Learn Australian English in this Aussie English episode of Traveling With Pete where I teach you a bunch of English expressions and slang in Ocean Grove.

Traveling With Pete Ep02: Ocean Grove

Alright, guys, we’re all the way back in Ocean Grove just driving past the Ocean Grove Bowling Club. So, that was there on the right. And we’re heading up to the main drag in Ocean Grove. We are on The Terrace. So, The Terrace is the name of this street, and it goes through the guts of Ocean Grove. “Going through the guts” means to go through the centre of something, you know, if you were shot in the stomach and that bullet passed straight through you that went through your guts. If something like a street goes through the middle of a town then you can refer to that street as going through the guts of the town. “Straight through the guts” just means straight through the middle.

And you can see that we have gotten a little festive. There are a few Christmas trees up. Although, they’re not “up” they’re… these trees are always here, these little pine trees. So, this is The Terrace, the main drag where we have surf shops everywhere, there’s cafés, there’s obviously all of these pine trees with a heap of little… well not little, they’re actually quite large, decorations. Large large red decorations hanging in the trees here.

So, yeah, I spent a lot of years coming up to this street when I was younger and just hanging out with mates. The fish and chip shop here on the right we used to go to all the time. There’s Coles here on the left, which is a chain of supermarkets that you will see everywhere in Australia, Coles. As opposed to Woolies, the other one that I showed you earlier. Woolies is Woolworths, the other chain of supermarkets. Those two seem to be everywhere in Australia.

And we’ve got a little Christmas tree here after all on the corner here. But, I might actually turn right and take you guys down on the beach, and we can go have a look at the main beach in Ocean Grove and I’ll keep chatting to you.

So, yeah, fish and chip shops everywhere, guys, there’s another one you’ll see as I turn the corner here straight in front of us. Fish and chips, fish and chips! And we just had some of that yesterday in Queenscliff that you guys might have seen in that other video where Dave, James and I went down to Queenscliff and… oh excuse me! …and unwrapped some fish and chips, and showed you what was in that. So, definitely check that out if you haven’t.

So, this is the beach in front of us. We’ll get to it eventually. That was 13W, from memory, 13W, the 13th beach west of the bay, hence the name 13 + W. And so, the main beach is actually just up here on the left. So, we’ll just turn in. Turn in to the main beach road and come up over this hill, and you guys will hopefully get a really really nice view of the main beach in Ocean Grove. So, any time you’ve heard me talk about Ocean Grove beach or main beach or the main beach at Ocean Grove, this is the beach that I’m talking about, and this is the beach that I used to always come to as a kid whether in summer whether in winter, and I would go surfing here.

So, I’ll drive down here, I’ll park it in the car park, and we can go have a little wander, we can go have a little walk, and we can go check out Ocean Grove main beach. And I’m glad the sun seems to have come out. So, as we were down in Point Lonsdale before it was a little overcast, and I guess it still is. There’s quite a few clouds in the sky, but fortunately there’s a little patch here with no clouds and the sun’s out. So, hopefully you guys will get to see this beach with a bit of sun on it.

So, there you go, Ocean Grove main beach, and you can probably see, in the right-hand corner as I turn here, The Bluff. There you go, Barwon Heads Bluff. And I might shoot down there, I might drive off down there and check it out and show you guys that after we’ve had a quick squiz, after we’ve had a quick look at Ocean Grove main beach. And there was another Australian slang term for you guys, A SQUIZ. S-Q-U-I-Z. A SQUIZ means to have a look. So, if you have A SQUIZ at something it means you have a look at something, you inspect it, you check it out. So, anyway, let’s park this car and let’s go have A SQUIZ at Ocean Grove main beach.

So, here we are guys down at Ocean Grove main beach. And I’ve been a little bit naughty. I don’t have any sunscreen on or a hat. So, we’re going to have to be quick so that I don’t get sunburnt, but hopefully you guys will appreciate the beach down here. It’s absolutely beautiful. And it looks like the tide’s out as you’ll see in a sec. And you remember in one of the other episodes that I was talking about surfboards and people getting surfing lessons, this is exactly what I was talking about, and that’s what those boards are there, people getting lessons.

So, here you go, we’re almost there, we’re almost there. Walking down, walking down, walking down. You’ll see at the moment that it isn’t chockas, it’s not busy, it’s not too chockas at all. So, you’ll see up here there’s a little surf life saving/surf patrol area, as we walk past, where all of the lifeguards stay and they watch the beach and take care of people who may potentially get in trouble and need to be resuscitated. And quite often I think these guys are actually quite young. They’re teenagers who are training down here at the beach to be lifesavers from a very young age. And so, they man this post day in day out and actually end up watching the beach all the time and checking out if anyone’s in trouble, if anyone needs to be rescued.

And so, you’ll see over here behind me out on the beach, and I’ll try and get a better look at it, but there are flags out there. And the yellow and red flags that you may or may not be able to see actually indicate where you should be swimming, so the safest part of the beach. It’s hard for me to see on the screen at the moment, but you should be able to see these flags, the red and yellow ones are where you should swim. So, if you come down to Australia, you come down to the beaches here always stick between those flags. And the blue and white ones are where surfers need to stay outside of. So, that’s why they’re on the outside of these red and yellow flags. Surfers, people with surfboards or bodyboards are actually asked to stay outside of the red and yellow flags in order to keep the swimmers safe. So, that in case a board gets loose or someone on a surfboard crashes the board doesn’t injure anyone who’s swimming.

Anyway, so this is the main drag, again using that phrase, down at the Ocean Grove beach, the main little path, the main little road that is behind me. And you’ll see in summer, especially, getting into December now, so maybe a few more days or a week or so, this place will be absolutely chockas, it’ll be absolutely chockablock full of people, because as soon as it gets nice and warm, especially, too, at the moment it’s probably 20C maybe, give or take, but as soon as it gets to incredibly incredibly hot you’ll see people everywhere, people absolutely everywhere.

So, yeah, this is Ocean Grove main beach. And as you’ll see, I think, in the distance here I’m point off, that’s where we were in Point Lonsdale down here. We were actually down at that lighthouse. So, that’s about 12km away on this beach. You can walk the whole way. (It) probably takes a bit over an hour, but you can walk the whole way down to Point Lonsdale. And then on the other side of the beach actually goes all the way to Barwon Heads. And that’s where we’ll go next, and we’ll go check out Barwon Heads beach. So, see you in a minute.