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.

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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.

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Bay of Islands to Warrnambool

I dragged myself away from The Bay of Islands here and continued to the end of The Great Ocean Road at Warrnambool. It’s a prosperous regional city of around 35,000 people, based around agriculture, in particular the dairy industry.

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Revisiting Port Campbell National Park

I hadn’t been across to the west of Victoria for twenty years. The last time, I was in between houses. I had left one and had space before getting into the new one, so to fill in the time, I took the Great Ocean Road and then the Princes Highway across to Adelaide, coming back inland. It was an interesting experience: no address, no mobile phone at the time; floating free.

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Revisiting Marysville

Years ago, I drove up to Marysville, situated in the Yarra Valley, two hours north-east of Melbourne. It was a very pretty place then, but was caught up in the devastating bush fires of February 2009. Forty-per-cent of the Murrindindi Shire, of which Marysville is part, was burned, with the loss of 101 lives, and the destruction of  homes, properties, animals and wildlife. The day the fire started, 7th February, is now known as Black Saturday.

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Bendigo: Atisha Centre

A little way out of Bendigo is Atisha Centre, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation and study centre.

It’s here they’re in the process of building The Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, something I’d never heard of before.

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