Queenscliff to Blairgowrie: The Mornington Peninsula

The ferry crossing to Sorrento was pretty quick with a few penguins to spot on the way. In Sorrento, a well-to-do town where we thought we'd spend the night, the camping options were limited with many of the public municipal sites not open until December. We caught the tourist info just as it was closing to prevail upon them for some camping options. 'Are you in a tent or a van?' The lady asked.... Never quite sure how to reply to this question we replied truthfully that we were in fact sleeping in the back of our station wagon. The lady seemed concerned that this might not be acceptable to the nearby caravan park, at which point we assured her that we had stayed in numerous caravan parks so far and no one else batted an eyelid. In fact this lady was the only person we have encountered so far who did bat her eyelid! Eventually, we made it to the charming Blairgowrie caravan park where we would spend the night.
The next day led us to explore the beautiful region of the Mornington Peninsula, where fortunately for us they also make excellent wine. It is a cool climate area and offers Pinots and Rieslings more than Shiraz which had been the most common variety so far. The real surprise favourites were the Chardonnays, which if we didn't have to store the wine in our car, we would easily have bought numerous bottles.
Montalto was the first vineyard and chosen primarily by its proximity to Flinders. Named for Captain Flinders who was a distinguished navigator and cartographer, the first to circumnavigate Australia in 1801-1802 as well as carrying out a lot of explorations and expeditions. A great deal of land features are therefore named after him, from the historic town in Victoria to the university in South Australia and much more in between. In Flinders we partook of a record breaking custard slice. The shop we bought it from holds the Guinness World Record for the largest ever custard slice, weighing in at 500kg, our slice came in at 500g! Still rather too much for us! We went to a second vineyard called Ten Minutes by Tractor mainly because of the name and unique because it's the only vineyard where we left empty handed!
While on the peninsula, we also took the time to visit the Cape Schanck lighthouse where we took a walk along the cliffs, nearly getting blown over before turning back to the safety of the wagon. Back in the carpark we admired the bravery of a surfer heading out into the high seas, high winds and rocky shores. Following our adventure in the peninsula, we originally planned to stay in Frankston. Though this was thwarted when the caravan site was full. Free camping is limited in the region so for the second time that day, we opted to go somewhere for the name. Poowong. Not only is it a great name, but the campsite was free. We stayed there for a couple of days, all the while exploring the South Gippsland area. It's very lush and green, beautiful pasture and rolling hills that are quite stunning, even in the continued rain.

Torquay to Queenscliff: oil leak ahoy

We left Torquay and headed to the next major town, Geelong (pronounced Je-long, as in the French Je). After some supplies and an explore we hopped in the car with the hope of exploring the areas wineries. It had been raining pretty solidly since the previous evening and when we arrived at Jack Rabbit vineyard, the water on the ground showed up iridescent rainbow blobs in our tracks, in other words, we were leaking oil.
We decided to carry on to the next town, a small place called Queenscliff and get the problem (hopefully) sorted out there. Once again we decided to get out of the rain for the night and so booked ourselves into the local dive centre accommodation. It is as it sounds, a place where you learn to scuba dive but they also have great rooms and a large open kitchen for tourists or scuba groups to stay in which must help things along in the off season. We were welcomed by Dave and Johnny. On our asking for a mechanic in the area, Johnny, who also happened to live in the centre as he's a dive instructor, offered to look at the car for us so Tom and he went out in the rain to have a look under the bonnet. I thought it best to leave them to it, yet five minutes later on going out to see how things were looking, there were not two but four men peering into the engine! One of whom was on the phone to his mate (presumably a mechanic) saying "If I were a Commodore station wagon leaking oil, where would I be leaking from?" The overall view was that it could be anything, however they did suggest a mechanic to take it to the following day. It was great though and that helpful and supportive attitude has been echoed in other circumstances on our trip.
We dropped the car off at the mechanic and decided to take a walk to see the nearby Marine Discovery Centre. Someone must have found people walking this stretch of road peculiar as they stopped to offer us a lift. Don't worry Mum, we didn't get into a stranger's car as we didn't have far to go! The marine centre was essentially a small but very informative aquarium focussing on the eco-system in the wetlands of the region and nearby Port Philip Bay (where Melbourne is). Happily, we arrived at feeding time so had a great tour around the tanks including that of a Blue Ringed Octopus. We stood and watched/listened in abject horror/surprise as the guide hand fed one of the most deadly creatures in Australia. He also recounted a story of a friend who for some unknown reason had decided to keep one of these poisonous cephalopods as a pet. In a tank. In their house. The guide himself had also kept one and his friend rang him to tell him to get rid of it. The reason being that his wife had woken up one morning to find all the fish dead in the tank and having scooped them out with an ice cream tub was laid out paralysed for half a day. Even though the tank was huge and the amount of poison secreted by the octopus was very small, it was enough to knock out this lady and mercifully she survived. It was as he told us this story that he put his hand into the octopus' beak to feed it, its rings getting more blue by the second, something that happens when it's aggravated or threatened. Bizarre!
Before too long the mechanic called to say the car was ready and the problem had been caused by the oil pressure switch. Unfortunately, it was cup day in Geelong (horse racing) so he wasn't able to fit a new part, so a second hand one would have to do for now...
We had delicious fish and chips in Queenscliff town centre before getting the ferry to Sorrento to explore the beautiful Mornington Peninsula.
x Annie & Tom