Wonders of Greatopia revealed

THE most impressive tourist destinations that showcase the greatness of the Great Ocean Road and surrounds have been revealed.

Great Ocean Road Regional Tourism (GORRT) invited the public to vote on their favourite attractions around the region as part of its Greatopia off-peak winter marketing campaign, and announced the top seven wonders last month.

GORRT says Greatopia plays on the idea that the locals consider the Great Ocean Road region their own utopia, abundant with world-class “big nature” experiences, which form the motivation behind people travelling to other parts of Australia and the world.

“Naturally if the world has seven wonders, so should Greatopia – so Great Ocean Road Regional Tourism sought the public’s opinion on the matter”.

After all the votes were counted, the seven wonders of Greatopia, in their respective categories, are:

• Bay of Islands Coastal Park (Landscape)
• The Great Ocean Walk (Trail)
• The 12 Apostles (Lookout)
• Hopetoun Falls (Waterfall)
• Bells Beach (Beach)
• Cape Bridgewater Seals (Wildlife encounter), and
• Gellibrand River (Rivers/Lakes).

For seven weeks, visitors to the Visit the Great Ocean Road pages on Facebook and Instagram were asked each week to vote on their favourite beach, lookout, rivers and lakes, waterfalls, trails, landscape and wildlife encounters.

The campaign reached more than 95,000 people on social media, and had almost 2,000 followers interacting with it.

For more information on GORRT’s Greatopia campaign, head to visitgreatoceanroad.org.au/greatopia