the river bending in out of the forest, both of them in one view.

The detour off the main road is short and the walking is minimal, which makes it the easiest thing to add when your stop in Lorne is brief. Park where the signs allow and walk the last stretch. Stopping for photographs on blind corners or across private driveways is prohibited here, and the lanes up to the lookout are residential.

Erskine Falls and the other waterfall walks inland

The waterfall country lies inland from Lorne, up through the forest of the Great Otway National Park. Erskine Falls is the best known of them: a viewing platform juts out above the gorge near the car park, and a stairway drops to the base, where you stand at creek level and look up at the water. Other walks in the same block of forest run to Phantom Falls, Won Wondah and Henderson Falls, Cora Lynn Cascades and the St Georges River Loop.

There is a catch, and it is a real one. When this page was researched in November 2026, the land manager listed all five of those walks as temporarily closed. Flow is heaviest in the wet months, with Lorne averaging 108.7 mm of rain in August, and that same winter rain is what tears up tracks and stairways in steep forest. No reopening dates have been published.

Check the status before you build a morning around it. The Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority is the Victorian government body that manages the parks along this coast, and its general enquiry line is 1300 736 533. The regional visitor information centre further west, at 100 Great Ocean Road in Apollo Bay, answers on 1300 689 297. Conditions shift through the year, so read anything here as a snapshot of November 2026.

How to split your time between town and the falls

The waterfall roads are a there-and-back off the coast road. You turn off the Great Ocean Road, climb into the forest, walk, then come back down the same way and rejoin the coast where you left it. None of that distance moves you along the route, which is why the detour eats into a day differently from a roadside stop at the pier or the lookout.

On a single day out of Melbourne, stay in town. The regional tourism body advises against covering this road in one day at all and suggests spreading it over at least two or three, and an itinerary that already runs 13 or 14 hours has no slack for an inland climb, a stairway down and the climb back out. Most day tours stop in Lorne on the water for that reason and leave the falls alone.

On a two or three day trip, flip it around. Sleep in Lorne or Apollo Bay, confirm the track is open, and drive inland first thing in the morning, when the forest is quiet and the whole day is still ahead for the coast. If the closures still stand on your date, put the hours into Teddys Lookout and the beach and keep driving west, where the 4.6 km Wye to Kennett River coastal walk was open when checked.

• One day from Melbourne: pier, beach, main street, and Teddys Lookout if you move fast. Leave the falls.
• Two or three days: the inland detour in the morning, the coast road after lunch, track status checked the day before.
• After heavy winter rain: more water in the creeks and a higher chance of a closed track on the same day.

Driving west of Lorne

The section between Lorne and Apollo Bay is narrow, winding and slow, and it starts almost as soon as you pass the lookout. Leaving town, count on a pause roughly every 45 to 60 minutes and on reaching Apollo Bay before dark, which is what the official advice asks of drivers on this stretch; beaches, creek mouths and turnouts come up often enough to make the pauses painless. Kennett River, where koalas are seen in the trees, sits roughly halfway between the two towns.

Keep left, which is the side Australia drives on, and use the turnouts marked for slow vehicles so that a queue of cars does not build up behind you on the climbs. Save your maps and accommodation details to the phone before you pull out of Lorne, because reception on the road beyond comes and goes. An H5 bird flu warning covers the parks either side of this road, including the forest behind town, so leave any sick or dead bird or animal where it is and report it to the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888.

When to come, and what else fits in the day

January is the warm end of this coast, with a mean maximum of 23.0 °C at Lorne, and it is also the busiest stretch of the year. Lorne books out first in the Victorian school summer break, Monday 21 December 2026 to Wednesday 27 January 2027, and a room in town for those weeks is a months-ahead arrangement. Pick a week inside a school term instead: in 2027 the terms are 27 January to 25 March, 12 April to 25 June, 12 July to 17 September and 4 October to 17 December.

Daylight sets the limit on extras. The longest day falls around 22 December and the shortest around 22 June, so a June plan with an inland detour in it will run out of light somewhere on the winding section, where the advice is not to drive after dark.

If the Twelve Apostles are also on the trip, deal with them before anything else. Since 16 October 2026 you cannot drive into that precinct without a booking, and the requirement reaches past the visitor centre to the car park and the lookouts themselves; official car park hours are 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Sort the booking, screenshot the confirmation, then work out how much of the day Lorne gets.

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