Sunday, 12 April, 2015, Day 1 of Great Ocean Road trip

Our Great Ocean Road holiday

I spent hours organizing our vacation this week.  When I plan a holiday, I look at everything there is to see that I think we might be interested in.  I also plan how long I think it will take to do each activity including the time it will take to drive between each place.  Then, we go with the flow once we start on our trip.

Day 1 (Sunday, 12 April, 2015)

From our Melbourne unit, we drove to our first stop which was the town of Geelong (about an hour from the unit).  At the Eastern Beaches, we walked along the Geelong Bollards Trail.  Bollards are wooden poles (reclaimed timber pier pylons) which have been painted  to represent over 100 historical Geelong characters. There is also a carousel and a ferris wheel along the way.

Victoria Baths swimmers (swimmers characterizing the Victoria Bathing Establishment (1870)

 Geelong harbour

 Dad in front of Cunningham Pier

 Me beside the Sail Captain bringing live birds to stock the nearby Botanic Gardens aviaries) and beside them is a Steam Captain of the Steamship S. S. Edina operating from 1888 - 1938

Carousel

Volunteer Rifle Band playing "The Geelong Polka" - this group represents players in Geelong's first band concerts which were held in the Botanic Gardens in 1861

Dad with scallop fishermen and woman from the early 1800's, fish and crustaceans from Geelong were marketed and sold locally as well as in Melbourne

 Early Geelong Footballer - a nearby field, which became Transvaal Square, was used for football practice

 Town Baths Swimmers Club - a progression of lifesavers displaying the changing styles of men's swimming trunks

 Eastern Beach

 Bathing Beauties - the beach front was the venue for beauty competitions from the 1930's

 Eastern Beach and ferris wheel

Our next stop was the town of Torquay.  There we did the Torquay Promenade Walk which is section 2 of the Surf Coast Walk.  The surf coast walk stretches 66 kilometres from Torquay to Lorne.  It was a beautiful walk and the ocean views were lovely.

View of the beach from the Esplanade in Torquay

 Sailsurfer on beach in Torquay

 Torquay war memorial

Dad looking at view from Point Danger

 View from Point Danger

 View from Point Danger

Me eating an aussie meat pie (with 'tomato sauce') for lunch

The third stop was Bells Beach.  This is Australia's most famous surfing beach.  Every Easter, the Rip Curl Pro surf carnival is held at Bells Beach.  The Rip Curl Pro is the longest running surf competition in the world.  It attracts surfers and spectators from all over the world.  This surf carnival was finishing up the day we got there, but there were no surfers in the water by the time we arrived.

 Sign for the Rip Curl Pro surfing carnival

 Bells Beach

 Bells Beach

Bells Beach
  

Our final stop for the day was in the town of Anglesea.  We first went to the Anglesea Golf Course where we had read would be tons of kangaroos.  Micalla (cousin Deanna's daughter) is involved in a project at her local library where she received a paper person called Flat Stanley (based on books by Jeff Brown) and was asked to send Stanley to a relative who would take him around with them on their travels, take photos of Stanley doing these activities and then write a blurb about Stanley's adventures to send back to Micalla.  His adventures will then be part of the Flat Stanley adventure book which will be made.  The reason I mention this is that we see kangaroos all the time in Hervey Bay, but we stopped at the Golf Course so that we could get some photos of Flat Stanley with kangaroos.  It was amazing to see the kangaroos on the course while the golfers were playing the game.  I wonder if a golfer has ever hit a kangaroo with a golf ball.  We were not supposed to go onto the golf course, but who could resist seeing (and photographing) all those cute kangaroos.  We weren't the only ones on the course checking out the kangaroos and we were asked a couple of times by the golfers to move so that they could take their shots - oops! :-)

 Mother kangaroo feeding her junior kangaroo

 Sun shining through smoke from a controlled burn-off

After that, we went for another walk along the Surf Coast Walk.  We didn't go far on this section (#8) of the walk as we really wanted to see more of the beach than we were seeing.  So, we gave the rest of the walk a miss and decided to go down to the beach and walk along it.  We both love the water and especially walking by the ocean.

View from the Surf Coast Walk

 View from the Surf Coast Walk

Me on the beach in Anglesea

Our first night's stay was at a B & B in Anglesea.  Ian, the owner of the B & B, and his son, Dev, greeted us warmly, .  It turned out that both had lived in Canada for ten years as Ian had married a Canadian woman.  When that didn't turn out, Ian and Dev returned to Australia and started the B & B.  It was a three bedroom house with a large rec room downstairs where Dev stayed.  Our room was the master bedroom with an ensuite - really nice large room with a very comfortable bed.  We also had full access to the living/dining room, kitchen and internet.  Ian provided fresh bread, bacon, cheese and eggs for breakfast, although he didn't cook it for us.  We were surprised about that since, whenever we have stayed at a B & B, breakfast has always been cooked for us by the hosts.