Point Addis Lookout

Point Addis Lookout is a clifftop stop between Torquay and Anglesea, looking across Bass Strait to sandy coves and coastal headlands. Keep it on your route for the shape of the shoreline without committing to a long walk: the main viewpoint sits beside the parking area, and a second is a short walk farther along. For a photo, hold the curve of the cove and the headland together in frame; it shows more than a horizon-only shot.

Point Addis Road branches off the Great Ocean Road between Torquay and Anglesea. The parking area and a public toilet are by the lookout. Car parks can get very crowded on summer weekends and holidays, so go at a quieter time if you want an easier stop. Tracks from here connect with longer coastal walking routes; the second viewpoint is a short stroll, while following the coast is a bigger outing.

Whales travel along this coast on their winter migration, with May through September the better window to watch offshore. Spring brings wildflowers to the headlands and heathland. Summer is the season for the park's swimming, surfing and rockpool rambles, although surf and tides decide what the shoreline allows on a given day.

Point Addis Marine National Park protects a varied marine landscape of sandy sea floor, limestone reefs, kelp forest and deeper sponge gardens. Its offshore rhodolith beds were the first discovered in Victoria: these are unattached, rounded nodules built by coralline red algae, not coral. More than 75 invertebrate species have been recorded on the intertidal limestone reefs. At the shore, rockpools offer a glimpse of that coastal life; fishing and taking marine life or objects are prohibited in the marine park.

Point Addis is on Wadawurrung Sea Country. The Wadawurrung People's connection to this coastline continues today, and cultural places recorded along it include middens and former campsites. That history gives the coast a much longer human story than the more recent roads and beach visits suggest.

Two historic wrecks are recorded in the marine park. The steel sailing ship Inverlochy ran aground on Ingoldsby Reef in 1902; in calm conditions, parts may be visible above the water. The Naiad was beached at Point Addis in 1881, with no known relics remaining.

At Jarosite Reef, a jetty once loaded ships with jarosite mined and processed on shore near Point Addis. From 1942 to 1960, the area around Point Addis also served as a Royal Australian Air Force gunnery and rocketry range.