June 20 - Visit to Patterson Lakes, Mornington Peninsula

When we are at home in Melbourne for a weekend, we still find that there is lots to do. We usually try to do something involving the arts or fit in a visit with friends. The people who have previously been on an exchange to Canada are usually the ones with whom we enjoy spending the most time. The weekend of June 18-20 was one such weekend. We spent the Friday night with one set of friends, Ray and Cath Kenny. They have opened their home and their hearts to us and have included us in their circle of friends. The next evening I met another exchangee, Rose Chapple, and we headed out together to see the Australian ballet, Coppelia, at the elegant State Theatre. The theatre has an impressive red curtain that is gorgeously decorated with a painted Australian logo.

On Sunday, June 20, we went to visit yet another set of friends, Geoff and Fiona Triplow, in Patterson Lakes, about an hour's drive from our place in Melbourne. They live on a street that looks like it has normal big houses, but when you walk to the backyards, each place has a network of canals and boats that lead eventually to the ocean. We drove with them to have lunch at a winery in the Mornington Peninsula. The Mornington Peninsula is a beautiful area of rolling hills interspersed with wildlife, gardens, orchard farms, and extravagant wineries, like the newly-opened Port Phillip Winery. We had lunch at the Montalto Vineyard and Olive Grove winery together with another couple living in the area, Paul and Tina Larargy. The restaurant was set in a striking and harmonious landscape building featuring rammed earth walls, timber frames and floor to ceiling windows, bringing the beauty of the outside in. It had a breathtaking rural outlook of vines, olive groves, sculptures and walking paths leading down to picturesque lakes and wetlands, with pasture, and a hint of the ocean as the backdrop.

This was an area of Victoria that we had not previously seen, and the lovely scenery just beckons for another more extensive visit some weekend! Our drive homeward along the waterfront through the little town of Mornington was most picturesque.