Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's Off To The Beach We Go!

With a hired car available to us, we wanted to take advantage of it. Having been relegated to being stuck at home for the last couple weekends without a car, we took the opportunity to get out of the city area. Anthony had made a quick trip in the winter to the renown Ocean Grove area so we loaded up the dogs, packed a few finger food snacks, our cozzies (swimsuits), and headed out!


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About an hour into our drive and getting closer to Ocean Grove, Anthony recollected that there was mention of a dog beach between Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff, which is just to the east of Ocean Grove. So instead of following the signs to Ocean Grove, which probably would have been packed with people on holiday, we headed towards Queenscliff.

We first pulled into this parking lot off a beach but the signs showed that dogs were not allowed between the hours of 10 AM to 8 PM.

We asked around a little, got some vague directions as to where it might be so we piled back into the car and made another attempt, hoping we'd find it before Anthony reached his breaking point on patience. We pulled into a dirt parking lot hoping that it was for the dog beach and headed down the path. Seeing some wet dogs coming down the opposite direction gave us hope!

Eureka! We found Narrows Beach, the dog friendly beach!

We stuck along the rocks to the right of the actual beach since the tide was out. You can see in the below picture that the rocks are rather large.

You may ask yourself, "why is Senna on the leash?" Well, being our vocal, crazy, teenager, she has the tendency to run away from sheer excitement at seeing something. So we thought it was best we kept her on the leash.

The water was clear, pretty, and cold but bearable to swim in, as Anthony will try out later! The sand was smooth too. Makes you want to just sand there and wiggle your toes.

It's funny to watch them hop over the waves!

Sete romping!

Anthony tricking the kids further in!

Run for the hills!!

Sete was the only one brave enough to venture back out after Anthony tricking them earlier.

Only about 15 minutes after we got there and literally a minute after Anthony just mentioned we should be careful if the tide comes in......a much bigger wave comes rolling in! I happen to be filming at the time but being jolted by a cold wave slapping my butt, I didn't catch all of it. The wave came in so quick and so much higher that it swept up Sete and Chili and flung them towards the rock then actually pulled them back out a bit before Anthony caught up to them and quickly picking them up and tucking each one under his arms.

I was tethered to Senna by the leash in one hand and filming in the other so as soon as I realized what happened, I made a mad dash towards the rocks because Senna was in a running panic and I didn't want her to lose her footing if she ended up getting caught up by the end of the leash. There was no worries of Senna being slammed into the rocks or swept out because she made a beeline for the rocks and scaled it like a mountain goat! It took several urgent coaxings from me to get her down from the rocks so that we could run to the beach and away from the rocks before the next big wave came.

The little exposed head and shoulder is Anthony swimming out to test the water.

The scene shortly, and I mean very shortly, when we got back home.

Now the hired car.....well, let's just say it looks like 3 wet, sandy, and shedding dogs had a party in the back seat.

- julie