It’s no secret we love Geelong. It’s such a brilliant regional city with the beautiful Corio Bay as a backdrop and lots of great little pockets to explore. The kids had an extra day off at the end of the school holidays so we made a long weekend of it and spent a couple of nights in this awesome city with a sneaky trip to our favourite coastal town of Torquay thrown in for good measure.

We stayed at Rydges hotel which was in a good spot close to the city centre and walking distance to the waterfront precinct. The hotel has a pool which was a bonus… the kids loved it despite the water being too chilly for me! But the sun was out and warm so it was lovely to lie around the pool and watch the kids having fun.

We loved finding the little Melbourne-like laneway precinct with lots of great restaurants and cafes near our hotel (wander around James Street and Little Malop Street for Mexican, fried chicken, Japanese, French style wine bar and heaps more really cool eateries).

We had our first visit and ride on the Geelong Carousel… a beautifully restored, vintage, rare, working carousel dating back to 1892. This was a highlight of our trip and we ended up going back for a second ride on our last morning!

We also enjoyed a little wander around the Malop Street mall precinct and a shop at the amazing crystal shop ‘Our Satellite Hearts’ in Ryrie street…

We also really loved having fish and chips for dinner at sunset on a floating fish and chip shop called ‘The Geelong Boathouse’. It was delish and so nice sitting on the top deck looking out over the bay.

A quick visit to the Geelong Art Gallery….

We timed our trip to coincide with the monthly foreshore market held in the grassed area next to the Carousel pavilion which the kids loved. They each bought a homemade purse to keep their crystal treasures that we bought the day before. We then caught the little ‘train’ along the foreshore to the other end where the brilliant outdoor pool is and hopped off for a dip before returning on the ‘train’ (it’s a little tractor with carriages that you sit in that goes along the foreshore footpath).

Finally we went home the long way via Torquay and it was a beautiful day so we were able to have a play at the beach. We also popped into an incredible, retro Italian deli called ‘Mortadeli’ I’d read about and it was so good!

Thanks for having us Geelong. You were just what the doctor ordered.