The house exchange we arranged was in Mt Eliza on Mornington Peninsula. An hour and a half's drive from Melbourne airport, it's a generally well-heeled community 45km up from the southernmost tip on the east side of Port Phillip Bay, the huge natural harbour that Australia's second largest city sits at the head of.
Mt Eliza's lively centre has enough mostly independent stores, bakers, cafés and restaurants to mean you can shop local for just about everything you might need on vacation. The Canadian Bay Hotel bar is particularly welcoming, with a really friendly vibe.
On the first evening we were in there we also timed it just right to enjoy the free fish goujons with chips being handed out to customers.
Trains into Melbourne are frequent from 5km up the road in end-of-the-line Frankston, although the station car park is apparently impossible to get into after about 6.30 am. We parked in the nearest shopping mall before the hour long journey into Flinders Station.
Melbourne didn't grab us instantly in the way Sydney did when we first went there, but we warmed to it as we explored. There's a free hop-on hop-off tram service (number 35) that circles the Central Business District (CBD) in both directions so tourists can save their legs. The CBD is smart and stylish – with the usual exception of the Chinatown area – and we enjoyed a fine relaxing lunch in one of the restaurants that occupy the Laneways between major streets.
The parks we walked round after crossing the river (Alexandra, Queen Victoria, Kings Domain and the botanical gardens) are all beautifully presented. The internationally renowned sports arenas look really impressive too.
Melbourne struck us as a city that would be nice to live and work in – which 30 years ago we had the opportunity to do but didn't take up due to family circumstances at the time. Shame. I think we'd have enjoyed it, and the surrounding areas.
A day trip up to the Dandenong Ranges National Park was good. The tourist route across the mountain (C415 off Highway 26) has a few villages that are well worth stopping at for a stroll round. There are hikes for all ranges of fitness and experience, although don't bother with the trek and climb down to Olinda Falls. While the picnic area and woodland is nice there, the falls simply aren't worth the very steep descent at the end of the trail.
The Skylight lookout ($10) offers far reaching views to Melbourne, although a very clear day is needed to view the city skyline from 40km away.
Back to Mornington Peninsula.
While some of the seaside resorts along the B110 road that hugs the bayside look a little more tacky and tired than others, they all offer one feature I thought brilliant – foreshore camping and caravan sites right alongside their pristine sandy beaches, with restaurants and bars the other side of the road.
We prefer the crashing of the waves onto beaches or into cliffs rather than the sea gently lapping sheltered bays. So whilst we enjoyed our saunter down the bay beaches, a day of exploring the ocean side of the peninsula was much more up our street.
We started at Hastings, a nice looking small town with a beautiful foreshore area I imagine gets packed in holiday times. I'm always struck by how mangroves flourish in seawater, and there are extensive patches along the shoreline here.
Balnarring beach is the perfect mix of sand and rocks that you can both walk comfortably on and explore tide pools for sealife that's stuck there until the tide returns.
Flinders has the quintessential Australian General Store. A pleasure to browse in for half an hour or so, seeing just what a huge range of merchandise they fit into what seems a relatively small area, then enjoying a truly gourmet pie and a vanilla custard slice from their deli, while reading the Sunday papers they provide in the café area. Perfect.
There are a number of art galleries in the centre to wander around too. Some more eclectic than others – as is often the way in the art world.
If you visit Flinders be sure to take the drive around the nature reserve across the golf course. There are a couple of viewpoints to stop at offering clifftop ocean outlooks.
From there it was across to Cape Schanck, where you also get outstanding clifftop views but can then cross a wooden walkway to get among the rocky outcrops forming the southernmost point of the peninsula. On a sunny day the variations in the water colour due to the rocks just below the surface make for spectacular scenes from above as waves crash against the shore.
Gunnamatta Ocean Beach is a must in our view. The sort of beach we love. Great surfing waves boom into a dune backed sandy beach that stretches for miles. We could have sat or walked there for hours, but it was early evening so after 30 minutes or so we continued along the coast to Sorrento's rocky ocean beach, where we watched surfers take their last rides of the day as the sun set.
Just the kind of varied coastal scenes that make a great day out for us.
When our time in Mt Eliza was up we drove back to Sorrento to catch the car ferry that crosses the bay entrance to Queenscliff. Its 40 minute journey time saves at least a couple of hours driving round the entire bay through Melbourne's traffic and makes the $75 (£50) fare worthwhile.
If you've read my piece on California you'll know that with the exception of Big Sur and Monterey Bay, I was disappointed by much of The Pacific Highway.
Victoria's Great Ocean Road (GOR) left us with no such misgivings. It starts in Torquay, a stylish town fronted by miles of fantastic sweeping beaches nestling into cliffs, and a serious surf scene.
Pretty much tracking the contours of the coast, there are countless turnoffs to beaches all along the GOR. Some we were tempted by included Bells Beach, Point Addis, and Point Roadknight in Anglesea (our favourite beach walk along sand, across rocks and over dunes back to the car).
Lorne is a cracking place to have lunch on a sunny day, ideally at the Beach Pavilion overlooking beautiful white sand in a curving turquoise water bay fringed by steep cliffs. The food's good too.
We thought about stopping overnight in Apollo Bay, but frankly, just didn't like the look of the place despite its lovely setting, so pressed on through the forest and hills of the Great Otway National Park.
You can detour down to Cape Otway and its lighthouse (there are cottages for rent there) but we'd decided to get to Port Campbell, the closest resort to the famous Twelve Apostles, so didn't have time.
There are plenty of motels and hotels in Port Campbell, which means rolling up without pre-booked accommodation isn't such a risk.
Of the rooms we viewed we decided to treat ourselves to the 2 bed room apartment with a lounge and kitchenette that was the only availability at The Loch Ard Motor Inn. For the quality and space on offer we thought the very reasonable $175 (£112) we paid for the night represented much better value than other motels' cheaper single rooms we saw.
Like hundreds of other people we headed for the Apostles at dusk, but weren't rewarded with the sort of sunset that has made them an iconic photograph. They are still a spectacular draw though.
The highlight of our evening was dinner at the superb Italian restaurant in Port Campbell, Nico's Pizza and Pasta. From the moment you walk in you feel you're in a quintessentially Italian eaterie. Quirky décor abounds; the greeting and service from the delightful lady of the house, Helen, is warm, sincere and laced with a wickedly wry sense of humour. Then to entertain you further, there's the label on the excellent house wine, which tells a very tongue in cheek story of the wine's provenance. Helen's husband Ron is the very talented chef who produces the delicious food. Read the label below.
Other good stopping points along this stretch include Loch Ard Gorge, The Arch, London Bridge (the archway of which ironically fell down 3 years ago), the Grotto, and the clifftop walk from Peterborough round to the Bay of Martyrs, Bay of Islands.
In our view the surprisingly large and not unattractive town of Warrnambool and the slightly disappointing Port Fairy are not essential to visit at the end of the Great Ocean Road.
It was a wonderful couple of days that afterwards we wished had been three or four.
Next stop was the Grampian mountains, a couple of hours north of Port Fairy.
What started out as a very pleasant drive, first through rolling farmland then climbing into the mountain forests, became a challenging one as dusk approached, thanks to the number of live kangaroos on the forest fringes.
Roos don't appear to be the brightest animals in the forest judging by the number of dead ones at the side of the road. Hardly surprising as, In perfectly sunny conditions, a number did decide to cross the road as we approached. That we managed to avoid them all was thanks to heavy braking and a little bit of weaving at times. Thank goodness there was hardly any traffic on the road.
We'd chatted to some people at the Twelve Apostles who'd stayed at the Grampians Motel just outside Hall's Gap the night before and heartily recommended it. So do we. Great place.
Spacious comfortable rooms, beautiful grounds amongst the surrounding forested mountains, a warm welcome and cold beer.
It was a pity that the kitchen had an electrical fault that was being repaired the day we were there, as the menu looked very tempting. However the alternative we went for - on the recommendation of the motel owners - was the Spirit of Punjab Indian restaurant in Hall's Gap. Very good it was too.
Hall's Gap has great camping, caravanning and motorhome sites very near to a good range of restaurants, cafés, a small supermarket and open air swimming pool. There are hiking routes all over the place.
A word of warning if you drive from Hall's Gap up Mt Victory road towards MacKenzie Falls and decide to turn off and visit Silverband Falls.
Don't.
The long, twisting narrow road you find yourself on becomes one way very soon after the turnoff. When you eventually reach the falls, you realise you've not only come virtually all the way back down the mountain, but the only way out brings you onto the main road south of Hall's Gap. If you want to visit Silverband, go south from Hall's Gap and turn right up the mountain. Much quicker.
Do go to MacKenzie Falls though.
There are access points to view the falls from above if you're not especially able to complete the extremely long path and steep steps cut into the rock that lead down to below the falls. The climb back up challenges even the fittest, so plenty of rests on the way are advisable. And a bottle of water.
The drive back to Melbourne along the A8 is a pleasant enough journey through expansive if not spectacular countryside.
All in all, our 10 days in and around Victoria provided plenty of variety, and more than enough reasons to recommend amusing yourself there if you're headed to Oz.
TRAVEL FACTS
Accommodation: We use Homelink for house exchanges. Membership of £115 pa, or less if multiple years paid in advance. www.homelink.org.uk
As well as the terrific place we stayed on this trip I have 7 weeks Homelink accommodation arranged with members in New Zealand for June and July, where I'll be working to produce a book recording fans' experiences following The British & Irish Lions rugby tour there. That will be another few parts of this series later this year.
Loch Ard Motor Inn, Port Campbell: http://www.lochardmotorinn.com.au/
The Grampians Motel and The Views Restaurant: http://www.lochardmotorinn.com.au/
Car Hire: Hertz. For the third rental in succession things were not easy with Hertz. Our departure was quite severely delayed by a fuel tank not showing full, and the representative's difficulty amending the computer system to record the issue. As it happened I discovered when first refuelling it was a faulty gauge that never showed full. They should have known and pointed it out before we had to find out for ourselves. www.hertz.com
Flights: We flew in to Melbourne from Hobart, Tasmania with Virgin Australia. We left Melbourne with Cathay Pacific, bound for Hong Kong. All flights booked through DialAFlight www.dialaflight.com
Next Stop: Hong Kong
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