Schoolies discover peninsula just a bit too quiet

Jessica Benton
SCHOOLIES have descended on Ocean Grove and Barwon Heads as the newest destination to celebrate the end of their secondary education.
But they have turned their attention to Torquay and Geelong after complaining about a lack of activities and night venues.
A group of friends from Bendigo and Doncaster said they chose Ocean Grove for a weeklong stay after completing VCE studies.
“There’s not really enough to keep us occupied here, so we’ve mostly been heading over to Torquay and into Geelong but it’s costing us a lot of money for taxis,” Bendigo Senior College’s Matthew Indrigo said.
“If we had more money we probably would have gone to Queensland because there’s just not enough people here.
“It would be awesome if they had night events on the foreshore with music and bars. It would bring more people to Ocean Grove.”
Ocean Grove Community Association president Michael Harbour called for an increased police presence as schoolies began discovering the Bellarine Peninsula.
“While we haven’t heard of any issues related to schoolies, if there is an issue it’s that there needs to be stronger police presence in the evenings during the schoolies period,” he said.
“Our view would be that we’d support anything that would increase police presence, particularly in times of concern, and eventually we’d like to see the Ocean Grove station as a 24-hour station servicing the whole peninsula.”
The Independent was unable to gain comment from Ocean Grove police about the behaviour of schoolies because their station was not manned overnight.
Geelong Police were unable to comment despite calls to the Ocean Grove station diverting to the city when unmanned.