The Ultimate Mornington Peninsula Road Trip Itinerary

With picturesque seaside villages, rolling vineyards, quaint antique stores, local markets, art galleries, nature trails and an array of water-based leisure activities, the Mornington Peninsula is one of the country’s top spots for a long weekend road trip.

The beauty of it is, with so much packed into a relatively small peninsula, you can have a wide variety of experiences without spending days on end in the car.

The other draw card is this part of the world is fabulous year-round. In the colder months spend your days curled up by the fireplace at a vineyard in the hinterland, and in summer laze away hours on a paddle board in the serene waters of Port Phillip Bay.

Read on for our ultimate itinerary for a long weekend away.

Melbourne to Merricks – 1 hour 15 minutes

Head up the highway to the peninsula and admire some of the unique public artwork along the Eastlink roadway (a giant bird and a mini hotel are bound to catch your eye). When you arrive in Merricks, head straight to the Merricks General Wine Store for a good coffee and a light lunch made from seasonal local produce. There’s also a great provedore here, where you can pick up some local preserves and wines to take with you.

Merricks general wine store — Head straight to the Merricks General Wine Store

After lunch it’s time to whip around some of the fabulous wineries in the Red Hill area for a tasting. Foxey’s Hangout , Polperro , Paringa Estate , Quealy Winemakers , Main Ridge Estate and T’Gallant are all worth a look. At Montalto Estate , take a walk along the sculpture trail or grab a woodfired pizza if you’re still feeling peckish.

If you want to get a broad appreciation for the area’s food and wine in one spot, visit all-day bistro, bar and cellar door Many Little . Sit on the huge deck, soak up the atmosphere (this is a popular spot with locals) and sample wines, beers and ciders from the region. Be sure to check out the beautifully curated Amelie & Frank’s boutique a few doors down and spend all your hard-earned cash on lovely things. Gordon Studio Glassblowers in Red Hill is also worth a look while you’re in the area – they are considered some of the best glassblowers in Australia.

Check into your accommodation at the architecturally formidable Jackalope late afternoon, so you can sit by the infinity pool and enjoy watching the sun set behind the vines. Make time to admire the incredible artwork throughout the hotel, which was one of the few Australian accommodation offerings to make it onto Condé Nast Traveler’s hot list last year. Have dinner at Rare Hare , or Jackalope’s fancier offering Doot Doot Doot.

As you’d expect with a five-star hotel, Jackalope’s service is on point

Merricks to Pt. Leo Estate – 10 minutes

Hop up in the morning and head to a yoga class at the beautifully intimate HotHut Yoga . Then make your way to Pt. Leo Estate and take your time walking around its sculpture park. Set high on a hill and with Western Port Bay as the backdrop, this is a truly unique spot to drink in some incredible art. After your artsy stroll, head inside to Laura restaurant for a degustation lunch – chef Phil Woods’ restaurant recently landed the Best New Restaurant gong at the Good Food Guide Awards. You won’t be disappointed.

Pt. Leo Estate to Cape Schanck – 25 minutes

After lunch make your way to the evening’s accommodation at the freshly finished Cape Schanck Resort . With sweeping views of the rugged coastline, this resort is adjacent to a world-class golf course. If swinging a club is not your thing the day spa at Cape Schanck is also amazing. The hammam-style bathing experience is a cheap and cheerful way to experience the amenities, or choose from one of their indulgent treatments.

One you’ve taken part in your afternoon leisure activity of choice spend the evening dining at the Cape Restaurant (which is quickly becoming one of the peninsula’s hot dining spots).

Cape Schanck to Fingal – 15 minutes

In the morning head down the road to the Peninsula Hot Springs in Fingal. This is Victoria’s first natural hot springs and day spa centre. It’s won a slew of tourism awards, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a beautifully landscaped labyrinth of thermal pools, saunas and private bath houses. Be sure to make your way up to the top bath, which offers views across the rolling hills.

Fingal to Sorrento / Portsea – 25 minutes

When you’ve soaked your cares away, jump back in the car and head to Sorrento and Portsea (two towns side by side at the end of the peninsula). These beachside towns have long been the playground of wealthy Melburnians, so among the jaw-dropping holiday homes you’ll find excellent art galleries, cafes and shops to explore. The Portsea Hotel is something of an icon, so be sure to drop in for a lazy beer or wine and do a spot of people watching.

The beaches here are top notch. Go for a dip or take part in one of the many water activities on offer, including sailing, fishing and sea kayaking. Also check out the quaint little bathing boxes/huts set right on the beach. These are privately owned and are tightly held – when they do come up for sale the prices are often eye-watering.

You also might like to go for a walk around the Point Nepean National Park, which is rich in maritime history. There’s a historic fort you can explore, and bike hire is available if you’d like to take it in on two wheels.

Spend your last night at the Portsea Village Resort, which offers 25 boutique-style apartments.

Portsea Village Resort, offers 25 boutique-style apartments

Portsea to Arthurs Seat – 35 minutes

Kick off your final day with an early morning excursion out into the bay. Moonraker Charters offers a three-hour small-group tour where you can swim with dolphins and seals. The tours depart from the Sorrento pier. Have fish and chips for lunch afterwards on the beach.

Then make your way to the Arthurs Seat Eagle which gives you the chance to soar in a cable car through the forest canopy over Arthurs Seat State Park. You’ll get great views across Port Phillip Bay to Melbourne.

Soar in a cable car through the forest canopy over Arthurs Seat State Park

Arthurs Seat to Melbourne (via Tyabb) – 1 hour 30 mins

On the journey back to Melbourne stop in at Tyabb Packing House Antiques. Located in a 100-plus-year-old cool store, the range of vintage items on offer provides a wonderful trip down memory lane. There’s also a cafe on site where you can grab a decent coffee for the drive home.

Video credit: Visit Victoria/Tourism Australia

The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

There are no kangaroos back in Chicago: they’re all here in the Grampians/Gariwerd . In the heart of the Grampians National Park’s main gateway town, Halls Gap, pods of eastern greys are eating grass beside my parked rental car beneath the stars. Next morning, when I see the backyard of my rented villa on the edge of town for the first time, there are kangaroos feeding beside a slow-moving creek, lined with river red gums.

Five hundred metres up the road, 50 or so of them are eating by the side of the road in a paddock. I pull over to watch and spot three emus. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos fly overhead towards the tall green mountains just beyond town.

‘Kee-ow, keee-oww’… their calls fuse with the maniacal cackle of a kookaburra (or 10). Gawd, how I’ve missed the sound of them. Far above, a wedge-tailed eagle watches, and there you go: the ‘great birds of Australia’ trifecta, all half a kay from the town limits.

Exchanging city chaos for country calm

kangaroos near Halls Gap, Grampians National Park — The park is renowned for its significant diversity of native fauna species. (Image: Visit Victoria/Robert Blackburn)

I’ve come to the Grampians to disconnect, but the bush offers a connection of its own. This isn’t just any bush, mind you. The Grampians National Park is iconic for many reasons, mostly for its striking sandstone mountains – five ridges run north to south, with abrupt, orange slopes which tumble right into Halls Gap – and for the fact there’s 20,000 years of traditional rock art. Across these mountains there are more than 200 recorded sites to see, created by the Djab Wurrung, Jardwadjali and Gunditjmara peoples. It’s just like our outback… but three hours from Melbourne.

I’ve come here for a chance at renewal after the chaos of my life in America’s third-largest city, Chicago, where I live for now, at the whim of a relative’s cancer journey. Flying into Melbourne’s airport, it only takes an hour’s drive to feel far away from any concept of suburbia. When I arrive in Halls Gap two hours later, the restaurant I’m eating at clears out entirely by 7:45pm; Chicago already feels a lifetime ago.

The trails and treasures of the Grampians

sunrise at Grampians National Park /Gariwerd — Grampians National Park /Gariwerd covers almost 2000 square kilometres. (Image: Ben Savage)

Though the national park covers almost 2000 square kilometres, its best-known landmarks are remarkably easy to access. From my carpark here, among the cockatoos and kangaroos on the fringe of Halls Gap, it only takes 60 seconds’ driving time before I’m winding my way up a steep road through rainforest, deep into the mountains.

Then it’s five minutes more to a carpark that serves as a trailhead for a hike to one of the park’s best vantage points, The Pinnacles . I walk for an hour or so, reacquainting myself with the smells and the sounds of the Aussie bush, before I reach it: a sheer cliff’s edge lookout 500 metres up above Halls Gap.

walking through a cave, Hollow Mountain — Overlooking the vast Grampians landscape from Hollow Mountain. (Image: Robert Blackburn)

There are hikes and there are lookouts and waterfalls all across this part of the park near town. Some are a short stroll from a carpark; others involve long, arduous hikes through forest. The longest is the Grampians Peaks Trail , Victoria’s newest and longest iconic walk, which runs 160 kilometres – the entire length of Grampians National Park.

Local activities operator Absolute Outdoors shows me glimpses of the trail. The company’s owner, Adrian Manikas, says it’s the best walk he’s done in Australia. He says he’s worked in national parks across the world, but this was the one he wanted to bring his children up in.

“There’s something about the Grampians,” he says, as he leads me up a path to where there’s wooden platforms for tents, beside a hut looking straight out across western Victoria from a kilometre up in the sky (these are part of the guided hiking options for the trail). “There are things out here that you won’t see anywhere else in Australia.” Last summer, 80 per cent of the park was damaged by bushfire, but Manikas shows me its regrowth, and tells me of the manic effort put in by volunteers from town – with firefighters from all over Australia – to help save Halls Gap.

wildflowers in Grampians National Park — Spot wildflowers. (Image: Visit Victoria)

We drive back down to Halls Gap at dusk to abseil down a mountain under the stars, a few minutes’ walk off the main road into town. We have headlamps, but a full moon is enough to light my way down. It takes blind faith to walk backwards down a mountain into a black void, though the upside is I can’t see the extent of my descent.

Grampians National Park at sunset. (Image: Wine Australian)

The stargazing is ruined by the moon, of course, but you should see how its glow lights up the orange of the sandstone, like in a theme park. When I’m done, I stand on a rocky plateau drinking hot chocolate and listening to the Aussie animals who prefer nighttime. I can see the streets of Halls Gap off in the distance on this Friday night. The restaurants may stay open until 8pm tonight.

What else is on offer in The Grampians?

a boat travelling along the Wimmera River inDimboola — Travelling along the Wimmera River in Dimboola. (Image: Chris McConville)

You’ll find all sorts of adventures out here – from rock climbing to canoeing to hiking – but there’s more to the Grampians than a couple of thousand square kilometres of trees and mountains. Halls Gap may be known to most people, but what of Pomonal, and Dimboola, and Horsham? Here in the shadow of those big sandstone mountains there are towns and communities most of us don’t know to visit.

And who knew that the Grampians is home to Victoria’s most underrated wine region ? My disconnection this morning comes not in a forest, but in the tasting rooms and winery restaurants of the district. Like Pomonal Estate, barely 10 minutes’ drive east of Halls Gap, where UK-born chef Dean Sibthorp prepares a locally caught barramundi with lentil, pumpkin and finger lime in a restaurant beside the vines at the base of the Grampians. Husband-and-wife team Pep and Adam Atchison tell me stories as they pour their prize wines (shiraz is the hero in these parts).

dining at Pomonal Estate — Dine in a restaurant beside vines at Pomonal Estate. (Image: Tourism Australia)

Three minutes’ drive back down the road, long-time mates Hadyn Black and Darcy Naunton run an eclectic cellar door out of a corrugated iron shed, near downtown Pomonal. The Christmas before last, half the houses in Pomonal burnt down in a bushfire, but these locals are a resilient lot.

The fires also didn’t stop the construction of the first art centre in Australia dedicated to environmental art in a nature-based precinct a little further down the road (that’s Wama – the National Centre for Environmental Arts), which opened in July. And some of the world’s oldest and rarest grape vines have survived 160 years at Best’s Wines, outside the heritage town of Great Western. There’s plantings here from the year 1868, and there’s wines stored in century-old barrels within 150-year-old tunnels beneath the tasting room. On the other side of town, Seppelt Wines’ roots go back to 1865. They’re both only a 30-minute drive from Halls Gap.

Salingers of Great Western — Great Western is a charming heritage town. (Image: Griffin Simm)

There’s more to explore yet; I drive through tiny historic towns that barely make the map. Still part of the Grampians, they’re as pretty as the mountains behind them: full of late 19th-century/early 20th-century post offices, government offices and bank buildings, converted now to all manner of bric-a-brac stores and cafes.

The Imaginarium is one, in quirky Dimboola, where I sleep in the manager’s residence of an old National Australia Bank after a gourmet dinner at the local golf club, run by noted chef and teacher, Cat Clarke – a pioneer of modern Indigenous Australian cooking. Just south, I spend an entire afternoon at a winery, Norton Estate Wines, set on rolling calico-coloured hills that make me think of Tuscany, chit-chatting with owners Chris and Sam Spence.

Being here takes me back two decades, when I lived here for a time. It had all seemed as foreign as if I’d driven to another planet back then (from Sydney/Warrane), but there seemed something inherently and immediately good about this place, like I’d lived here before.

And it’s the Australian small-town familiarity of the Grampians that offers me connection back to my own country. Even in the better-known Halls Gap, Liz from Kerrie’s Creations knows I like my lattes with soy milk and one sugar. And while I never do get the name of the lady at the local Ampol station, I sure know a lot about her life.

Kookaburras on a tree — Kookaburras are one of some 230 bird species. (Image: Darren Donlen)

You can be a local here in a day; how good is that? In Chicago, I don’t even know who my neighbour is. Though each day at dusk – when the kangaroos gather outside my villa, and the kookaburras and the black cockatoos shout out loud before settling in to sleep – I prefer the quieter connection I get out there in the bush, beneath these orange mountains.

A traveller’s checklist

Staying there

Sleep beside the wildlife on the edge of Halls Gap at Serenity .

Playing there

abseiling down Hollow Mountain — Hollow Mountain is a popular abseiling site.

Go abseiling under the stars or join a guided hike with Absolute Outdoors . Visit Wama , Australia’s first environmental art centre. Check out Dimboola’s eccentric Imaginarium .

Eating there

steak, naan bread and beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap serves a great steak on naan bread.

Eat world-class cuisine at Pomonal Estate . Dine and stay at much-revered icon Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld. The ‘steak on naan’ at Halls Gap brewhouse Paper Scissors Rock , can’t be beat.

Dunkeld Arboretum in Grampians National Park — The serene Dunkeld Arboretum.

For Halls Gap’s best breakfasts head to Livefast Cafe . Sip local wines at Great Western’s historic wineries, Best’s Wines , Seppelt Wines and Norton Estate Wines .

two glasses of beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Sink a cold one at Paper Scissors Rock.

The ultimate Mornington Peninsula road trip