Mornington Peninsula

This last weekend we hired a car and took a day-trip to the Mornington Peninsula. It's about an hour-and-a-half from our house and is home to wineries, gardens, natural hot springs and several popular beaches. The weather forecast called for scattered showers last Saturday, so it was a bit of a gamble. Indeed, it was kind of gloomy when we picked up our car, and the clerk at Budget warned us that it "was not a good day" to go. Hmmm... too bad we were signing the rental papers as he said that. So we headed to Mornington.

The first thing we did was get lost. It was a little stressful, I won't lie. I (Anthony) don't like being lost. I also refused on principal to use the new tollway (Over $20 to use a road?!?). So that didn't help. Luckily, our first destination was the Peninsula Hot Springs. So when we (eventually) made it, we were able to relax for a while. It was quite nice.

Although it rained a little on our way to the peninsula (which didn't help with being lost), the weather actually cleared pretty quickly and it was sunny and warm most of the day.

After the hot springs, we decided to head to the Enchanted Gardens, which included several large hedge mazes and other such attractions. Even though most of the day was sunny, the moment we arrived at the gardens it started to pour down rain. We passed on the gardens and instead decided to drive a bit longer.

We headed to the Cape Schanck lighthouse, which actually still operates (unlike most scenic lighthouses). The sun came back out, which is good, but what we didn't realize about Cape Schanck is that it is apparently the windiest place on earth. It was very scenic (see some pics below), but I have literally, no exaggeration, never felt wind like that before. There is a boardwalk down to the beach and we were warned, in all seriousness, to be careful as we progressed down the walkway because the winds got even stronger and we could actually get blown over the side railing! We decided not to go any farther.

We drove along the beach on our way home and found that most of the beaches were lined with "beach boxes", which are apparently little colorful beach huts that people use for lounging at the beach in the summer.

Oh, and perhaps the highlight of the trip was that we stopped by the hardware store (since we had a car) and bought a barbecue grill and an outdoor table set. It had been about 5 months since we have been able to BBQ. We've now had it every night since. I'm not sure how we lived without it.

Port Melbourne Tour

Last Saturday, we were planning to go to the Maritime Museum, but after enjoying a lazy morning drinking coffee and "vegging", it was too late to get to the museum before they closed. So, instead, we walked around our little town of Port Melbourne and decided to take some pictures for you all so you know where we live :) It was really sunny and actually too warm for the fleece jackets we were wearing!! Great news for us since we just went through our 2nd winter of the year!

The picture above is of our building - we live up on the 6th floor (of 9). There are four buildings in our apartment complex with a little courtyard in the middle. It's secured by locked doors that only open when your swipe your key. You can see the courtyard below.

This is looking down from at Bay Street from the stairs that lead out of our apartment complex.

The pics below are of Bay Street - the street we live on. The bus stop is right here on this street, so it's a pretty convenient way to get to work in the mornings. (Anthony and I have been able to ride into work together most mornings. He gets off one stop before me, so it works out perfectly!) Bay Street has everything we need: grocery stores, cafes, restaurants, a post office, lots of little shops, a cute wine store with free tastings on the weekends....what more could we need?

It was such a beautiful day! Lots of people out walking their dogs, playing in the sand with their kids, and flying kites.

The Spirit of Tasmania is a small cruise ship that sails to Tasmania every night from Port Melbourne. Someday we'd like to take it over to tour around Tasmania...probably once the weather gets a little nicer.

Yah for the first signs of SPRING!

This is the closest tram station is to our place. There are a bunch of restaurants along the water - the ones we've tried so far have been good.

Here's a short little video I took from a dock in the water. It's looking back on the street. We love Port Melbourne!

There are a lot of statues and historical monuments along the walkway by the water. There's also 2 lighthouses (1 in the water & 1 on land) that used to be used for navigation for ships coming into the port. If the beams were lined up, then they knew they were coming in straight. Very interesting. The lighthouses aren't really used for navigation anymore, but they do still light up at night.

There was a bit a breeze that day. When we got back to our house, we could see tons of sail boats out on the water. I love our little view of the bay :)

We've also attached a little map below so you can see where we live (it's the blue marker). For reference, it's about 3 kilometers (2 miles) from our apartment to downtown Melbourne.

Since we didn't make it to the museum on Saturday, we decided to get an earlier start and go visit it on Sunday. After wandering around for awhile looking for it, we came across a couple of parking attendants and asked them if they knew how to get there. They informed us that the museum was closed for renovations. Sad. We'll just have to try again later, I guess.

Instead, we decided to take the tram to St Kilda Beach area since we haven't been there yet. It was actually a pretty windy and cool day, but because I thought we were only going to the museum, I was in capris, flip-flops, and a short sleaved jacket. Of course, by the beach the winds were even stronger/colder! So, we didn't stay very long. I did get a little video of some kite surfers though!

St Kilda Beach Park is about 4 kilometers from our place in Port Melbourne and there's no convenient public transport between the two towns. So, we just decided to walk home. This really reinforced the bad choice of wardrobe on my part! My feet hurt for the next two days! But, we found a cute little coffee shop along the water about 1/2 way home, so we stopped and warmed up before finishing our journey. I'm definitely looking forward to going back with the appropriate shoes and warmer clothing though! :) Here's a little collage from the St Kilda trip.

We hope you all have a great week!