Mornington Peninsula

Tuesday February 6

We drive from Geelong on our way to spend four days around the Mornington Peninsula - just south of Melbourne.  We are looking forward to settling down in one place for more than a day!  We catch a ferry from Queenscliff over to the peninsula which saves us a couple hours of driving and gives Clark a chance to take his eyes off the road for a change.  The views from the ferry are beautiful and we spend the trip sipping on coffee and watching the sea life.  Most impressive are some birds fishing like I've never seen before - these birds hit the water so hard and then completely disappear - long enough that I am convinced they have drowned or died from force of impact - then they just pop right out of the ocean with a fish - so amazing to watch! 

Our first inkling that Mornington is the playground for the Melbourne rich & famous are the mansions overlooking the cliffs near Portsea.  The boathouses for these mansions are easily triple the size of our house in Canada, and the yards look like miniature versions of the Melbourne botanical gardens.  Our second inkling is that the price of a hamburger & fries in the first pub we stop at for lunch is $33.00!!!  We head to a different café and split a less expensive pizza.  Audrey is pretty happy to discover that there is ham on the pizza!

Audrey and Ellen playing at the cafe (this one's for you Rippy)

The Mornington peninsula is stunning - with lots of sheltered white sandy beaches, cliff walks, fresh-produce farms, vineyards, and charming little towns loaded with boutique shops and café's.  So the brochures tell us anyway…

We don't see any of it for the first couple days.  We spend the first two days unpacking and doing laundry while trying to recuperate and catch up on sleep - this constant travelling is wearing all of us down.  We are continually adjusting our expectations of what we can see and do while travelling with small children. 

It's tempting when we read the guidebook & brochures to try and visit all of the different attractions, or travel to all of the interesting places.  But, it's also exhausting trying to organize accommodation, food, clothing & the constantly metamorphosing diaper bag for those trips and fit all of the sightseeing in while keeping the kids fed, rested and entertained.  I think we need to start treating Australia more like home.  There are zoos, water parks, specialty shops, cinemas, amusement parks, swimming pools, etc. there too but we don't try to go to one every day.  We also don't decide on a whim to drive to Kelowna and take the kids on a wine-tasting tour, or suddenly pick up and drive to Jasper to hike Mount Robson.  Time to put the guidebook & brochures down for awhile!!! 

Thursday February 8

Our friends from Melbourne drive up to visit for the afternoon/evening and coax us out of the house.  We drive to a little town called Mt. Martha where the girls play on the beach and in the water.  Rusty is getting more confident with the ocean waves and these sheltered beaches make her even more comfortable with venturing deeper into the ocean.

We drive back to Mornington and stroll through the town stopping at an Italian café to sit down and feed the girls.  The adults semi-enjoy a glass of beer or bubbly while trying to bounce and spoon-feed babies and keep the toddlers from running away down the street.

Rusty holding hands with her new best friend

Enjoying some ice-cream back at our flat

Our friends join us for dinner and some lively and uninterrupted conversation once all of the children are finally asleep.  They regale us with tales of giant Australian spiders.  My girlfriend describes some spiders with enormous long-legs compared to their bodies.  I chime in that "we have those back home too - we call them Daddy-Longlegs."  She almost falls off her chair laughing.  I guess they have Daddy-Longlegs here too, and they are to the spiders she describes as a Koala is to a Grizzly bear!

Friday February 8

We have a busy weekend planned (which we planned weeks ago) on Phillips Island and then we are determined to settle down somewhere and stop the endless packing and unpacking that has become the bane of our existence!  Off to Phillips Island...