This day was purely for shopping. Dave and Jen were here for hols and Brad was at work so Dave was our driver and we shopped till we dropped. The aim of our day was to visit as many Salvos stores and homeware/lifestyle boutiques as possible. The Block is a very popular renovation/interiors show over here and we had seen that in the last season that they kept going down to Geelong to buy their decor. So we had to see what all the fuss was about.
Amongst my research I came across the Oh Hello Geelong site. A blog created by two young ladies that moved to Geelong and wanted to promote its full potential. I found most of these quirky shops on their website.
We ventured into too many shops to write about each of them but I will put some info about my favourites.
Our first stop was the Geelong Vintage Market which is just on the main road heading into the city. It's a massive warehouse filled to the brim with antique and vintage wares. The prices do reflect this. Unfortunately I don't appreciate the meaning of vintage and antique and the beauty of the pieces is lost on me. I'm more of a sand and paint anything I can get my hands on kind of gal so I'm not going to pay a lot for the pieces I want. But they had some amazing furniture so do make the journey down to Geelong if it's Vintage you're after.
They had a fab little coffee shop, called The Pickers Union, attached where we had our first (very good) cuppa of the day.
So we headed to the very cool and popular Packington Street, or as the locals refer to it - Pako. There we found the absolutely divine (and award winning) Winter's Cafe. The food was to die for. Between us we had a roast chicken and stuffing roll, a rabbit ravioli and an all day breakfast which you could tell was made from the best of the best ingredients. Even the fruit juice bottles were so pretty I had to bring them home with me.
With full tummy's and a more sane Dave, we were ready to hit the shops again. And we had saved the best for last. We popped over to The Flower Dispensary on the same street, a smallish shop but we spent ages in it - so much to see! As well as selling flowers, they had some beautiful homewares and gifts for sale. These hanging plants were great and their window and shop displays were very creative. Not to mention the gorgeous fresh and dried flowers.
We then headed over to Garden Street where Frank & Dolly's are based. What a fab little shop. So much to look at, you just don't know where to start. Beautiful clothing, gorgeous books, great jewellery and homewares. I wanted everything! I particularly loved these hanging plants. The roots are covered in moss and wrapped in string to hold it all together. All you have to do is dunk the ball in a bucket of water as needed. Isn't that too clever? I might try and make one of these in the summer. I adore the wooden candle stick holders and pom pom flowers (definitely having some of these in our baby girl's nursery).
Last stop was Goose, across the road from Frank & Dolly's. Another great lifestyle/concept store with some great pieces. Gorgeous cushions, fabulous bags and wallets, beautiful porcelain pieces and so much more.
By then we were too pooped to carry on, even the most hardcore shoppers would have been ready to head home after such a long day. But we came away with some goodies and enough creative inspiration to last us. It's definitely worth a drive down to Geelong for some great shopping.
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