Eight cars in the garage at Torquay.
Six go out on any given departure.
Torquay · Victoria · Est. 2019
Four days. Six cars at most. One lead driver who has driven every corner of it a thousand times, in every weather it has.
Eight cars in the garage at Torquay.
Six go out on any given departure.
The premise
We think that's a waste of the best driving road in Australia. So we run it properly. Four days, unhurried, with the cars it deserves, and someone in front who knows which corners tighten and which ones open up.
You get the car for the whole trip. Not an hour, not a lap of a circuit. You wake up in Lorne and it's still yours.
The route
01 / 06
Cars are handed over at 7am in the yard behind the surf club. Coffee, a walk around the car, a fifteen-minute briefing you will not need but we do anyway. Then the B100 begins.
02 / 06
Seven kilometres in and the road already starts to mean something. We stop above the point for ten minutes. If there's swell, we stop for twenty.
03 / 06
The forty kilometres from Aireys is the section people remember: cliff on one side, Bass Strait on the other, and a rhythm to the corners you only find on the second pass. First night is here.
04 / 06
Tight, damp, overhung with gums, and almost always empty before nine. This is the piece we run twice. Nobody has ever complained about that.
05 / 06
The coast road ends and the Otways begin. Inland, uphill, colder, and green in a way the rest of the drive is not. Second night, and the long dinner where everyone finally relaxes.
06 / 06
We time the last leg so you reach the stacks in the hour before the light goes. It is the one part of the trip we will not rush, and the one part nobody wants to.
The fleet
Not the fastest cars we could buy. The ones that are actually good between Lorne and Apollo Bay, where the corners come every four seconds and the surface is never quite dry.
Build a drive
Practicalities
A full, unrestricted Australian licence held for at least three years, or an equivalent overseas licence plus an International Driving Permit. Probationary and provisional licence holders can't drive the fleet, though they're welcome in the chase car.
Every car is fully insured for the duration, with a $7,500 excess per driver. That excess can be reduced to $2,500 for $340 per driver, arranged at handover. We hold a pre-authorisation on a credit card for the excess amount and release it within five business days of the cars coming back.
Runs the pace, calls the hazards, and knows where the road police sit. They drive the chase car, carry the spares, the fuel cards and the first aid kit, and they've all done this road for years. They aren't instructors. Nobody is going to coach you through a corner unless you ask.
It rains. This is the Otways in shoulder season, so we plan for it. The route has wet-weather alternatives through the ranges, and the cars are on all-season rubber from May to September. We've cancelled two departures in eleven years, both for fire risk rather than rain, and both were refunded in full.
Yes, at no extra cost. Every car seats two and the price is per car, not per person. A second registered driver is $650 and lets you swap seats through the trip. Most couples do.
The posted one. The B100 is heavily patrolled, largely 80 km/h, and the point of this road has never been the straights. Fines and demerits are the driver's own. Two recorded infringements ends your drive. We've done it once.
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