Autumn Outings – Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula Pt 2 – Julie Powell

Last week I covered off the first part of our stay in Geelong and then the first leg of our coastal drive. Today I take up where I left off. [If you would like to read Part 1 click here].

So we continued our drive from Drysdale to Port Arlington, a peaceful little beach community, we stopped by the Jetty and took some photos, Moth climbed under the jetty (well tried to) to try his hand at a few artful shots.

Indented Head-2-2 — What is this? It was moving – sort of

We tried to visit the Old Flour Mill, but it is only open weekends. I really could not even get any shots, too much high wire fence – maybe next trip. We then continued onto Indented Head……..strange name, but nice beach and a great shot of the SS Ozone Shipwreck (Yes another one!). We spent a little bit of time here, the sun has just come out, so it was great spot. There is also another ship wreck here, but we could not see it, perhaps it’s only for the divers? Also if anyone know what on earth this is;

SS Ozone, Indented Head, VIC

We then drove onto St Leonards, another pretty spot, walked out to the end of the jetty to see what remained of the old one – not much, but a great view back on the beach.

Again another short drive to Swan Bay Nature reserve, I must admit, there wasn’t much here to see, tide was out and not a lot of bird or animal life could be seen. After a short trip we again hit the road. We bypassed Queenscliff (Coming back later) and went straight to Point Lonsdale, a spot I had been anticipating all morning, I was not disappointed. Beautiful pier, lovely little beach and a LIGHTHOUSE! Yay another one………what is it we me and lighthouses? Anyway after climbing around the beach and cliffs taking lots of photos of said lighthouse and beach we also found Buckley’s cave, where escaped convict William Buckley supposedly hid out. After many photos, Moth finally dragged me away and we continued our drive.

Point Lonsdale

We then drove through Ocean Grove (Does not look anything like I remember it from 40+ years ago 🙂 ), next stop was Barwon Heads, we’re we walked up the boardwalk to the look out, actually there are several. Beautiful vistas of Victoria’s coastline spread before us. The clouds by then were threatening again and we didn’t linger too long out of the bluffs.

We then drove onto Breamlea, as I wanted to see what was at Stingray Bay and Point Impossible……….honestly not much, just another pretty little beach on one side and tee tree marsh on the other. There were a lot of caravans, and holiday homes, but I am sorry I can’t say I would ever venture back. Back in the car again and drove out to Torquay, onto Jan Juc and then to Bells Beach, where they hold the surf carnivals. I was a bit surprised I thought it would be bigger than it actually was. It must be jammed packed at Surf Carnivals, especially the Ripcurl Classic! Anyway it was a great little spot, the dark clouds had come in, the wind had whipped the waves into a frenzy and I decided to drag along the tripod and ND Filters to again try my hand at some long exposures. Moth had rigged a hook of sorts for my gear bag, just as well I really needed the extra weight in the wind. Still had a few blurred images, but on the whole I was fairly pleased with what I got. Eventually I had to give up, the gale force winds and increased to hurricane force (only slightly exaggerating here), and it was getting late, so we climbed those stairs one last time and headed off to Queenscliff to catch the Ferry home.

The Queenscliff Ferry runs every hour on the hour, the last was 6pm, we arrived a little early so we quickly drove up to the lighthouse (yes another one) for a few more shots. The Lighthouse at Queenscliff is made from Blue-stone and is apparently the only lighthouse in Victoria not painted white! It is still running even today and I even managed to get some late evening shots with the light on. There are some fabulous old buildings and architecture, but it was getting too dark and too late, we would have to come back another time. We managed to make the Ferry and sat back with a hot cuppa for the 45 minute trip to Sorrento. We spent the time wandering around the Ferry looking at old photos and information boards about the area and it’s history. Soon enough we were in Sorrento, when stopped at the pub for dinner and then drove home, as it was getting quite late and too dark to see anything.

So we had a wonderful 2 days in some beautiful, yet rugged landscape which is in abundance in Victoria along this coastline. We made a pact to come back to Queenscliff via Sorrento and Mornington Peninsula another time, as well as making another trip down the great ocean road; Torquay was just the start of it and we really want to see more. Neither Moth nor I have been down that way in over 20 years. So hopefully before too much time has passed we will be down that way again.

– Julz