Experience the best of Geelong

Geelong lies on Corio Bay, an arm of Port Phillip, and was settled in the 1830s as a wool port. The waterfront has a trail of painted wooden bollards, a carousel and Eastern Beach, with its art deco sea baths. The National Wool Museum occupies an 1872 bluestone woolstore, and Geelong Botanic Gardens lie in Eastern Park behind the beach.

The Bellarine Peninsula to the east has the historic town of Queenscliff, with a ferry to Sorrento across the heads of Port Phillip, and the lighthouse at Point Lonsdale. Torquay, a surf town to the south-west, marks the start of the Great Ocean Road, and the nearby surf break at Bells Beach is world famous. Inland, the You Yangs, a line of granite hills, rise abruptly from the plain.

Wines from the Bellarine, mussels from Portarlington and fish and chips on the foreshore make up the local table, and cafés fill Pakington Street. Sea breezes cool the summer days, and the winds can be sharp in winter.