Category: Touring Victoria

About Ocean Grove

Ocean Grove lies on the eastern bank at the mouth of the Barwon River. Across the river is its twin town, Barwon Heads. The river connects Lake Connewarre to Bass Strait. The twin towns, connected by a new bridge, are hugely popular holiday destinations because they have the closest ocean beaches to Geelong. Ocean Grove is the largest settlement on the Bellarine Peninsula. Inevitably the main appeal of the area lies in the holiday activities which have been created including the Adventure Park (sourced from the Aussie Towns website – click for more).

We have ventured down to my favourite haunt of Ocean Grove, which I have been coming to since 1965 when my parents bought a small onsite van in Wynndean. This small place was sold shortly after dad passed away in 1975.

This time we have booked into Riverview Caravan Park and have a great site next to the Barwon River for 2 weeks (maplink). It’s a great opportunity to chill out and catch up with many lifelong friends who live on the Bellarine Peninsula.

SURO BBQ

Our great friends Ray & Betty organise an annual pre-christmas BBQ in Melbourne called SURO (Seniors Unemployed Retirees & Others) and this year they began the West Coast SURO group. We met out the front of “Laura’s Cottage” in Barwon Heads for the inaugural gathering and those who attended had a lovely afternoon (maplink). Here’s some pics but the quality isn’t the best as most came from Facebook Messenger…

2020 Vic Golf Open at 13th Beach

We went along to the final day of the 2020 Victorian Open Golf held at 13th Beach Golf Club on Sunday 9th Feb. It was great, being our 1st ever golf professional tournament. I even got to meet a baby wombat from the Jirrahlinga Wildlife Sanctuary.

A hit at Curlewis Golf Driving Range

Our friend Ray, Merrisa and I went along to the golf driving range at Curlewis Golf Club on Portarlington Road (maplink) to have a bit of a hit-out. It was great fun hitting 200 balls down the range. We had a great time with heaps of laughs regarding our golfing prowess and styles.

Here’s a couple of videos show casing Neil & Ray’s styles (or lack of)…

 

Chocolaterie Anglesea

The weather was really crappy one day so we went for a drive, ending up at Chocolaterie Anglesea (maplink). Did the usual and bought some choccies then headed back to the caravan.

Barwon River Sunset at Riverview CP

We had a very stormy day on Friday 14th February with high winds and torrential rain. A rainbow appeared on dusk followed by a sunset which was one of the most spectacular ones we have seen in our travels.

Blues gig – The Studio @54

We went along to a blues gig on Sunday 16th February featuring two musos by the name of Wayne Jury & Justin Brady who performed in the courtyard of The Studio @54 in Grub Road Ocean Grove (maplink). It was a great afternoon with these guys playing to a small group of people. This was also a fundraiser for Justin Brady, who lost his home in the recent horrific Mallacoota fires.

 

About Bendigo

For every gold mining ghost town there are prosperous cities like Bendigo which wear their gold wealth with both pride and ostentation. Bendigo can proudly boast that it has one of the finest collections of Victorian buildings of any inland city in Australia. The streets are literally awash with huge granite edifices and, in the centre of the city, a fountain dedicated to Queen Victoria’s daughter-in-law, Princess Alexandra, sits in the main street. The Roman Catholic cathedral is the largest cathedral in the state outside Melbourne and the best way to experience the city is to join the “talking tram” – the trams date back to the gold rich era of the 1890s. This is a hugely impressive city which, if you want to do it justice, requires two or three days of dedicated exploration (sourced from the Aussie Towns website – click for more).

Why Bendigo?

Leaving Lake Lascelles (see earlier post) we travelled south to Bendigo and booked into the Bendigo Park Lane Big4 Holiday Park for a few days (maplink). We’d never stayed in Bendigo before, so this was a chance to have a look around and we discovered that it was a great choice. Bailey mates – Anne & Tim Begg and Ron & Collen Mills joined us too. These are some of the sights we checked out…

Bendigo Botanical Gardens

Based in the centre of Bendigo the Botanical Gardens are truly beautiful. We took particular interest in their spectacular rose gardens. We then headed off to the Beechworth Bakery for lunch – pies and “beestings”

Bendigo Sacred Heart Cathedral

The Sacred Heart Cathedral began construction in 1895 and took 82 years to complete (in 1977). It is a truly beautiful cathedral, just as impressive as some of the ones we visited on our Mediterranean Cruise.

Bendigo Buddhist Stupa

The Great Stupa of Universal Compassion is a momentous Buddhist site being created just outside of Bendigo (maplink) and what an amazing place it was to visit. Our volunteer guide Adam took us through the main building (the Stupa) and spoke with tremendous compassion about the construction of the building and amount of work still to be undertaken for it’s completion (expected to be another 50 years or so)

The Great Stupa is home to many holy objects. Foremost amongst these is the magnificent Jade Buddha for Universal Peace which is the largest Buddha carved from gem quality jade in the world. The Jade Buddha for Universal Peace toured the world for 9 years and over 10 million people have seen it. The Jade Buddha has now come to its final home inside The Great Stupa.

Here’s a couple of videos about the Stupa…

Bendigo Chinese Gardens

These are small and rather old looking. We were a bit disappointed in the visit but still got some nice photos.

Bendigo Deborah Mine Tour

This is a definite “must do” when in Bendigo. We learnt so much from Annie our volunteer guide. It is pretty incredible to find the Deborah Mine is pretty well in the middle of town (maplink) – just down the road from Beechworth Bakery. Want to read more about the mine?

Leaving Buronga/Mildura we traveled south to a wonderful freecamp called Lake Lascelles in the rural town of Hopetoun.

We set-up beside a couple of other Bailey friends; Tim & Anne Begg and Ron & Colleen Mills. We were then joined by other friends Ian & Janis Hirth whilst another Bailey with Neil & Sharon Morrison set-up on the other side of the lake on a powered site. It was fantastic to be joined by all of the friends for a few days in such a lovely place.

Had a paddle in Tim’s kayak and then ventured out on Anne’s Stand Up Paddleboard (SUP) creating much entertainment for those on-shore as I shook and wobbled while trying (in vain) to stay upright. Finally got the hang of it but had a real hard time trying to turn around. It was great fun but one downside was that I lost my expensive sunnies purchased our our Mediterranean Cruise (10 euro in Rhodes). Neil said that he saw a duck wearing them the next day. mmmm??

Out to the local pub for dinner on the last night before we all went off in our various directions. Anne & Tim and Ron & Colleen joined us in Bendigo.