Australia Great Ocean Road – Kennett River Koala Walk

Kennett River Koala Walk in Great Ocean Road Victoria is said to be the place to spot wild koalas. It was only about half an hour’s drive from Apollo Bay where we stayed. This place is secluded but you will find it and hard to miss it.

You should include Kennett River Koala Walk when you do Great Ocean Road as there are so many wildlife animals, especially the interactions with the wild birds are amazing.

Before entering the Koala Walk, we saw a car stopped by and tourists feeding the wild birds. These birds are huge especially the sulphur-crested cockatoo. They are loud too. You also get to see the colorful parrots and some ducks.

The sulphur-crested cockatoo is one of the largest of the several species of beautiful white cockatoos in this region, we have seen them lots of them and they aren’t afraid of humans. They are demanding and cried loudly for food. Many have argued that we should not feed these wild birds as they will become lazy and depends on humans to feed them. I do agree but somehow it is hard not to feed these cute birds. There is a cafe nearby, called Kafe Koala which sells some bird food. In case you want to feed them, do get the bird food and feed these birds.

The colorful parrot is slightly smaller than the white sulphur-crested cockatoo so it is not as heavy when they stationed on your body.  They love my colorful top!

Kafe Koala & General Store at Kennet River

You can park your car near the Kafe Koala and then start your walk from there. It will be a long walk uphill. Alternatively, you can drive slowly up and try to spot the koala.  They do sell bird food too.

Go spot the Koala

Koalas aren’t easy to spot as they body camouflage with the tree colors. Keep your eyes opened and look at high at those eucalyptus trees. They usually sleep on top of the trees and have very little movement. Koala needs to sleep more than 20 hours a day to slow down its metabolism rate which helps them to conserve their body energy. You also won’t find koala on the lower ground as they wanted to stay away from the predators. The higher the tree is, the safer it is going to be for the koalas.

Drive-up slowly to Grey River Road

You can drive up very slowly to Grey River Road and the road uphill has lots of small pebbles so be extra careful.   When you reached a little higher up, stop and come out from the car and try to spot the koalas.  They aren’t easy to spot on and very hard to take a good picture of them too because they are sitting up very high of the gum trees.  It was said that there are over thousands of wild koalas living in this place.  See how many wild koalas can you spot.

Final thoughts:

Sit between Lorne and Apollo Bay, Kennett River is a great experience to interact with the wild animals (birds), the koalas won’t come near you as they will be having their beauty nap high up the gum trees. It is still worthwhile to stop by for an hour or two to search for the Australian icon as they were thousands of them here.