Back in August, Cass and I went out for after-work drinks
with the NAB employees who had been on the Daintree expedition in June with us,
to have a little catch-up. They were all asking me where I’d traveled to in
Australia and where I still wanted to go. I mentioned that I hadn’t been down
to the Mornington Peninsula yet and had been really wanting to check it out.
The Mornington Peninsula is a peninsula about an hour south-east of Melbourne.
It has quaint seaside villages all along it, with some of Victoria’s best surf
and relaxation beaches. The left side of the peninsula is in Port Phillips Bay
and is calm and relaxing, where people can stroll along the beautiful sandy
beaches and swim in the refreshing and still water. The right side of the bay
opens into the open ocean and is known for its rugged coastline, stunning rock
formations and cliffs and boasts of some of Australia's best surfing areas. There are many people who
live down there because it’s a much slower pace of life, but they are still
able to easily access Melbourne by train and car. The Mornington Peninsula is
also a place where many people go to seaside resorts and beach homes to escape
the crazy city life. When I said I had been wanting to go down there, one of
the NAB employees named Lisa said “well I live down there, why don’t you come
stay with me for a weekend?” I didn’t realize she lived along the peninsula and
that that would be an option, but it was a very generous offer and I didn;t hesitate to take her up on
it!
So on Saturday September 13th I took an early
morning train to Frankston, the town where Lisa and her family lives, and they
came and picked me up at the train station. Lisa lives with her partner Evan
and their adorable blond-haired blue-eyed 15-month old son Harry. All 3 of them
came to meet me in their car, and they said we would drive around all day and
see a bit of the peninsula. First we drove to the town called Mornington, where
we grabbed a coffee along the main drag and walked down toward the beach.
Mornington is a cute little town, with one main street filled with local cafes
and boutiques and lined with gorgeous trees and flowers. I had been told by
some of my colleagues that Mornington has one of the best markets on Saturday
mornings, with locals selling their produce and other food products, but it’s
only on every few weeks. We were very fortunate though and happened to be there
the weekend that it was on! So we went to the market and it did not disappoint. There were so many stalls with people selling delicious home-made foods like
bread, dips and sauces, meat, cheese, nuts and fruit and there were free
samples galore! After stuffing ourselves on scrumptious samples (don't worry we bought a few things too), we went and checked out the beach. It’s a beautiful white sandy beach, like all of the beaches along the
peninsula. There were a flock of seagulls sitting in the parking lot adjacent
to it that Harry was fascinated by! He kept running up to them and giggling…it
was so cute!
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| Mornington Beach |
Once we were done in Mornington, we hit the road again and
drove through several more pretty little seaside towns before heading away from
the coast and into the Peninsula Hinterland, the food and wine capital of the
region. It's known for having tons of great wineries, olive groves, restaurants, cafes and gourmet food
stores. We planned to spend the afternoon at wineries, but before that we
headed up to Arthur’s Seat, a granite hill with the best views of the
peninsula. It’s the highest vantage point in the area and has 360 degree views
of Port Phillip Bay, stunning beaches, the Mornington and Bellarine Peninsulas
(Bellarine is the peninsula beside Mornington Peninsula) and the Melbourne
skyline in the distance. Once we had taken it all in, we went and did a short
circuit hike through the forest to a waterfall. Harry was pretty exhausted at
this point and started to lose it so we had to make it a quick walk. We then
drove into one of the little towns in the Hinterland and sat in the back garden
of a cute café for a fresh and delicious lunch.
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| Lisa and I part way up Arthur's seat with the peninsula and sweeping sand beaches in the background. |
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| I caught a cockatoo in mid-flight! |
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| Lisa, Harry and I during the waterfall walk. |
Next up on the agenda was wine! And plenty of it! Lisa is a
mother and never gets the chance to enjoy a glass of wine with a girlfriend so
her partner Evan drove for the rest of the day and her and I did some wine
sampling. The Mornington Peninsula is really well known for their vineyards and
wineries (particularly their pinot noirs), so we went to 3 different ones
throughout the afternoon, sampling the wines and learning about their production
and tastes. The vineyards are extremely beautiful and it was such a nice afternoon to be out there, learning about all of their wines and tasting the
different varieties.
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| Green rolling hills, vineyards, blue skies and white wispy clouds...the perfect afternoon setting! Made that much more perfect with a good glass of wine :) |
After we had had enough wine (and probably more than
enough), Evan drove us all back to their house, and they fed me a delicious
dinner of steak and 2 fresh salads. After dinner we had some of the yummy pinot noir they had picked up that night, and once they got Harry to bed (which
took a while because he was quite cranky after such a long day), the 3 of us
watched a footy game. By footy game, I mean an Australian Football game, and
what a game it was! The teams that were playing that night were Freemantle from
Western Australia and Port Adelaide from South Australia. Lisa is from Perth,
Western Australia, so she has always been a huge Freemantle supporter. It was
the quarter finals too, so was quite an important game. It was so crazy to
watch it with her because she’s such a sweet and quiet woman normally, but
during this game she was screaming, throwing things at the TV and swearing
non-stop! It was quite shocking to see her like that, I’ve never seen anyone
get into a game quite so viciously! It didn’t help matters that they lost
because she was in such a foul mood after that….she apologized to me and went
straight to her room to go to sleep once the game was over. As crazy (and scary) as it
was to watch her like that, it was also a pretty typical Australian thing to
see since they take their footy games extremely seriously, so it was quite
interesting.
The next morning, Lisa made us delicious gluten-free
pancakes with Greek yogurt and berries on top. They definitely fed me well
while I was there! We then drove down to the Frankston waterfront, grabbed
coffees and walked along the pier and boardwalk for a while then went and sat
in the park while Harry played on the playground. After that they dropped me
off at the train station and I headed back to Melbourne. It was a lovely
weekend with an awesome family, getting to see the best of Mornington
Peninsula!
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| Walking along the Frankston Pier with the beautiful family. |
On my way back to Melbourne after my visit with Lisa, I got
an exciting message from a friend of mine in Adelaide, saying her and a few
others would be in Melbourne the next weekend! Remember that footy game I was
talking about where Lisa was so angry because Freemantle lost? Well I was
secretly happy with the results of that game, since the winning team was Port
Adelaide, which was the team my friends from Adelaide go for. They’re huge
fans, so I was hoping that if their team won, they would make the trip to
Melbourne the following weekend to go to the game….and I was right! These
friends from Adelaide are Tamara and her twin sister Kim, who I stayed with for
a few days back in April when I was visiting South Australia. I hadn’t seen them
since then, so was very excited to have them in Melbourne…and not only did they
come to Melbourne, but they stayed with me so I got to see lots of them! So
that Friday, Tamara, her sister Kim, and 3 of their friends made the long
10-hour drive from Adelaide to Melbourne after they finished work, and showed
up at my apartment around 1 am. They brought air mattresses and blankets and we
moved everything out of the way in our living room and let them take over! My poor roommates had to deal with 5 people staying on the floor of our
small apartment for the weekend, but they were very gracious and understanding
about it.
The main reason they all came to Melbourne was for the game
on Saturday evening, so they didn’t have any plans other than that. They
wanted me to give them a typical Saturday Melbourne experience which of course
had to start with a delicious brunch! Melbourne is known for its amazing food
and coffee, specifically for the tasty and interesting brunches. There are so
many great brunch spots in the city, and I have barely even scratched the
surface of them, so I was happy to have a reason to try out somewhere new. We
all slept in a little after their late arrival the night before, then ventured
deep into Fitzroy, the suburb right next door to my suburb. We went to
Breakfast Thieves which was a brunch place that had been highly recommended to
me for a while but I hadn’t had a chance to try it out yet. It definitely lived
up to my expectations! I had a yummy balsamic-cured salmon eggs benedict with
picked beetroot….amazing! After brunch we went to the Fitzroy markets which is
an extremely hipster and cool market that’s put on once a month in Fitzroy. The
vendors set up their funky wares in the back of their “utes” (which are like
small trucks with longer flat beds) in a parking lot. Bringing the South
Australia group to a great breakfast place then to a funky hipster market was
the most Melbourne Saturday experience I could think of, and we all really enjoyed ourselves.
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| Wandering around the Fitzroy markets |
After the market we
all went back to my place and hung out there until they headed to the Melbourne
Cricket Grounds for the footy game. It was their team versus Hawthorn, battling
it out in the semi-finals. The winner would be in the Grand Final the following
weekend in Melbourne, which is Australia’s biggest sporting event of the year!
Needless to say, the stakes were high and these massive fans were more than a
little anxious and excited. The tickets for this game were over a hundred
dollars since it was the semi-finals, so I decided to pass up the game, and went
into the city to a café to work on a job application while they were at the
game. I got home just in time to watch the final quarte on TV…and
it was so stressful! Port Adelaide had been winning for the majority of the game, but
just within the last few minutes Hawthorn pulled ahead to win, which
was a huge surprise! My friends were more than a little disappointed, but they
didn’t stay upset for long because we all met up for dinner and some drinks and
the banter between friends made them forget all about their Port Adelaide
troubles!
The next morning, the Adelaide Crew packed up and left
around 9 am since they had such a long drive back to Adelaide. I then
headed to the State Library and met one of my colleagues, Viki for the People's Climate March. This was a peaceful march that happened in 126 countries that weekend, for people
to show their governments that they care about the environmental and changes in
the climate, and that they expect their leaders to care about this as well. It
happened a few days before the Climate Summit in New York, where leaders from all over the World gathered to discuss climate change and the actions needed to combat it. Not surprisingly, neither the Australian prime minister (Tony Abbot) or Stephen Harper decided they had the time to go to the summit, so the Canadian and Australia marches were particularly well-attended...many many people in these countries who are not so happy with our pm's priorities at the moment. But that's for another type of blog, so I won't get into that now. We'll just say that it was an amazing afternoon, to see so many people come together to fight for what they believe in and it was empowering and motivational to be a part of it. There were around 30,000 of us that marched from the State Library to the Parliament. We then went to the gardens beside the parliament to listen to a few very passionate and motivational speakers. It was a great afternoon and was so refreshing to see that there are so many people who do care about this and want "Actions, not words!"
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| The crowds in the garden at the end of the Climate March |
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