Geelong's modern attractions cluster along the waterfront, where the Geelong Bollards — over 100 painted timber figures by Jan Mitchell — line the promenade between the carousel and the swimming enclosures. Inland, the Geelong Gallery holds one of Australia's better regional art collections and is housed alongside the heritage Geelong Town Hall on Johnstone Park.
For something more unusual, the National Wool Museum tells the story of Australia's wool industry — central to Victoria's 19th-century wealth — in an 1872 bluestone warehouse, and the Old Geelong Gaol up the hill gives a sobering look at colonial-era punishment. Architecture spotters can pick out the Art Deco T & G Building at Moorabool and Ryrie, the Romanesque-revival St Mary of the Angels Basilica on Yarra Street, and — for sheer oddity — the Sphinx Hotel on the northern outskirts, complete with full-scale plaster pyramids.