We left the Great Ocean Road today with a slight sadness, offset by fond memories of the birds, koalas and scenery. Our next stop was Geelong, a vibrant town 65km from Melbourne made famous by its wool and wheel industries.

After a stop-off to pickup some essentials we headed into the city centre and parked up by the waterfront. We could see a couple of bollards which had been cut and painted to resemble two pirates. A stroll along the waterfront revealed even more bollards, this time painted as a big band! The local tourist information explained that these were the work of a local artist, Jan Mitchell, who passed away recently. There are 111 in total, and we saw a fair few ourselves, some were quite amusing!

We stopped at an antique steam-powered merry go round which had been painstakingly restored. The accompanying pipe organ was being serviced so we had to settle for a boom box playing the carnival music!

We drove to the botanic gardens and wandered through the brightly coloured flowers and funny shaped succulent collection. One Devonshire tea later and we drove down the Bellarine Peninsula towards Queenscliffe.

We found a nice camp site in our book and settled down for the night. Sarah and I are suffering slightly from a sore back and neck, probably from all of the sitting down, driving and sleeping on a firm mattress. I think we need to treat ourselves to a massage in Melbourne!

On the camera nerd front I'm tempted to purchase an ultra-wide angle lens, specifically the Canon 10-22mm EF-S f3.5-4.5 USM. I have been in a number of situations where my 24-70mm just doesn't go wide enough to capture the shot - part of the problem being the 1.6x crop factor on my 50d rendering it more like a 38-112mm. A 10-22mm lens would act as a 16-35mm and give me that extra viewing angle needed to capture impressive landscapes and interiors without having to resort to the often problematic image-stitching method.