Southern Peninsula Escape

There's a new style and sophistication here, and an air of the Mediterranean that makes you feel you're a world away from Melbourne.

Seaside villages such as Portsea, Sorrento, Rosebud and Rye started the love affair between Melburnians and the Mornington Peninsula a long time ago. Like many love affairs, this one has changed over the years – but fortunately for the better!

You can dine, wine, golf, shop and adventure – and at the end of the day just slip into a day spa for a soothing natural mineral water soak and a massage.

Here are five top tips for your stay:

• Point Nepean, right at the tip of the Peninsula, is the best-known feature of the Mornington Peninsula National Park. It was closed to the public for more than 100 years, but you can now walk it, cycle it and delve into a remarkable military history that dates back to the 1880s.
  
  
• There's seriously good golfing on the Southern Peninsula, with eight coastal and rural courses ready to challenge you. Our golfing tour operators can plan your stay and your play for you.
  
  
• There's full-on adventure too, with beach and bush trail rides, dolphin swims, scuba diving, fishing, sea kayaking and fishing. At a more leisurely pace are guided bush and beach walks, and strolls through some of the Peninsula's most beautiful gardens.
  
  
• The Sorrento Pier is the starting point for lots of tours and activities, including the Sorrento-Queenscliff ferry which can take you and your vehicle across to Queenscliff and the Great Ocean Road.
  
  
• Call into our villages: Portsea (multi-million dollar cliff-top mansions, a hotel right on the beach, golf, a busy front beach with pier, a turbulent back beach), Sorrento (great style, lovely old limestone buildings, noted eateries, shops and galleries); Rye, Blairgowrie, Rosebud and Dromana all have tranquil bays and a great variety of seaside accommodation.

  Did you know?

• The entrance at the Port Phillip Bay heads is 2.7km and is a treacherous stretch of water called the Rip. Many shipwrecks are testimony to its power.



• Port Phillip Bay is a nursery for the wild bottlenose dolphins and their major birthing place is off Point Nepean. There are approximately 90 bottlenose dolphins living and breeding in Port Phillip Bay.