Mornington Peninsula

Sunday 24^th September 2017

Spring holidays upon us and we set the car / caravan in a south east direction – less than 100 km’s from home for a week. Point Leo on the Mornington Peninsula to be exact. It’s the ‘foreshore camping’ so not as glamourous as a five star caravan park – basic but comfortable enough. And it was nice to leave home around 10am and be set up for a late morning tea!

Point Leo sits on the shores of Western Port Bay, with a view across to Philip Island, The Nobbies to be exact. In surfing circles, Point Leo is a well-known place to catch a wave or two. Not being surfers ourselves, there were plenty of other attractions in the area to keep us amused for at least a week.

After lunch explored some of the foreshore area, including along the beach and the woodlands that border the shoreline. The tip of point Leo is also known as Bobbinarring point – named after a leader of the indigenous Boon wurrung balag clan.

We rode our bikes all the way around to the lifesaving club – closed up and quite on this drizzly, cool and overcast day.

Although quite a few campers in residence, it was a nice quiet evening with noise levels dropping off at a reasonable hour. It was nice to be camping in our home away from home again.

Monday 25^th September 2017

Ashcombe Maze and Lavender Gardens is just five minutes from Point Leo, and it is where we spent this morning exploring. The maze was established in the 1970s and consists of two large hedge mazes – one of which has recently been replanted, so does not feel very mazy at all. The other we met the challenge of finding the four mosaic corners with ease.

There is a rose maze which was the most challenging one of the day. Then there was the lavender labyrinth which was colourful as the lavender was flowering. The biggest challenge was avoiding the bees who were also enjoying being in the labyrinth!

The real highlight of the day was exploring the wonderful gardens, which feature a range of themes. A Range of splendid spring colour added to the experience. Plus there was a gnome and pixie hunt which the kids loved doing. With all our geocaching experience, finding 18 critters in trees was pretty easy for our kids!

For lunch we returned to the caravan before heading to Flinders for the afternoon. Our goal was to find some geocaches while exploring in and around the town. Once we figured out how to get to it, along the seaweed infested beach by rather grand looking properties we found one dedicated to Matthew Flinders which was cleverly done – complete with a grand portrait of the explorer.

The golf course hugs the coastline and we took the one-way drive along the cliff tops for great views and a couple more caches. The wind was howling in today though which made it all a bit chilly! Just out of town, heading towards Cape Schanck we visited the Blowhole which was not blowing. There was a cache but we could not find that one, happy with the chance to explore another piece of dramatic coastline worth the effort anyway.

Tuesday 26^th September 2017

Gem spotted something unusual this morning at the campsite... this bright yellow worm!

Exploring more of the coastline was on our agenda for today. We drove to Cape Schanck and parked near the lighthouse. We have been there before and been inside and up it. Today we made a last minute decision to walk to Bushrangers Bay – a walk of between 5 and 6 kilometres. Great choice it turned out to be. The day cleared and was a sunny one – but not too warm. The walk took us along cliff tops, with occasional views, through tunnels of ti tree and then around and over a creek before depositing us in Bushrangers Bay. The track had in fact deposited quite a few people in the bay – pretty impressive considering there is no other way to get there other than the long walk in. It was a scenically, stunning spot, with rugged cliffs, wide beach and the creek entering from the valley behind us. The green grass came right down to the dunes and with patches of green on the clifftops, it was reminiscent of a scene in the UK. We had some lunch perched on some rocks before shedding shoes and socks to walk across the creek. Further round the beach we searched out a unique cache, hidden inside a waterproof but rusting thermos. There was another cache to be found, but it was on a rather large rocky outcrop. It looked very rocky and steep, with no visible climbing point that looked family friendly, so we decided that searching for a small plastic container was not worth the risk of plunging off rocky cliffs into an ocean below.

So instead we went up into some of the sand dunes an indulged in a family hobby of leaping from the top.

Of course, after such a grand time in Bushrangers Bay we had the walk back to the car. We managed it quite easily after the many steps up out of the bay.  Driving home to Point Leo we called in at the Flinders General Store and enjoyed an icecream.

Surprisingly, the kids still had energy when we got back to the caravan, so they rode their bikes to a nearby park!

Wednesday 27^th September 2017

For quite some time, Jet had ambitions of completing the Merricks to Red Hill rail trail. A mere 6.5 kilometres each way, it would be an easy bike ride. The reason it held such appeal was the 28 geocaches spread along its length. We’d heard some were quite creative and clever.

It appears that the Hastings Shire don’t want too many people to know about their rail trail as there was no signage in Merricks to indicate where it began. Plus their own employees who patrol / clean the local toilet blocks have never even heard about it, as we discovered when we asked one about to climb into his Shire of Hastings vehicle and depart what turned out to be a spot very close to the start of the trail!

Well, we got going and sure enough, about every 150 to 200 metres there was a geocache to be found. They ranged from fake branches in trees, to pinecones concealing rubber mats and containers beneath pine tree litter, old metal posts, keep out signs on fences, and even a life like birds nest accessed via a pulley system.

Perhaps the Shire of Hastings don’t like to promote their trail a lot because they don’t actually invest in its upkeep. It was literally a goat track – in fact a swamp in many places, pot holed and rutted in others. If they get too many people on it, they might have to upgrade it and include better drainage and grade it from time to time!

The ride was pretty much uphill most of the way to Red Hill, so we earnt our coffee / hot chocolates once we got there. Happy also, knowing we’d found all of the caches along the trail… except for one, but we’d needed to collect clues for it, so we would visit it on the way back.

The way back was great, pretty much rolling downhill all the way. Except where we had to put on our waders and tackle the swampy mud patches. Found the final cache which required a combination lock to be opened (obtained from various clues along the way), then inside that was a key. This opened another container that was buried in more pine tree litter.  With the rest of the family on their knees signing the log under these pine trees, a couple of walkers passed by. Didn’t want them to know what we were up to, so I hinted that we were burying our dead cat… which of course must have looked rather odd… 2 adults, 3 kids, 5 bikes, in the middle of nowhere (relatively speaking)… why bury a dead cat there? Needless to say, they quickened their pace as they passed us, hearing me lament the passing of the cat.

Back in Merricks, we bought a couple of bottles – one was milk, one was a local wine to enjoy for happy hour back at the caravan to celebrate our successful, albeit muddy and cat-less day.

Thursday 28^th September 2017

After two days of much walking and riding we had an easy morning at the caravan. So what did the kids chose to do? Ride their bikes around and around and around the small camping area! Interspersed with plays at the park, they were quite happy!

After lunch we set out for some more geocaches – more significant in that we were after our 1000^th find! This would require 5 finds for the afternoon. The first few were very creative – by the same people as the ones on the trail yesterday. One was a box full of bears having a picnic, one was a giant toad stall and one a large plastic castle with a dragon!  We still needed one more, so found it in a nearby section of the Mornington Peninsula National Park.

Back to the caravan park for a relaxing late afternoon and evening.

Friday 29^th September 2017

“Coolart” or “Coolourt”, which is from a local Aboriginal dialect and means ‘sandy area’ is a historical home and wetlands located at Somers. We spent the morning there. It is managed by Parks Victoria and is free to explore. The mansion was built by a businessman named Frederick Grimwade – he owned the estate in the late 1880’s and early 1900’s. Today there are some gardens and a huge expanse of wetlands and bird hides to explore. The birds were largely hiding today as we did not see many. We were also able to look inside the house, the downstairs furnished in period décor, the upstairs more of a gallery.

After a couple of hours there, we went in to Somers village and walked along the clifftops before returning to the caravan where the kids had fun riding their bikes and joining in with some other kids in a game of cricket.

Saturday 30^th September 2017

AFL Grand Final Day – and also a long weekend, although being on school holidays it is not noticeable! The biggest giveaway was the campground which filled up for the weekend, with many displaying their Tigers banners and colours!

Anyway, today we decided to return to Bushranger Bay – where we had walked to from Cape Schanck a few days ago. This time we parked on Boneo Road to walk the 2.5 km’s from the other direction. There were some more geocaches to pick up along the way which were interesting and told some of the story of the area – including about the bushrangers that led to the name Bushrangers Bay. The track kept high on a ridge with farmland either side of this slither of natural coastal bush. Gemma spotted a mob of kangaroos, many of which had joeys in pouches – although they looked far too big to be in there! Before descending the final part of the track down to the beach we enjoyed a fabulous few of the bay, the dunes and pounding seas.

Compared to the other day, it was very windy, with sand and salt spray filling the air. The waves were very dramatic as they churned and crashed into rocky outcrops. There is no way you’d want to be out in this water! We hid behind some rocks which provided a bit of a wind break to eat some lunch. Didn’t want extra sand blowing over our sandwiches…

Back up in the dunes we did a bit more crazy sand dune jumping before trekking the 2.5 km’s back to the car. Returned to the caravan to listen to the last part of the AFL final… where Richmond proved too strong for Adelaide. It was our last evening before returning home tomorrow.