The lovely Bellarine Peninsula
Trip Start
May 16, 2011
1
45
54
Trip End
Ongoing
Clifton Springs, Victoria, Australia
Monday, February 6, 2012
I don't think we sat still for more than a few minutes during the week with them as they wanted to show us all the lovely places in their area including the other half of the Great Ocean Road. We did drive it ourselves in the motorhome to get to their home but coming from west to east there aren't all that many places where you can stop as you're on the cliff side of the road, so it was great that Bill and Maretian took us for a drive back in the other direction. Bill was fantastic stopping at all the lookouts and parking bays so I could get out and take my photos and just take it all in in general.
The Bellarine Peninsula itself is quite lovely with nice little towns like Port Arlington, St Leonards and Ocean Grove. The main town of note though is Queenscliff. It's got some great shops and galleries and Maretian and I did our best to see as much as we could before Bill and Que got too bored with us! Queenscliff is also home to an unusual black lighthouse.
Nearby are the other coastal towns of Barwon Heads and Torquay and of course the famous Bells Beach. Unfortunately when we drove into Bells the wind had blown out what surf there was and there was no-one in the water. There was a para-glider though making the most of the wind coming off the cliffs.
We also went into Geelong and had a lovely walk along the waterfront. Here they have all these "bollard" people. They are really good and make you smile as you walk around as you take in all the different expressions on their faces and they depict all sorts of people. The waterfront is actually quite lovely with a ferris wheel, carousel, pool and a wharf with a great bar/restaurant at the end where we had lunch.
We managed to catch up with friends we'd met travelling in the Northern Territory and they invited us around for a really nice lunch. Turned out they only lived about a 10 minute drive from Bill and Maretian's. (Hi Diane, Darryl and Tim!).
Next stop for us is Inverloch as Que has some work lined up and it's time we stopped and earned a bit of a living again so we can carry on our travels.
