Geelong the Waterfront

The other day I got up relatively early with the intention of going to Colac for the day but due to incredibly bad planning on my part, I realised when I got to Southern Cross station at 9am that I should have taken the 07:23 train as there are only three trains a day that actually go to Colac and I would have had to wait four hours for the next one.

So I made a snap decision to go Geelong instead. Geelong is a coastal town about an hour away from Melbourne and it's where former Father Jack Callahan originated from (before he came out of his coma induced amnesia and remembered he was a priest...and then disgraced himself from the church by impregnating Paige in a shack immediately after she jumped out of a hot air balloon!) Paige and Jack, or John Doe as he was known back then, once took a trip to Geelong in an attempt to get him to remember anything about his identity.

Because it was never my intention to go to there that day I quickly did some last minute research on the train and to my delight, after typing "Paige Smith and John Doe Geelong" into The Search Engine I found there was a real life cafe called John Doe, which obviously I made a beeline to as soon as I left the station.

I do hope Sonya and Toadie bring Nell here regularly for all her fairywear needs.

Seeing as Harold Bishop has a coffee shop named after him in Erinsborough it only seems right that Father Jack has his own coffee shop named after him in Geelong.

The Waterfront 

Once I was armed with a mocha and a chicken wrap I headed straight for the coast. Because I did next to no research about this place before I got there, I was a little bit surprised that it didn't really have a beach other than a thin stretch of sand which housed a few volleyball nets. What it lacked in beach space however, it certainly made up for in palm trees, beautiful green spaces and a masses of brightly coloured and fun bollard sculptures (over 100 of them) all along the waterfront.

Harold and the rest of the Salvation Army band.

Dorothy Burke enjoying a glass of G&T in the sunshine.

This bollard looks the spitting image of my dad circa 2006!

The pier

Botanic Gardens

I walked a hell of a lot in Geelong and whilst I was up near the golf course I heard what sounded like masses of noisy birds coming from a small wooded area in the park a bit further on down the road so I set off to find the aviary.  When I got to the source of the noise I realised that they weren't birds at all but Flying Fox bats and there were hundreds of them dangling from every branch in about 10 different trees all chattering away noisily to each other in the worlds loudest slumber party.

A bit further along a came to the Geelong Botanic Gardens which was a very lovely and peaceful little spot and I was very happy to see they had their own book exchange.

Botanic book exchange, it's good to know Ms Conway is such an inspiration to society. 

This is a dragon tree and it's so dangerous that it has to be tethered to the ground!

I had an absolutely lovely day in Geelong. The coastal walk was so lovely as there were so many gorgeous views and it made a nice change to visit a coastal city without a beach. The city itself was beautiful with loads of stunning architecture, museums and galleries (including the National Wool Museum that I was gutted I didn't have time to go around) and more beautifully maintained parks. I could have easily spent at least another week exploring and I will definitely be back soon.



If you would like to get in touch or have any suggestions as to where I should visit, please email me at dagsontour@gmail.com or find me on Twitter @fiona_mclean. Equally if you would like to see some of my non Neighbours related travel pics or have a nosy at some photos of the things I sell on Etsy (I knit and sew crazy things) then feel free to follow me on Instagram too @mcpoodleshop.