EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

GEELONG , en route to the Bellarine Peninsula, is not particularly attractive, being too industrial to appeal as a coastal resort: the fact that the National Wool Museum is the main attraction gives you some idea of the place. You may have heard of the town, however, because it's wealthy - on wool money - and the site of an exclusive boarding school. The Geelong Wool Exchange, a National Trust-listed building at the corner of Brougham and Moorabool streets, houses the National Wool Museum (daily 9.30am-5pm; $8). The well set-up exhibition concentrates on the social history surrounding wool, with reconstructions of typical shearers' quarters and a millworker's 1920s cottage. On the top floor of the exchange wool is still auctioned off on thirty days in the year. Many of the best of the town's Victorian buildings are on Little Malop Street, including the elegant Geelong Art Gallery (Mon-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat & Sun 1-5pm; $4), which has an extensive collection of paintings by nineteenth-century Australian artists such as Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin, plus twentieth-century Australian paintings, sculpture and decorative arts. From Malop Street, Moorabool Street leads down to Corio Bay . Neglected for a fair while, Geelong's waterfront has undergone a facelift in recent years, so that the views of shipping traffic and, across the water, of an industrial skyline with hills behind don't seem quite so drab anymore. The promenades, rotunda and fountains on Eastern Beach have been renovated, as has a lovely nineteenth-century carousel featuring over thirty sculpted wooden horses. As well, new waterfront eating places have emerged, notably the large restaurant complex at the end of new Cunningham Pier , which comes into its own at night. Nestled among the lawns and trees of Eastern Park around 10min walk from the city centre are Geelong's historic Botanic Gardens (Mon-Fri 7.30am-5pm, Sat & Sun 7am-7pm; free). Begun in the late 1850s, the gardens boast rare and endangered plants, fountains, a geranium conservatory, sculptures and the Tea House (daily 11am-4pm), where you can take refreshments or collect brochures and other material. Swimming is permitted in a swimming enclosure at Eastern Beach.

On the way to Torquay, Narana Creations , an Aboriginal Arts, Crafts and Cultural Centre at 410 Torquay Rd (Surfcoast Highway) in Grovedale is worth a brief stop. Paintings and various arts and crafts are sold here, a native garden with a lake has been added, and sometimes visitors can listen to Dreamtime stories or didgeridoo playing (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat 10am-4pm; free).