On the Great Ocean Road in Australia, the wind can be a fierce, shifting force—cool off the ocean in the morning, hot and dry from inland by afternoon. I once rode from Port Campbell into a cool January morning, bundled up as if it were autumn. But within an hour, the wind swung north. The road baked. My bottles got warm, and I felt like I was cycling through a blow dryer.

And yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered something very similar—except it was colder, wetter, and a great deal funnier.

It was the west coast of Ireland.

Cycling from Achill Island to the Dingle Peninsula, you don’t ride into the wind and rain—you ride with it. Day after day. Relentless, horizontal rain across Counties Mayo, Galway, Clare, and Kerry. The kind of wind that makes you lean sideways to stay upright. Within the first three days I was soaked to the marrow and already contemplating the early bus back to Dublin. But you press on, don’t you?

Then you discover the rhythm of it. The beauty, even.

Because every evening, somewhere along that endless Atlantic fringe, you find a pub. You peel off wet gloves, sit near a radiator or a peat fire, and wrap your hands around a glass of Guinness or a bowl of chowder. The heat creeps back into your body. You hear fiddle music leaking from a corner table. Someone starts to talk about politics, or farming, or how their cousin used to race bicycles in France in the ‘80s. Suddenly, you’re not in the rain anymore. You’re part of something.

I found that again, oddly enough, on the fringes of the Great Ocean Road.

Rolling into the small inland town of Koroit on my way from Warrnambool to Port Fairy, I stopped in front of the old Irish pub. The sign on the wall? Classic Irish absurdism. The menu read:

7-Course Irish Meal: 6 Pints of Guinness and a Potato.
Standard Package: One Pint. Deluxe Package: Double Whiskey.

Next to it, a poster announced:

Husband Day Care Center.
Need time to yourself? Want to go shopping? Leave your husband with us!

I laughed like I hadn’t laughed since County Clare. The absurdity, the wit, the proud irreverence—it all clicked. I was half a world away, and yet I could feel the same warm strain of humor running through the town as I had in Doolin or Dingle. It wasn’t just the Guinness (though there was plenty of that). It was the culture—the attitude that life is hard, often wet, often unfair, so you may as well laugh at it.

Koroit, of course, was settled by Irish immigrants, who looked at the fertile volcanic soil around Tower Hill and figured it was perfect for growing onions and potatoes. Naturally. It made sense to them. I thought of their descendants still farming here, still drinking here, and still quietly shrugging at the absurdity of the weather.

That’s the thing about bicycle travel. The places are different. The weather changes. The languages shift. But there’s a kind of emotional continuity across these far-flung landscapes. In Ireland, it’s in the kindness of strangers who wave from tractors and flag you down to give directions you don’t need. In Australia, it’s in the long, empty stretches where the wind changes everything, and a gas station Gatorade becomes the most important drink of your day.

You don’t always know why you’re riding. You just know you need to. And at some point, it stops being about the map. It becomes about the moments—the wind, the pub, the weird hotel menu that reminds you you’re not just a traveler, you’re part of a global, invisible web of people who think: Yes, this is a perfectly reasonable way to live.

Cycling isn’t efficient. It’s not always fun. But it keeps you honest. You can’t fake your way up a hill into a headwind. You have to earn your shelter. And when you get it, it stays with you.

I’ve written a lot of cycling guides—not only to Ireland, the Great Ocean Road, the South Island of New Zealand, and more to come. They’ll tell you what you need to know: distances, elevation, logistics. But they’ll never quite convey what it feels like to ride these places—the fatigue, the foolishness, and the little flickers of magic that make you say: I hope this journey never ends.

Because that’s the truth, isn’t it? For some of us, cycling isn’t a phase. It’s not even a sport. It’s a way of making sense of the world—one soggy pint and sunburned roadside at a time.

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I cycled the Great Ocean Road in late January, during the height of the Australian summer. The route is coastal for much of its length, and early on, the breeze coming off the Southern Ocean can feel like a blessing. The air is cool, bracing even. When I rolled out of Port Campbell at around nine in the morning, the temperature lingered in the low fifties Fahrenheit—about 10 to 12°C. Cold for a summer morning by most standards, but typical for this coast.

Up until London Bridge, the breeze was still southerly—clean, saline, invigorating. Past the Grotto, things began to change. The wind shifted. Subtly at first, then decisively. Within 30 minutes, the wind swung northwest, pouring in from the arid interior like a furnace door had been flung open. The temperature didn’t just rise—it surged. From cool and manageable to 97°F (around 37°C) in what felt like minutes. Suddenly, I was riding through heat haze, the road ahead shimmering. My water, which had been almost too cold to drink that morning, now tasted like weak tea. Shade was rare. So was relief.

There’s a stretch inland before Nullawarre that is particularly bare—no settlements, no trees to speak of, just a solitary roadside shack and the long stretch of road running through bleached farmland. It was punishing. When I finally rolled into Nullawarre, the gas station fridge door opened like a portal to another universe. The cold Gatorade? Absolutely nectar.

This kind of temperature swing isn’t rare. In fact, it’s almost a feature of late January riding in Victoria. This is a land of climatic contradictions—icy mornings, searing afternoons, and sometimes fire warnings posted in towns not far from flood alerts in another state. That year, there were bushfires raging inland while northern Queensland was underwater from historic floods. You don’t ride through Australia without remembering the extremes.

As for traffic, yes, there are moments of magic before the caravans and rental sedans hit the road. Leaving camp before first light, pedaling into fog still lifting from the forest canopy—it can feel like you have the whole world to yourself. But by mid-morning, the road fills. The GOR isn’t built with cyclists in mind. In many places, it lacks a shoulder entirely. You’ll be riding tight along the line, sometimes with nothing separating you from the ocean but a guardrail and a prayer. That said, most of the tourists here are Australians. They know how to drive left. They understand the rhythm of the road better than international tourists sometimes do.

New Zealand, by contrast, was more hair-raising. There, cycling around the South Island, I had a woman—likely Chinese, based on a close look at her—who turned directly onto the road heading the wrong way, straight into me. She realized her mistake just in time to veer wildly across the lanes, nearly causing a pile-up. Australia has signs reminding foreign drivers: “Keep Left in Australia.” I’ve seen them in multiple languages. You learn to appreciate such small details.

Then there’s the wildlife.

People love to ask about kookaburras and magpies, and yes, they’re present—especially the kookaburras with that absurd, laughing call that breaks the silence just when you least expect it. But what I remember most vividly wasn’t birdsong. It was kangaroos. More precisely, kangaroos jumping over my tent. Literally.

I’d climbed from Apollo Bay to Lavers Hill—a decent slog—and kept going toward Princetown. That section isn’t quick, and after the climbing and the quiet, I was ready for sleep. I pitched the tent in a spot that seemed quiet enough. And then the thumping started. Not footsteps—thumps. The younger kangaroos were fine. They cleared the tent like athletes—fluid, confident, light on their feet. No problem.

But the adults? The older, heavier ones? They didn’t look like they’d be quite as graceful. Some of them must’ve weighed close to a ton, or at least that’s how it felt when they landed nearby. I lay there, trying not to visualize what would happen if one misjudged its jump and landed square on top of my tent. I failed, of course. The images were vivid—and not exactly conducive to restful sleep.

But that’s the Great Ocean Road for you. The guidebooks might show you a tidy line from Geelong to Port Fairy, but the reality is messier, richer, more alive. It’s wind that changes direction without warning. It’s temperature swings that punch you in the gut. It’s sharing the road—and your campsite—with creatures capable of both elegance and destruction. You don’t just see the Great Ocean Road. You experience it. And if you’re on a bike, you feel every bit of it—wind, heat, fear, joy, and all.

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Whether you’re an avid cyclist looking for Australia’s challenging rides, a seasoned bicycle travel pro or an active traveler looking to get inspired to add a bicycle adventure into your own trip in Australia, be it a single ride to add to your vacation or you plan a fully loaded multi-day cycle tour around the state of Victoria, this guide is for you.

Ride around Melbourne and the entire Port Phillip Bay. Explore Mornington Peninsula and French Island. Discover Queenscliff and Bellarine Peninsula. Taste the magic of Torquay and Great Ocean Road. Bicycle Victoria’s stunning national parks from the Yarra Ranges to the amazing Grampians. Delve into Victoria’s best road and gravel rides, including its famous rail trails. Find out where to ride to experience the best of Victoria’s nature, from mountain ash forests to coastal reserves. Learn about Victoria’s gold rush heritage and the best of Victorian architecture.

Cycling tour of Victoria is a stage by stage narrative and pictorial account of rides around Melbourne and Port Phillip Bay, and across the Yarra Ranges to Ballarat, Ararat and the Grampians. Get details of nearly 2,000 kilometers-long traverse of Victoria. Learn where to stay or camp. Download GPX tracks of all the rides.

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Unfortunately, in my six-weeks of bicycle travel around Victoria, I saw none, not a single kangaroo, koala or a wombat crossing the road.

Freewheeling downhill from the likes of Mount Victory in the Grampians at nearly 70 km/hr, I hoped I would not encounter a kangaroo, not to mention having to avert a collision with one.

When I came upon the koala activity signs, I slowed down, often even stopped, and surveyed the upper branches of trees at the side of the road, hoping I’d glimpse at least one wild koala. But I had no such luck.

In Halls Gap in the Grampians, I saw many kangaroos, emus, parrots and cockatoos in town, but not on the road.

Perhaps just as well, as I really didn’t fancy facing a massive kangaroo standing in my way in the middle of the road! On the other hand, it would be nice to see a koala eye to eye. I’d certainly yield the koala the right of way. Perhaps on my next bike trip in Australia. That said, I’d yield to the kangaroo as well!

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Actually, the view of the hills in the photo to the southwest have the significance as it is from it the city of Ararat takes its name. Horatio Wills, pastoralist and politician who having settled in Moyston, southwest of Ararat en route to the Grampians, named a nearby hill Mount Ararat. Hence, my favorite shot from One Tree Hill is of the said mountain at the foot of which (right behind me) is ARARAT, the town.

Stuck at Mount Ararat, a coincidence or a divine omen?

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As one of Victoria’s license plate slogans says, “Victoria – The Place to Be,” is a worthy destination for any avid cyclist.

Although Victoria is Australia’s second-smallest state, and the second-most-populated state, it’s the most densely populated state in Australia. Sounds almost like Europe or the East Coast of the United States, but it is misleading. Victoria is still vast and the six weeks I had weren’t enough to cover it all, nor I aspired to having to see it all. I had to pick and just ride. Having completed my cycling tour, all I can say is Victoria is enchanting, and I crave for bikepacking more of it. Perhaps I shall return once again. It’s been ages since I was in Australia before this bike trip, so I had to come back. Victoria, the landscape, the people, the culture is a must see destination, whether you are a cyclist, but bicycle travel around Victoria is definitively a way to go. More to come on my cycling tour of Victoria.

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