Torquay and sad surf at Bells

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Today was our weekend away and we were getting ready to hit Torquay with Robyn who has a house down there. We loaded up the car after Robyn got in form work with Sarah, Liz, Robyn, Robyn’s dog Saffy and me. With a bit of rush hour traffic we made it down to Torquay within a couple of hours. Robyn’s house was fabulous, situated near Jan Juc beach. After dropping the stuff in the house she took us for a drive to orientate us, stopping at a look out over Jan Juc beach and the little shops near by. That evening was pretty low key and we hired a couple of DVD’s and got fish and chips from the local, which was totally divine.

Next morning Liz and my first challenge was to find out why the tea we were drinking tasted so terrible, it was then, after blaming the water and milk that we looked at the 2005 use by date. The second challenge was to retrieve my socks and pants that Robyn’s dog Saffy was walking around the house with and then we were free to leave. Our first port of call was Bells Beach, of Point Break fame. We were all dead excited to see it but unfortunately there was no surf up and there fore no surfers, damn! Never the less we had hundreds of photos taken to prove we were there and then we went back for lunch and a spot of lightening and thunder. When the thunder and lightening had abated, we hit the main street of surfing shops which was packed with people and bargains but I was very restrained and only bought one thing.

As soon as we had rounded up everyone (which was more difficult that anticipated as normally non shopper Sarah had found stuff she liked) we went on a bit of a road trip and headed town the Great Ocean Road. Ok, it was less than a quarter of it but it we can say we did a bit of the famous Great Ocean Road. Our first stop was a plaque on the road that was dedicated to the WW1 men who helped build the road, which I was clueless about. From here Liz and I tried to get down to a look out but eventually bottled out as it was a no trespassing area, so we left with no pics (expect for the one of me trespassing) 

Luckily the sun was shining bright again at this point and we ended up in a place called Lornn. Lornn is a little township with a gorgeous little beach that we all went swimming in, Liz even tried to do a bit of Boogie boarding in the knee high waves, which made Robyn laugh quite a bit (I should remind Robyn that we are pommes and not all of us swim like you Ozzies- so give us a break if we think we are doing good, boarding at all). After reluctantly prising ourselves from the sand we headed back to Jan Juc and ate and drank at a cute little place on the coast called Growlers, which had really yummy food.

The following morning I accompanied Robyn, Saffy the dog and Sarah on a walk along the beach; there were so many dogs about it must be like surfer’s paradise for dogs except Saffy insisted of taking on all the big dogs like she was cock of the walk (well cock-a- poo of the walk any way). We walked a bit further up the beach and came out at a place near a collection of local cafes and shops. The main café is run by surfers and apparently serves the best breakfast and good coffee- that is if you can be bothered to wait for it as they are all on surfer’s time. We however happily stopped and had a coffee and of course gave Saffy dog a doggy latte aka, a bowl of water.

After we had sorted out the holiday house we headed back to Melbourne and I was now even more enthusiastic about seeeing some real surf when the surf is up.

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