a day trip: great ocean road edition

I really love the beach.

It's such a cliche Australian stereotype, but for me, it's such an accurate one; I rarely go, however, so whenever I do it's a treat (despite the guarantee that I will get sunburnt at least a little!) 

We left the house later than expected and made the (roughly) hour an a half drive to Torquay. I've never been to Torquay before, so I was pretty excited to go there. Dad had told me that it used to be a sleepy little place, quiet with amazing beaches, but neither he nor mum had been there in a while. It still has amazing beaches, but it's less sleepy now and filled with surfers, surf shops (so many surf shops) and really scenic walks. 

The first stop we made was this awesome coffee shop up at the top of one of the surf beaches, it had an outlook of the beach as well as this really nice grass area that would have been a great place to have a picnic at. We would have stopped at the Torquay surf beach for the entire day, but we were all in the mood to explore more (and the beach itself was a little busy for our liking), so we headed a little further up.

I'd really love to see the photo mum took on the other side.

I really wanted to check out this amazing rock formation, but ended up further away from it than what I had been in the first place. But we did find this pretty nice walking track that would have taken us to the peak of where I wanted to go, but it was getting really warm and humid and the sand was scorching.

We headed towards Anglesea shortly after, hoping to find some lunch to eat (which we did) and a quiet beach to sit and walk along (not so much this one). I still, at this point, had forgotten to put on the suncreen that was in the boot of the car.

To be completely fair, it wasn't as busy as what it probably could have been on an even warmer day, but there was still so many people around that the nice relaxing part of the beach day wasn't going to happen here. (We did go for a walk in the ocean though, didn't expect how big the waves were going to get so close to shore and my skirt got soaked through. Ah well.)

(Still not wearing sunscreen at this point, and still hadn't noticed that I was beginning to burn.)

After lunch, we headed back towards Torquay, having spotted a chocolataire and icecreamery on the way to Anglesea. I honestly hadn't expected to go and I'm really glad that I did. Most chocolatairies are really expensive and kind of exclusive, but this particular one (Great Ocean Road Chocolataire & Ice Creamery) is an inclusive place with some amazing scenery, sculpture and of course, delicious chocolate and ice cream!

Honestly I'm glad we went, otherwise I wouldn't have bought myself some more tea nor would I have tried the awesome chai latte ice cream!

Afterwards we went back towards Torquay, stopping at Bells Beach (!!!) before going back to the rock formations that I had wanted to visit that morning.

I'm really not photogenic, but I'd love to thank my mother for putting up with my constant demands of her to "take a photo please!"

I had a fantastic day, and honestly cannot wait to go back to the beach again soon! (On the last note, I ended up burning since I forgot to put on sunscreen entirely, which I don't recommend at all. Use sunscreen!)

I really love the beach.

It's such a cliche Australian stereotype, but for me, it's such an accurate one; I rarely go, however, so whenever I do it's a treat (despite the guarantee that I will get sunburnt at least a little!) 

We left the house later than expected and made the (roughly) hour an a half drive to Torquay. I've never been to Torquay before, so I was pretty excited to go there. Dad had told me that it used to be a sleepy little place, quiet with amazing beaches, but neither he nor mum had been there in a while. It still has amazing beaches, but it's less sleepy now and filled with surfers, surf shops (so many surf shops) and really scenic walks. 

The first stop we made was this awesome coffee shop up at the top of one of the surf beaches, it had an outlook of the beach as well as this really nice grass area that would have been a great place to have a picnic at. We would have stopped at the Torquay surf beach for the entire day, but we were all in the mood to explore more (and the beach itself was a little busy for our liking), so we headed a little further up.

I'd really love to see the photo mum took on the other side.

I really wanted to check out this amazing rock formation, but ended up further away from it than what I had been in the first place. But we did find this pretty nice walking track that would have taken us to the peak of where I wanted to go, but it was getting really warm and humid and the sand was scorching.

We headed towards Anglesea shortly after, hoping to find some lunch to eat (which we did) and a quiet beach to sit and walk along (not so much this one). I still, at this point, had forgotten to put on the suncreen that was in the boot of the car.

To be completely fair, it wasn't as busy as what it probably could have been on an even warmer day, but there was still so many people around that the nice relaxing part of the beach day wasn't going to happen here. (We did go for a walk in the ocean though, didn't expect how big the waves were going to get so close to shore and my skirt got soaked through. Ah well.)

(Still not wearing sunscreen at this point, and still hadn't noticed that I was beginning to burn.)

After lunch, we headed back towards Torquay, having spotted a chocolataire and icecreamery on the way to Anglesea. I honestly hadn't expected to go and I'm really glad that I did. Most chocolatairies are really expensive and kind of exclusive, but this particular one (Great Ocean Road Chocolataire & Ice Creamery) is an inclusive place with some amazing scenery, sculpture and of course, delicious chocolate and ice cream!

Honestly I'm glad we went, otherwise I wouldn't have bought myself some more tea nor would I have tried the awesome chai latte ice cream!

Afterwards we went back towards Torquay, stopping at Bells Beach (!!!) before going back to the rock formations that I had wanted to visit that morning.

I'm really not photogenic, but I'd love to thank my mother for putting up with my constant demands of her to "take a photo please!"

I had a fantastic day, and honestly cannot wait to go back to the beach again soon! (On the last note, I ended up burning since I forgot to put on sunscreen entirely, which I don't recommend at all. Use sunscreen!)