Melbourne – Day 5 – A Tour With a Difference

We went with A Tour With a Difference for our Great Ocean Road trip, and here are some comments about them.

In mind that Great Ocean Road visit is extremely popular with visitors, we were expecting to see hordes of tourists. Probably because of the inclement weather it wasn’t that bad the day we went – yesterday – but there were indeed a lot of tour buses – some medium sized, others very large – ferrying their busloads from spot to spot. I’m glad we decided to find a small operator who was specialising in small groups to bring us around. A Tour With a Difference is aptly named, because they go in small buses which can sit 11 excluding the driver and the actual number of guests on our trip was even smaller at 10.

Our tour comprised a young couple from Illinois (who quipped that they were not Republican, and that they had been asked that question every where this trip haha!), two ladies from India, and a mom-daughter pair from Singapore too. Our guide was Brian, who incidentally was also the owner of the company. Interestingly, he wasn’t born in Melbourne but in South African from Caucasian descent, and moved to Melbourne 37 years ago, and has been doing the Great Ocean Road tour for at least a decade now, possibly more.

His experience with the various spots really showed. He provided rich commentary along the way and seemed to know every road’s evolution. He nailed the travel times right down to the minute as we went from spot to spot. And one other example comes to mind: as we did the 30 minute walk through Maits Rest Rainforest. There was one other large group that was just behind us led also by what seemed to be a fairly young guide – and she seemed to be going through the motions. Brian on the other hand seemed to know every tree and its history along the path, and related stories of the path as we walked.

But the both of us agreed that the most special thing on this trip was the very high level of hospitality and thoughtfulness he showed. It was lots of little things: including Peter’s car seat, ready umbrellas as we took a walk through, ponchos as we visited the Apostles, frequently checking if the air-conditioning was alright for us, hand-sanitizers after the bird-feedings – even right down to providing detailed comments and advice on each of the item menus when we stopped for lunch and dinner at the small town restaurants. The price of travel was also about right in the middle compared with other operators, and the small additional expense compared to the lower priced ones was worth the comfort and also better customized experience. And unlike with Gray Line operator whose guide gently reminded us to write comments and reviews if we were happy with the Sovereign Hill/Ballarat Wild Life Park trip, Brian didn’t ask about it. I reckon that his business does well enough just by word of mouth.

The small Mercedes Benz bus that zipped along the freeway at 100 km/h.
The small Mercedes Benz bus that could zip along the freeway at 100 km/h.
Apollo Bay Hotel; stopped here for lunch. Brian's company have an arrangement with the restaurant to provide a pretty large range of options for meals.
Apollo Bay Hotel; stopped here for lunch. Brian’s company have an arrangement with the restaurant to provide a pretty large range of options for meals.
Fish and Chips dinner at Waves Restaurant @ Port Campbell.
Fish and Chips dinner at Waves Restaurant @ Port Campbell.

If we had to dig for challenges with this operator, it’s that whether you can go with them really depends on whether there are sufficient numbers of persons on a tour. The Great Ocean Road trip is quite popular so we didn’t have difficulties. I wanted to go with this operator for our other two day tours too, but couldn’t – on account that there still simply wasn’t enough travelers on the dates we were looking at when it was time for me to confirm the tours.

Still, we have nothing but the highest praise for Brian and his company, and they qualify for an easy recommendation from us!