In the convict days, ships from Europe shortened the five-month journey to Sydney by sailing along Australia's southern coast, threading between Tasmania and the mainland near Melbourne, a perilous route through the rocky Bass Strait. The irony is that many ships went for months without seeing anything but water, only to literally crash into Australia.

Just south of Melbourne, where I start my road trip, is enormous Port Philip Bay, which has 161 miles of coastline but a mouth that's only two miles wide. The channel roils with so much tidal water that seamen dubbed it the Rip. The area is notorious enough that when Australia's Prime Minister Harold Holt vanished while taking an ill-advised dip nearby in 1967, the government didn't launch so much as an inquiry.

A few years later, the parliament did feel inspired to take action of a different sort a few miles south, at Bell's Beach, designating it a national surfing reserve. From a bluff I watch surfers in wet suits doggedly bob and paddle the same waves that host the annual Rip Curl Pro competition. The Surfworld Australia museum is in the adjoining town of Torquay. In front of the building, teenagers slam the pavement on beat-up skateboards, aware that this is one property they won't be chased off of. Inside, there's a hall of fame, a meticulous history section, and a continuous film festival of classic documentaries.

The Great Ocean Road begins in Torquay and swerves along forested cliffs and swirling waters for 200-plus miles. I quickly learn that meals will be nothing fancy; the staple of the road's bakeshops is the meat pie (I like to dip them in tomato sauce like the locals do). Against my better judgment, at the Louttit Bay

Bakery I try the Mitey Cheese Scroll, a platter-size swirl of cheese and moist bread that leaves me yearning for greens. My favorite stops for grub are at the pubs, where entire families hang out together. In an Airey's Inlet pub, I order a gin and tonic (it comes premixed in a can) and spot a boy no older than seven. He's perched on a bar stool, eating cheese puffs and chatting with the bartender like one of the gang.

Cimarron, a B&B high above the town of Airey's Inlet, was designed and built in 1979 from native eucalyptus wood by Wade Chambers, an American-born professor. Scanning the thousands of books that line the walls, I tell Wade that I could get into the idea of moving, like he did, to this peaceful Aussie Malibu. Wade is an eager talker, and before we know it, it's past midnight. I switch on the TV--you can learn a lot about a place by what's showing late at night--and catch ads for livestock sales and lungworm poison. In the morning, wild parrots and white cockatoos peer into the windows.

As I pull out of Cimarron, three bemused kangaroos blink at me before hopping into the trees. Several miles past Apollo Bay, another tiny vacation town, there's an easy-to-miss signpost: mait's rest. A path leads to a rain forest gully, trickling with streams, layered with ferns as big as beach towels, and pierced by shafts of sunlight. Australia is 70 percent arid, and it's shocking to see how much vivid green the other 30 percent of the land is able to muster. After an hour, an elderly couple appears. "Never seen anything like it," the woman says, craning her neck. It's a sight that would be famous elsewhere.

Next stop is Otway Fly, one of the world's tallest treetop walkways, which opened in September 2003. Its steel catwalk system is 2,000 feet long, rising as high as 147 feet into a rain forest canopy of beech, blackwood, and ash. Seeing centuries-old forests from above, at bird's-eye level, is surprisingly compelling.

Back on the coast, the Twelve Apostles finally come into view, like great sailing ships returning from a voyage. Fat, beige limestone pillars in the slate-blue water, the Apostles are worthy of their postcard fame. Crowds gather for the sidelong photo op from a promontory at Port Campbell National Park.

A plump Australian blows cigarette smoke out his nose and says what we're all thinking: "They're so beautiful I could look at them all day."

Meanwhile, hornet-like helicopters incessantly chop through the air. They're less annoying the minute I actually get in one. A 10-minute ride costs $58, and seven minutes after laying down my credit card, I'm snapping photos of the rumpled sheet of ocean below.

The walking trails at Loch Ard Gorge, a mile or two on, explore the land above sea-worn tunnels, blowholes, and arches that have wrecked many a luckless ship. The gorge is named for its most infamous disaster--the Loch Ard went down in 1878 with 52 out of 54 passengers, even though it came to grief only about 20 feet from land. The air wheezes with sea mist as waves pummel the rocks and splash skyward. You can actually feel the earth tremble when the surges strike land.