I began writing this sitting on the veranda of a straw-bale house in Wallington in the middle of the Bellarine Peninsula in Victoria, my home state. We came for two weeks to do a house sit for friends.
This was our third trip here, having dropped in for a day visit from Melbourne soon after we arrived from London, then popped in for a few more days before Christmas when we parked Alan up under a tree and joined in with the family pre-Christmas preparations.
These included making Christmas trees and reindeer from twigs and creating a new garden bed for the sudden arrival of tomato plants from the friend with an excess. This time we have the house to ourselves and are surrounded by 5 acres of bush, a thriving vegetable garden and several sheds. We were tasked with caring for Hazel the dog, Midnight the cat, numerous hens, a rooster and 12 very cute chicks that hatched on 30th December.
They seemed cute until they began escaping from their fox-proof enclosure. I had visions of magnificent wedge tailed eagles swooping down for a tasty morsel or coming out to bits of chicks strewn around the yard after an attack by foxes or by Midnight the cat. Never having had much to do with chooks, I found searching under them for eggs while avoiding being pecked, and catching fast moving chicks, such an interesting experience that I made it my goal to keep all chooks and chicks alive. Luckily, we did have some help with the task. Each night the rooster coralled the hens inside their pen so that all we had to do was shut the gate. They all looked very funny lined up on their perches, not daring to budge while the rooster stood guard.
Overall though, our tasks were not too onerous, which gave us plenty of time to explore the region. It has an interesting history as a favourite seaside holiday destination for Melbourne’s day trippers and weekenders who, from the mid-1800s, could catch a steamer from Port Melbourne to Queenscliff on the tip of the Bellarine, until cars became the favourite mode of transport and made them uneconomically viable. The last steamer ran in the 1960s but recently a ferry has begun making trips across the heads between Sorrento to Queenscliff – a trip I would love to do but the thought gives Ian the horrors with his fears of seasickness ever present. Melbourne sits at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay and wraps itself a long way around it culminating in two peninsula ‘arms’ at the southern point separated by 3.2 kilometres of treacherous sea known as ‘The Rip’ between their tips. The Bellarine Peninsula is on the west; a two-hour drive from Melbourne reached by driving through the city of Geelong known as the gateway to the Bellarine. The Mornington Peninsula is the eastern ‘arm’ and it is an easy drive to reach some very beautiful countryside and more gorgeous beaches with a choice of ocean surf or shallow calm bay swimming.
The Barwon river flows down though Geelong and meanders down through the peninsula, reaching the sea between the twin settlements of Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove. This is a beautiful area with lots of sandy beaches and calm swimming water in the estuary, restaurants with to-die-for views and wonderful cliff walks where you can walk to two lighthouses, around the marina to admire how the billionaires holiday on their luxurious yachts and watch the Spirit of Tasmania negotiating the heads on her way to and from Tasmania. The stretch of sea between the heads is infamously known as ‘The Rip’ so we walked to Point Lonsdale to watch the ‘washing machine’ action of the surf. No ships are allowed to pass through the heads without a pilot on board, with the exception of the Tasmanian ferries. During another walk along the sea front, we spent an entertaining half hour with our binoculars, watching container ships passing though the heads, followed by a pilot boat whizzing up to collect the pilot, a procedure that has become so efficient that s/he can be collected from the ship in 8 seconds. We were very impressed.
We walked to the top of the lighthouse for a wonderful 360˚ view of the geography, and an interesting guided tour of the building. We were all awarded a certificate congratulating us on managing the 121 steps to the top. After that I was rather disappointed not to have been given a certificate for ascending the 900 much steeper steps up the side of one of the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains.
We visited the Port Arlington Mussel Festival where we sampled mussels with two different sauces, a fairly standard tomato based one and a delicious coconut, spicy Thai inspired one. The mussels were so delicious that, when we had visitors staying for the weekend, we cooked up another 5kg of freshly harvested ones. They were the biggest mussels I have ever seen, and deliciously juicy.
The Bellarine is known for its wineries, and great eateries only a day trip from Melbourne. We sampled many of its delicacies at farmers’ markets, farm shops and small friendly cafes. We went fruit picking and filled a bucket with 1 ½ kg of the most delicious blueberries I have ever eaten.
We had a few hiccups trying to get the air-conditioning in Alan the Camper fixed but eventually, after three trips back to the mechanic in Melbourne, and a bit of hassle making sure the dealer really was going to pay for it, we finally have wonderful, luxurious cool air issuing from the dashboard vents – only 5 months late but better than not at all. It was optimal timing because our hosts had to curtail their trip early after one of the struts of their camper trailer collapsed. We spent that day moving back into Alan and making everything spick and span for their arrival. They are very special friends and so it was lovely to see the delight on their faces when they arrived back with four exhausted children to a lovely clean house, a thriving vege garden and healthy animals.
Late the next morning we headed back to Melbourne to stay with my wonderful friend Lynne in Eltham the leafy outer suburb of Melbourne. However she insists it is not a suburb – it is in Melbourne’s GREEN WEDGE. I stand corrected.
*Thanks to Ian Miller for permission to use several of these pics.
1 February 2017
alicecoyle 