Day tripping - the Mornington Peninsula

One of the great things about working at a university is all of the wonderful, interesting people you meet. Recently a lovely German student with interesting stories and an intriguing accent arrived to do some fieldwork in Melbourne, so Sam and I decided to play host for the city and take her to one of my favourite places, Mornington.

The day dawned bright, beautiful and very hot - my favourite conditions for a wine tour! Our first destination was one my my favourites: Eldridge Estate. The tasting room is quite small but they have a lovely deck with a spectacular view:

If I ever need to give a small but spectacular party, I'm hosting it on that decking.

Our second stop off was T'Gallant. I've been wanting to go there for years but every time I've tried it's been too busy. This time we were lucky enough to nab a table straightaway and we sat down to have lunch.

The food was...okay. It's reasonably priced for Mornington but we probably would have been better just going to T'Gallant for a glass of wine and stopping off at a providore for some bread and cheese and having a picnic instead.

The winery, however, was gorgeous!

It would have been a great place to spend the afternoon, drinking rose and relaxing.

The final winery we visited was Ten Minutes by Tractor. They do sell wine here but it seemed to me like more of a restaurant than a winery. The tasting area was right next to the restaurant, so although the wine was nice, it was overpowered by the strong smell of meat smoking. The view and setting (as I've come to expect from all Mornington wineries) was, however, completely fantastic.

We drove home via the Arthurs Seat State Park. I had actually never been there before (probably because there's nowhere to buy or drink wine on the summit...) but I was glad to have finally made it - the view was gorgeous! You could see right from one side of the peninsula to the other.

As you can see in this picture, the blue sky had vanished and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees in half an hour. It felt very appropriate that part of my Melbourne experience also included a very Melbourne weather change!

It was a lovely day. I am already planning my next day trip away...