I left Geelong early, keen to allow as much time as possible for my first look at the east coast of the Bellarine Peninsula.
Category: travel
Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula
A short time ago, I had a couple of days free and I made use of them to get away from the city and into some fresher air and less noise. The Bellarine Peninsula was the best place to head to make full use of just two days.
I hadn’t been through Geelong for many years, always turning off beforehand towards the Great Ocean Road. I was very pleasantly surprised. The waterfront area in particular is just lovely.
Stuff for the kids.
I hadn’t realised there’s a ferry service from Geelong into Melbourne. How convenient to avoid the drive along the busy Princes Highway and the parking when you get there.
Geelong is Victoria’s second largest city, with a population of over 250,000. It’s situated on Corio Bay, just 75 kilometres south-west of Melbourne. It’s had its ups and downs over the years but looks pretty comfortable at the moment.
I wandered for ages around the streets, searching out the colonial buildings from its earlier days.
The theatre was closed but it’s a busy place from what I’ve heard. Billy Connolly began his final Australian tour here.
I’m sure you could make a perfectly good life in Geelong. It has everything: shopping, entertainment, sport (it’s the home of one of Australia’s premier AFL football teams, the Geelong Cats, along with many other sports) and Deakin University.
I stayed the night at Rippleside Park Motor Inn on the edge of town (a mere $88 last minute), opposite a park and a very short drive from the beach. It wasn’t new by any means but it had everything I needed. I find older motel rooms are generally bigger, even to the point of having case racks. Why don’t newer motels have case racks, even when they’ve got space?
I left first thing in the morning, heading for Portarlington on my way to Queenscliff and the car ferry across to Sorrento and home. I’ll keep that for next time.
Apollo Bay, Great Ocean Road, Victoria
Sliding down a muddy incline at a football ground on the worst day of winter and wrecking the ligaments in your foot, is not conducive to travel. A moon boot and crutches make exploring the world difficult, hence my lack of blogging for a while.
Final Thoughts England 2016
I enjoyed my exploration of the south of England in 2016 enormously, and I thought I’d list a few of my favourite spots, some of which I’d been wanting to check out for years.
Visiting Charles 2016
One of the items I wanted to tick off from my bucket list while in London was the Charles Dickens Museum. I came to Dickens relatively late in life, falling in love with Oliver Twist and going from there.
Eton and Windsor 2016
I knew when I was heading for Windsor that Eton was close by, but I didn’t realise it was just on the other side of this lovely bridge.
Hampton Court Palace
When I visited London in 2011, I ran out of time for everything I wanted to see, one of them being Hampton Court, Henry Vllls main palace. I headed out on Sunday morning to catch the train from Waterloo Station.
Canterbury to London 2016
I caught the train from Canterbury to spend the last few days of my trip in London.
Canterbury Cathedral
I’m not free to go exploring at the moment, so I thought I’d return here to my trip to England in 2016. Having landed in London, I trained it from Cambridge to Bath, to Salisbury and across to Cornwall, back along the coast to lovely Chichester, ending up in Canterbury, before heading back to hit London’s West End.
Tower Hill, Warrnambool
Not far past Warrnambool is Tower Hill Nature Reserve, nestled in the crater of a dormant volcano.
