Day 93 - Friday 31 March - On the Mornington Peninsula

Day 93

Friday

31 March 2017

Mornington Peninsula

Hard to believe it is the last day of March and we are three months into this amazing journey. We have already seen so many fabulous places, met some wonderful people and had experiences you only dream of and we still have so much ahead of us. Life is good!

After two early morning wake up calls, I was in absolutely no hurry to be out of bed despite Paul urging me to go for a walk. He opted to read instead and I followed suit.

Just after 8 he decided he’d had enough time in bed and was off to shower, leaving me to lay a little longer. I soon surfaced however ready to see the day. It was lovely and blue outside and inviting us to come and play. We didn’t heed its call however, getting caught up with things in the van. It was 10am before we did actually get out for a lovely walk along the foreshore.

We watched the water as it dazzled before our eyes in the sun. The swans were a plenty swimming in the water or wandering the sand bar just off shore. I rang home, catching Mum. She gave me a rundown of the goings on at home while we continued to walk. I spied a beautiful red scratching about in the sand that I excitedly ran off to take photos of.

Before we knew it, we had walked all the way to Rosebud, about 3kms up the road. We turned around and began the trek back to the van, conscious of the weather changing. It had been quite grey and ominous looking towards Geelong and we were just hoping to get back before we received the downpour. Thankfully we did and the rain never eventuated.

We decided on having an early lunch and then packed up our gear and made our way to Dromana, the Base Station of the Mornington Eagle, a 15min gondola ride to Arthur’s Seat. 

We boarded a blue pumpkin and began our ascent. It was a little cool, but worth it for the view. We hopped off at the top and did a quick wander of the grounds, Paul spying the sign “Brewery”. We took some pictures, but the views were better from the Gondola. We found Arthur’s Seat, take 3, to sit on and then returned to the gondola for the descent. While it was a little overcast, it certainly didn’t hamper our view over Port Phillip Bay and the Mornington Peninsula. We could even see the Shadowy skyscrapers of Melbourne, appearing across the bay, like the famed OZ in The Wizard of Oz.

Once we exited the gondola, we drove the car up to Arthur’s seat and stopping outside the restaurant purporting to be a brewery, it wasn’t. Paul still did a 2 glass tasting of Coldstream Brewery and then we hopped back in the car and drove to a lookout for a view over the lower Mornington Peninsula.

Our next destination was a brewery, Red Hill Brewery. It was only 10 mins away, but it could have been a world away. The climate and vegetation was so different to what was on the lower side. This was far higher ground and quite undulating.

When we arrived at the brewery, we noticed it had its own grove of hops out the front. We entered the brewery and Paul was given a free tasting paddle to review, when he finished he got talking to one of the workers about the brewery and their hops of which they are growing four different varieties.

We then followed the Shoreham road on to Shoreham, stopping at a surf beach to check out the view. From here you could see Phillip Island.

We continued on through Flinders and then took a one way road out to Cape Schanck Lighthouse. We parked up and then got out to explore the grounds. An Asian bride was being photographed, just as it began a light drizzle.  We investigated the lighthouse and the cottage before following the boardwalk out to the cape.

The stairs were many and the weather was howling around us, but we were determined to walk to the end of the path. It was well worth the effort. At the end there was an echidna snuffling around a log probably looking for its dinner. We admired the ruggedness of the coastline and the thrashing of the rolling surf pounding into the rocks below.

Once satisfied with our adventure, we returned via the many steps, followed the loop path and returned to the car park. We then returned to the caravan park, basically directly north of our position and effectively allowing us to drive the widest part of the peninsula. It was only a 20min drive.

The day was mostly overcast, but now the temp had dropped, it was however completely still and quite pleasant. We sat in the van for a while doing our “work” before organising dinner and eating.
We made it out for an evening walk, this time it was still light, which made it far more pleasant. The bay was very calm offering very little breeze as we walked the shoreline. The pink of the sun was hidden by the banking cloud, only peeking through in patches. Once at the boat ramp, we made our way to the road and walked under the street lights back to our campground, happy to call it an evening.