Barwon Heads - A Place For Some R&R

While looking for a place for some Rest and Recreation with an emphasis on Rest, we found Barwon Heads just about 100km from Melbourne CBD and 20km from the second largest city Geelong. It is an ideal place for a weekend hideaway.

It is a popular seaside community located on the southern coast of the Bellarine Peninsula, along the shallow and sandy shoreline of the Barwon River that feeds into the Bass Strait. There we stayed at the Barwon Heads Caravan Park, in a one-bedroom converted 1920s boat house on the foreshore.

The boat house features a queen size bed, well equipped kitchen, bathroom, living room with LCD TV/DVD and stereo/CD player, reverse cycle air conditioner, hair dryer, iron and electric blanket. The place gives a very comfy, relaxing atmosphere.

If the name Barwon Heads seems familiar to you, its because it was made popular by the Australian television series, SeaChange in the 1990s. For some Wikipedia write up of the town, click here.

Crossing the Barwon Heads Bridge brings us to Barwon Heads, twin coastal town Ocean Grove, which is another holiday town with a larger commercial centre.

Barwon Heads commercial centre consist of the town’s major hotel just near the river bridge to Ocean Grove, and a strip of shops including cafes and restaurants. There is a small IGA supermarket from which we got most of our groceries for the week-end. It is a small quite town and we liked the place so much so that we actually went there for two consecutive years during the Melbourne Cup week-end.

Not far from the caravan park is the Bluff Lookout, situated on a rocky outcrop at Point Flinders. It has a network of walking tracks and the lookout provides a good view over the town centre, along the Barwon River and the breathtaking views of the Bass Strait. It also overlooks the Barwon Bluff Marine Sanctuary, 17 hectares of the sea from the mouth of the Barwon River and around the bluff.

If you fancy walking, the tracks have a number of lookouts along its route and it boast three operational lighthouses along its coastline.  Also the tracks was recently, significantly upgraded by Barwon Coast.

Also the towns of Torquay, Bell's Beach and Lorne are just a short drive along the Great Ocean Road.

But rest being the operative word for the weekend hideaway, we were quite content to just do a stroll along the beach and watch the many other activities that people do in the area, like walking the dog, fishing at the jetty or at the beach, surfing or sort of surfing, boating or just watch the hugh container ships enter or leave Port Phillip Bay, which provides the only shipping access to Melbourne and Geelong.

Imagine sitting at the boat house front porch with a binocular and camera on hand, sipping a glass of wine, munching some cheese or biscuits, reading a book while waiting for the next container ship to appear over the horizon, hoping it might be a navy destroyer instead.

Imagine looking up from the book once in a while to take note of a family or children walking along the trail back to their caravan or tents and occassionally checking out the birds, checking you out.

Below are the views from our boat house porch on a cold windy day.
So, do you feel rested?

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