Reverse and sunset tours to the Twelve Apostles

7 min read Updated November 2026 Compare all tours

The classic day tour heads down the coast in the morning and reaches the Twelve Apostles after lunch. The park authority says the lookouts are busy all year and busiest around midday, with fewer people early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Reverse and sunset tours are built around those quieter hours, one by getting there early and the other by staying late.

The inland road from Melbourne to the Apostles runs through Colac and covers 227 kilometres in about three hours twenty without stops. The coast route back is about 280 kilometres and four and a half hours. So a reverse tour has the shorter drive in the morning and spends the second half of the day on the winding coast between Apollo Bay and Torquay.

Reverse tours in a minibus

Hit The Road Tours runs a boutique version for at most 12 guests. Pickups are at 196 Flinders Street at 6:30, 313 La Trobe Street at 6:40 and 44 Spencer Street at 6:50, and the operator says every pickup point is within a 15-minute walk of anywhere in central Melbourne. After a breakfast stop in a country town come the Twelve Apostles, the Razorback, the Gibson Steps and Loch Ard Gorge. Lunch is in Port Campbell or Apollo Bay, followed by about 20 minutes in the Otway rainforest, a koala walk and Lorne. The Apostles entrance ticket and bottled water are included, meals are not, and children under 7 cannot join.

Reviews of this tour are mostly about the guides and the pace. The few complaints are small: lunch comes late, the breakfast stop is short, and tall guests found the minibus tight and recommend an aisle seat. The same operator also runs a premium version in reverse for up to 12.

Tours Around Melbourne starts from hotels in the CBD, Southbank or Docklands, takes breakfast in Colac at your own cost and then follows a similar order, with lunch in Port Campbell or Apollo Bay. Its premium coach tour leaves at 7:00 from 400 Flinders Street, outside the Immigration Museum, and stops at Melba Gully on the way back. Awesome Leisure Group begins with a coffee stop at a bakery, does the Gibson Steps, Loch Ard Gorge and the Razorback in the morning, and looks for koalas at Kennett River in the afternoon.

Reverse tours with lunch included

Most reverse tours leave lunch to you. Autopia Tours includes a picnic lunch and snacks on its 28-seat coach. It drives inland to the Apostles, then goes down into Loch Ard Gorge, looks across to Mutton Bird Island and the Razorback, and returns through the Great Otway National Park, Kennett River, Apollo Bay, Lorne, Anglesea and the Memorial Arch. There are no hotel transfers; you meet at a pickup point in Melbourne. A second 28-seat reverse tour from another operator serves a light picnic lunch and morning tea, and lists an optional helicopter flight over the Apostles at extra cost.

A Mercedes minibus tour for up to 14 guests collects you in the postcodes 3000, 3006 or 3008 and ends at Southern Cross Station rather than at your hotel. Its title says reverse, but the description lists the stops in the classic order, so read the itinerary before you book if the early arrival is the reason you chose it. Another reverse tour for up to 23 picks up in Melbourne, stops first in Colac and warns that the long drive does not suit people who get motion sickness.

Sunset tours

Go West Tours runs its sunset tour for at most 24 guests. Pickup is between 9:00 and 11:00 depending on the season, and the minibus follows the Surf Coast, stops at the Memorial Arch and looks for koalas, with short breaks to eat. Loch Ard Gorge comes in the afternoon, the Twelve Apostles at sunset, then a dinner stop and the drive home. Food is not included, and you can bring your own. The return to Melbourne is between 21:30 and midnight, again by season.

Reviewers like the late start and the smaller crowds at the lookouts, and some describe good evenings even in the rain. One family reported that the driver left a car park without them, so note the departure time at every stop.

When the sun actually sets

Sunset times at the Apostles swing by more than three and a half hours over the year. Victoria uses daylight saving from the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April, which this season means 4 October 2026 to 4 April 2027. On 1 November the sun sets at 20:03, on 21 December at 20:52 and on 1 January at 20:55. By 1 April it is 19:21, and once the clocks go back it drops to 17:40 on 1 May and 17:13 at the winter solstice. In winter even a classic day tour reaches the coast near sunset, and some coach tours add London Bridge from May to September, with a chance of seeing the sunset there.

The new visitor centre is open daily from 8:00 to 20:00. From November to early March the sun sets after it closes, so on a summer evening the building is shut by the time the light goes and you watch from the lookouts. Sunset itself is never certain on this coast. Cape Otway, the nearest long-term station, records rain on about 5 to 16 days a month, fewest in summer.

Wildlife at dusk

The evening brings animals back to the cliffs. Little penguins return at dusk to the beach below the Twelve Apostles. From October to April, short-tailed shearwaters fly in to Mutton Bird Island at Loch Ard Gorge as the light fades. Both are seen from the clifftop at a distance, and neither is guaranteed. For more on the site, see the Twelve Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge; for the classic order of stops, see day tours from Melbourne.