Colac Otway Shire Council

A friend and I enjoyed a weekend along the great ocean road, however we experienced the worst and most unfriendly service from a local officer in Apollo Bay. We got a 152 Dollar parking fine for quickly pulling over along the main road. The grumpy officer gave us the fine straight away and absolutely did not consider that we are tourists (we were only checking for the way). In such a high touristic area, I expect the officers to be more considerate and friendly. I am very disappointed and would highly recommend to just drive pass Apollo Bay and enjoy some time in other places along the great ocean road!

Apollo Bay Seafood Festival was an absolute disgrace I heard so many people complaining they advertised it to be running three days most people said it only ran on Saturday so do all those poor people that turned up on a Sunday expecting the festival was severely disappointed there are people that travel all the way down Melbourne and booked accommodation The Apollo Bay Council should be ashamed of itself

“Apollo Bay RV Unfriendly Town”A WARNING to all RV tourist/grey nomads visiting Apollo Bay, the local Shire has a dedicated Parking Officer for a regional tourist town of about 1000 people and 25 streets. I have travelled extensively and most regional towns welcome and encourage RVers. This town is not RV Friendly like most regional towns and if you read the forums it is booking travellers at an alarming rate. The standard fine is $150 and in communication with the shire it is reaping hundreds of thousands of dollars from this activity, so beware when parking in Apollo Bay.Most regional towns have signage saying - RV Friendly, RV Parking Here, RV Dump Points, not here, more interested in the tourist coaches.We are a couple of grey nomads doing our best to share the wealth, travelling around Australia, we come across this town on the Great Ocean Road and we are wanting to do some laundry and do some shopping and get some lunch. This is off peak, we arrive at 10am in the morning on the 28th Feb there is plenty of angle parking but no parallel parking and with a heavy laundry bag we park in a loading zone in front of the laundry (good spot for a loading zone) as the car and caravan is over 10m long. We have 15min time limit to unload, we have loaded the washing machines in 5 minutes and back out the front to find the parking officer starting to give us a ticket. Try to discuss with him about us being here only 5 minutes, nowhere to park not interested just that it is a loading zone and keeps writing. We move on and park some distance away and go back and wait for the laundry, in the 1.5 hours we were there not one bus, truck etc used the loading zone however I moved on numerous car and caravans before the circling parking officer could nab them. As advised by the council it is for parking management during the tourist season and then they advise me that I can legally park across multiple parking bays. Imagine the uproar if I parked across 5 angle parks??The smaller town of Port Campbell is RV Friendly, we stopped there for lunch and shopping.

We have been coming to Apollo Bay and Skenes Creek area since 1989, and my partner and I have been been taking our own kids there since 2009. The beaches are great, but the town is really starting to go downhill... service is average, it has lost its small town appeal and the infrastructure is struggling to keep up with the amount of tourists coming in. We were there on the weekend, and the place just felt grotty... bins overflowing and the main street is in need of a good hose down. I think the Bay is getting too big for its boots... 10 years ago we thought it would be a great spot to have a beach house... after spending 2 hours in town on the weekend we were totally against the idea... the beaches are still nice in apollo bay, but if you are a tourist, I'd skip it over... there are plenty of nice beaches along the coast without visiting this tourist trap...

With the disaster that has happened in your area, may i suggest that the council reconsiders it's hard line on self contained motor homes. I'm sure if the council made contact with the CMCA some financial advantage for local business's could be forthcoming. Grey nomads are generous in such circumstances.