October 23rd, 2013
It was hard to extract myself from bed this morning. It is cold, it's raining, the wind is roaring through the trees and the bed was wonderful! Once up, I put on two layers of shirts, a sweater and jeans for the first time since leaving home.
How nice of them Gail and Harry to have us! Gail just returned (the day before our arrival) from 3 weeks in Sri Lanka doing volunteer work with turtles and she and Harry are leaving on a holiday, flying first to Western Australia, on Friday. We had slotted ourselves in between their October travels and Harry has taken the day off work so that he and Gail can tour us around.
After breakfast we set off. Our first stop was Rivers, a favourite store of Gail's, where I was trying to find a warm, light jacket like hers. No luck for me but Gail managed to find a few things. Harry drove us around town describing various points of interest. Today is the Geelong Cup - a public holiday here! State school children and many public employees have the day off. Apparently, they can choose either Geelong Cup day or Melbourne Cup day as their holiday. The last 3 winners of the Geelong Cup also won the Melbourne Cup, so we are told there is much interest in the race today.
We stopped at the Geelong Botanical gardens for a walk around since the rain had stopped and the wind had died down somewhat.
Our next stop was the Geelong Marine Park - a walk along the shores of the bay among marinas, seafood restaurants and the most interesting painted bollards (posts on land for mooring ships). There are more than 100 bollards painted to depict persons of historical interest to Geelong. Artist Jan Mitchell was commissioned by the City of Greater Geelong in 1995 to transform reclaimed timber pier pylons into these remarkable works of art. Here are some of them.
We then headed toward Lonsdale Pier and Queenscliff where we had lunch. There is only half a mile between Point Lonsdale and Point Nepean - the opening to Port Phillip which has to be dredged to ensure there is depth for container ships to enter Melbourne docks. It is a narrow opening (only a half mile) and ships need to manipulate the channel carefully.
Our next stop was back home where Tina I and I each had a 20 minute nap while Gail began her mission to shop and prepare dinner! Then Harry, Tina and I collected 3 granddaughters from school before taking them to their home 20 minutes away in Torquay. We visited their home as well as Harry and Gail's summer home adjacent to 15km of beautiful sand beach on Bass Strait.
Just around the corner is Bells Beach - a world famous surfing beach where international competitions are held.
We arrived back home to the aroma of a roast dinner with all the trimmings! Yummo (as Kate would say)!
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