The short answer
The Twelve Apostles are a group of limestone sea stacks standing off the cliffs of Port Campbell National Park, beside the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, south-eastern Australia. Parks Victoria says there were never twelve: there were nine at the beginning of this century, and it now counts seven. The ABC gives their height as up to 45 metres. The coast is the Country of the Eastern Maar people, whose native title over much of it the Federal Court recognised in 2023. The viewing platforms are a short walk from the visitor centre, and the stacks are best seen late in the day.
From Tally’s diary
Wind straight off the bottom of the world, a clifftop of low heath, and below it a row of tall honey-coloured stone towers standing in a rough white sea. I counted them. Then I counted again and got a different number, and the man beside me got a third. At dusk small penguins came ashore on the beach below, very late for something, and nobody counted those.
November 2015Two stacks in the surf off the cliffs of Port Campbell National Park.
Photograph: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0
Why it's worth knowing
The name was a sales pitch from the start. The stacks were first known as the Pinnacles, and as the Sow and Piglets: the Sow was Muttonbird Island, at the mouth of Loch Ard Gorge, and the Piglets were the stacks along the coast. Parks Victoria says there were never twelve stacks here and that they were not always called the Apostles; Wikipedia records that the name was made official to attract more tourists, although there had only ever been nine.
January 2016A short-tailed shearwater at sea off Port Fairy, further west along this coast: the bird that flies in to the Sow at dusk.
They are younger than they look, too. In 2026 geologists at the University of Melbourne, publishing in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, used microscopic fossils to date the limestone to between 8.6 and 14 million years old. Tectonic movement lifted and tilted those layers out of the sea over millions of years, but the university says it was only in the last few thousand years, after the last ice age, that the waves exposed and shaped the pillars that stand there now.
And the sea has made Apostles before. In 2016 Rhiannon Bezore, a doctoral student, with David Kennedy of the University of Melbourne and Daniel Ierodiaconou of Deakin University, found five limestone stacks in sonar maps of the sea floor, 6 kilometres offshore and 50 metres under water. Bezore said they probably date back 60,000 years. They survived, the team argued in the Journal of Coastal Research, because the sea rose after the last ice age so quickly that it submerged them before waves could knock them down; the university described them as the first such stacks found preserved in the ocean. The only extra Apostles anyone has found are underwater, and they lasted by drowning.
The field notes
Counting
At 9.18 in the morning on 3 July 2005, one of the stacks collapsed into the sea; the ABC’s report that day said it left eight standing. Another stack fell in September 2009. The Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority and Parks Victoria’s visitor pages now count both collapses among the Apostles, leaving seven, but at the time Parks Victoria told the ABC that the 2009 stack was the smallest of the Three Sisters, a separate group seen from the Razorback lookout near Loch Ard, and not an Apostle at all.
So the number depends on who is counting, which rocks they include, and in which year. Wikipedia adds that six of the seven can be seen from the most popular viewpoint.
A coast that keeps rearranging itself
The Authority describes limestone cliffs up to 60 metres high taking a prevailing south-westerly swell, with softer limestone wearing away into stacks, caves, arches, tunnels and blowholes. The usual sequence is cave, then arch, then stack, then rubble, and Wikipedia notes that today’s headlands are expected to become the next stacks.
February 2023A limestone stack and its reflection at Gibson Beach, Port Campbell National Park.
Photograph: DXR, CC BY-SA 4.0
It happens in public. On the evening of 15 January 1990 the landward span of London Bridge, a double natural arch near Port Campbell, west of the Apostles, fell into the sea and left two tourists stranded on the outer span; a police helicopter lifted them off, and no one was hurt.
The road, and whose Country
The Great Ocean Road runs 240 kilometres from Torquay to Allansford near Warrnambool. About 3,000 returned servicemen built it, mostly by hand, between 1919 and 1932, and it was dedicated to those killed in the First World War; it is on Australia’s National Heritage List, and Wikipedia calls it the largest war memorial in the world.
The coast it follows is Eastern Maar Country. On 28 March 2023, at a ceremonial sitting on a clifftop at Logan’s Beach in Warrnambool, the Federal Court recognised Eastern Maar native title over much of the Great Ocean Road coastline, including rights to access, use and protect the land under traditional law and custom, according to the Victorian Government’s First Peoples–State Relations office. Eastern Maar people had pursued the claim since 2012.
The booking, and the fee
On 9 March 2026 the Victorian Government announced a fee for visitors to the new Twelve Apostles visitor centre, with a booking system to manage numbers and guarantee parking at peak times. The ABC reported that the amount would be set after consultation with councils, operators and Traditional Owners, and that local residents and Eastern Maar people would not be charged.
The centre is named Keerray Woorroong, a name chosen by the Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation for both the Country and the Language of the region’s Traditional Owners. The Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority, which runs it, announced on 9 October 2026 that it would welcome its first public visitors on Friday 16 October 2026, and that bookings are required for visits from that day, to manage congestion and secure a car park. Visits are free until April 2027, when a booking fee will be introduced; the Authority says all of the revenue will go to the coast and parks of the Great Ocean Road. It had not published the amount when this page was updated on 13 October 2026.
August 2015The clifftop heath and lookout boardwalk above the Twelve Apostles.
Photograph: Lenny K Photography, 12 Apostles take 2, CC BY 2.0
- Come at the end of the day, stay past sunset, and bring something warm.
- Keep behind the fences. The edge is still being made.
- Before the lookout, learn that this is Eastern Maar Country, and keep those words with you all the way to the rail. The coast is somebody's home before it is anybody's view.
- At dusk, look down instead of out. Something small is coming home.
- Count them. (Three counts, three answers. Wrote down the one I liked best.)
A relic from the Twelve Apostles
Relic, entry 88Shearwater loop: some 30,000 kmBirds return: October to April
The Sow. At the mouth of Loch Ard Gorge, a few minutes west of the Apostles, stands Muttonbird Island. It was once called the Sow, when the stacks along the coast were her Piglets and nobody had thought of apostles. It has a bird’s name now. From October to April, short-tailed shearwaters that have flown a migration loop of some 30,000 kilometres, out to far-eastern Russia and Alaska and back, return to their burrows on it at dusk, in their thousands, to feed their chicks. The famous stacks get the photographs; the Sow gets the birds.
Tally, in the marginA rock standing a little apart from the others and not seeming to mind. Every evening its birds come home to it, and having read what it used to be called, I told it that it was well out of that.
Getting there
- 1
Along the Great Ocean Road
The Apostles are near the western end of the Great Ocean Road, which runs 240 kilometres from Torquay, south-west of Melbourne, to Allansford near Warrnambool.
- 2
A long day, or a tour from Melbourne
Driving the road with stops takes a long day; day tours run from Melbourne, and the inland highways make a quicker return.
- 3
A car park booking first
Bookings are on the official Twelve Apostles site, twelveapostles.org.au, made before setting off.
- 4
From the visitor centre
The viewing platforms are a short walk from the visitor centre.
- ✓
Book first. From Friday 16 October 2026, a booking is required to visit the Twelve Apostles, where the new Keerray Woorroong Visitor Centre opens that day; the booking secures a car park for a set time. Visits are free until April 2027, when a booking fee will be introduced (Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority, 9 October 2026; the amount was not published when this page was updated on 13 October 2026). Book on the official Twelve Apostles site, twelveapostles.org.au, before setting off. The visitor centre is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., last arrival 7 p.m., and the car park from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. (the same site, read 13 October 2026).
When to go. Late afternoon into dusk, for the light on the stacks. Little penguins come ashore on the beach below after sunset, and Parks Victoria suggests looking down from the viewing platform to see them; binoculars help. From October to April, short-tailed shearwaters return to Muttonbird Island at Loch Ard Gorge at dusk.
On the cliffs. The cliffs are eroding and parts collapse without warning; the paths are fenced, and parts close when they do.
Nearby. The Gibson Steps lead down to the beach just east of the Apostles. Loch Ard Gorge and London Bridge lie a few minutes west.
The national park
- The park
- Port Campbell National Park, on the Great Ocean Road.Source: Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority (Port Campbell National Park) · read
- Known for
- Limestone stacks rising from the Southern Ocean.Source: Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority (Port Campbell National Park) · read
- Highlights
- Loch Ard Gorge, London Bridge and The Grotto, close by.Source: Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority (Port Campbell National Park) · read
Park calendar
-
Short-tailed shearwaters back at Mutton Bird Island: October to April.
Source: Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority (Port Campbell National Park) · read
Mark this place
The passport stamp for this place.
Common questions
How many of the Twelve Apostles are left?
Seven, by Parks Victoria’s count. Parks Victoria says there were nine limestone stacks at the Twelve Apostles, in Port Campbell National Park, Victoria, at the start of this century, and that collapses in 2005 and 2009 have left seven. In 2009, though, Parks Victoria told the ABC that the stack that fell that year was one of the nearby Three Sisters rather than an Apostle.
Why are they called the Twelve Apostles if there were never twelve?
Because the name was chosen for visitors. The stacks off Port Campbell were earlier known as the Pinnacles and as the Sow and Piglets, with Muttonbird Island as the Sow. Parks Victoria says there were never twelve; Wikipedia records that the name Twelve Apostles was made official to attract tourists, though there had only ever been nine.
What are the Drowned Apostles?
Five limestone sea stacks about 50 metres under water and 6 kilometres off the Great Ocean Road near the Twelve Apostles, found in sonar maps in 2016 by Rhiannon Bezore, David Kennedy of the University of Melbourne and Daniel Ierodiaconou of Deakin University. Bezore said they probably date back 60,000 years; they survived because the sea rose fast enough to submerge them before they eroded.
How old are the Twelve Apostles?
The rock is old and the stacks are young. In 2026 University of Melbourne geologists dated the limestone of the Twelve Apostles, using microscopic fossils, to between 8.6 and 14 million years old. The university says the pillars themselves were exposed and shaped by the sea only in the last few thousand years, after the last ice age.
When did one of the Twelve Apostles collapse?
At 9.18 in the morning on 3 July 2005, according to the Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority, a stack of the Twelve Apostles in Port Campbell National Park collapsed into the sea; the ABC reported that day that eight were left standing. Another stack fell in 2009, which Parks Victoria now counts among the Apostles.
Do you have to book or pay to see the Twelve Apostles?
You have to book, and the fee comes later. The Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority says bookings are required for visits to the Twelve Apostles in Port Campbell National Park, Victoria, from Friday 16 October 2026, when its Keerray Woorroong Visitor Centre opens, and that visits are free until April 2027, when a booking fee will be introduced. The amount had not been published by 13 October 2026; the ABC reported in March 2026 that local residents and Eastern Maar people would not be charged.
Who are the Traditional Owners of the Twelve Apostles coast?
The Eastern Maar people. On 28 March 2023 the Federal Court of Australia, sitting at Logan’s Beach in Warrnambool, recognised Eastern Maar native title over much of the Great Ocean Road coastline, according to the Victorian Government, including rights to access, use and protect the land under traditional law and custom. Wikipedia states that the area includes the Twelve Apostles.
Can you see penguins at the Twelve Apostles?
Yes, at dusk, from above. Little penguins come ashore after sunset on the beach below the Twelve Apostles, and Parks Victoria suggests looking down from the viewing platform to see them. They are small and the light is low, so binoculars help.
Photographs on this page
Tap a photograph to see it full size.
Photograph: Christopher Harriot, ApostleS, CC BY 2.0, cropped
Photograph: DXR, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photograph: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photograph: Lenny K Photography, 12 Apostles take 2, CC BY 2.0
