Some 3000 returned soldiers from the First World War laboured dedicated to their comrades who died in that war. The former Diggers used their muscle, sweat and skills to blast the roadway along 100-metre cliffs and drive it over dense bush covered mountains. They lived in bush camps and the hard, physical work created a high turnover. The work was sometimes dangerous and several men lost their lives. For their labours they initially received ten shillings and sixpence ($1.05) for an eight-hour day. While the work was hard, there was time for fishing, swimming and hunting.the Great Ocean Road can experience one of the world’s most stunning coastal highways characterised by raging surf, huge cliffs, lush forests, scenic beaches and charming resort towns.

The road was the vision of Howard Hitchcock. It was he who came up with the idea of returned soldiers building a coastal strip stretching from Barwon Heads to Warrnambool and proposed that a private trust be used to fund and build it. The first meeting of the Great Ocean Road Trust attracted 500 people to a meeting in Colac on March 22, 1918, where a price tag of 150, 000 pounds ($300,000) was proposed to build a road to rival the French Riviera.

Although the inaugural meeting brought in seven thousand pounds, raising the rest of the money became a challenge almost as daunting as blasting trails through the rugged landscape, and over the years the trust launched numerous appeals and resorted to various schemes such as subdividing and selling blocks of land along the route. A toll operated for 14 years until the Trust handed the road over to the State Government.

Four months after the official launch, construction commenced on the first stretch of road between Cape Patton and Lorne, but this abandoned less than a year later after pressure from Lorne residents and settlements to the east. After switching direction, the first section of the road opened in 1922 by Victoria’s Governor, Lord Stradbroke, followed by a night of rousing celebration at Erskine House.
Funding shortages and local squabbling caused periodic delays and it would take another decade before the vision of a coastal road from Geelong to Apollo Bay was eventually realised on November 26, 1932. A weekend of festivities greeted the linking of all sections of the road that now ran all the way to Warrnambool. Victoria’s Lieutenant-Governor, Sir William Irvine, declared the road officially open at a ceremony near Lorne’s Grand Pacific Hotel, the sight where the first survey peg for the road was hammered in 14 years before. A notable absentee was Howard Hitchcock, who had died earlier that year.
On October 2, 1936, the Great Ocean Road Trust handed over the road as gift to the State Government.