Great Ocean Road

Cottage

Alkina Lodge

Three private residences on the Great Ocean Road, designed by Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin to sit lightly on the land. Stone floors, clean lines, log fires, and kangaroos at the window most mornings. Self-contained, so stock up before you arrive — the nearest shops are in Lorne.

Boutique Hotel

Drift House

Six suites on Gipps Street, Port Fairy, designed by architecture practice Multiplicity. Each room is identical in ambition if not in form — the hotel's pitch is that there's no bad draw. Michelin-keyed since 2025. Breakfast is à la carte; dinner, contemporary. Adults only. The kind of small hotel that makes two nights feel like the minimum.

Cottage

Lorne Bush House Cottages & Eco Retreats

Forty-three acres of private bushland four minutes from Lorne's main strip. King parrots take birdseed from the cottages; kangaroos graze outside. There's a yabby dam — barbecue them with lemon and garlic or sweet chilli — a ropes playground, and a valley circuit walk. Hosts with 25 years on the property know the wildlife calendar well.

Self-Contained

Summer's Rest Units

In the middle of Port Campbell, a short walk from the town beach, shops and restaurants, this privately run cluster of self-contained units makes a base for the Shipwreck Coast. Two-bedroom units and a larger three-bedroom cabin come with full kitchens, and the owners take pets by arrangement. The Twelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge and Gibson Steps are all a short drive west along the Great Ocean Road.

Self-Contained

The Wensley

On eighty acres of farmland behind Anglesea, a timber-clad house reached over its own bridge takes its cue from the Australian shed and the American ski chalet in equal measure. Architect Nick Byrne built it from recycled Oregon and salvaged ironbark pulled from demolished Melbourne buildings, with high ceilings and full-height glazing that keep the valley in view from almost every room. Interior designer Lisa Buxton set leather, brass and sun-worn colour against all that timber, and a loft with two queens and a king sits above two further bedrooms, sleeping up to ten. The whole estate is taken by one group at a time — no shared spaces, no other guests — with an open-plan kitchen built for actual cooking and a separate shed for overflow and laundry. It sits close enough to Lorne, Aireys Inlet and the restaurant Brae in Birregurra to anchor a longer Surf Coast trip, but the point of the place is the valley outside its windows and the quiet of having all eighty acres to yourself.