Sun, Sand, Sunshine and the Australian love of the Beach............

CIRCUMNAVIGATE BEAUTIFUL PORT PHILLIP BAY

Main Features of this Tour: Eastern Beach National Wool Museum Queenscliff Ferry across The Heads Portsea Cape Schanck Hastings West Gippsland Please refer to the route map at the bottom of the page And of course, all the extras you get with a Daytours Victoria, personally escorted tour.

Leaving the city of Melbourne:

We travel over the Westgate Bridge, with some wonderful views of Melbourne behind us and the Port of Melbourne to our right, with "Scienceworks" museum and education centre off to the left.

Scienceworks was once the main Melbourne sewerage treatment works, but has been converted to a science education centre and theme museum, complete with the original steam driven pumps forming a part of the museum.

• A side trip to The RAAF museum at Point Cook is optional. A really good visit for plane buffs, but not to everyone's taste.

As we travel down the Princes Freeway, the You Yangs are on our right, and a bit further on, we pass the Avalon Airport, a base for Jetstar, Australia's cut-price domestic airline.

Geelong - City by the Bay

75km from Melbourne , along the Princes Highway , Victoria ’s second largest city, and gateway to the Bellarine Peninsula and the Great Ocean Road .

Overlooking Corio Bay , Geelong was once a major wool shipping port, the legacies of which remain in its many attractions.  The waterfront precinct is a colourful mix of wharves, convict-built and modern piers, woolstores, restaurants and boats.

Eastern Beach:

The style is art deco, with pools, fountains, grand staircases, lights and kiosk all reflecting the theme.  Beautiful lawns, huge palm trees and picnic shelters reinforce imagery born out of the 1920s and 30s.

National Wool Museum : 

Australia ’s only comprehensive museum of wool, showcasing wool’s enduring impact on Australia ’s social & economic life.

The machinery, skills, textiles, magic and mystery of wool – and quite a few sheep as well.  This museum is very dynamic, with changing displays, as well as the permanent and incredibly interesting displays. It's all housed in a fantastic historic bluestone woolstore from 1872.

From Geelong, we head to

QUEENSCLIFF: 30km (approx 30 mins) from Geelong

Queenscliff is a township at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay , named by Lt. Governor C. J. La Trobe after Queen Victoria in 1853.

Before then the settlement had been called Whale Head and Shortland's Bluff.

Queenscliff overlooks The Rip, the entrance to the Bay.

In the early 1840s a pilot service for ships was set up at Queenscliff.  

• Lighthouses were erected at :
• - Shortland's Bluff (the white lighthouse, 1862);
• - at a point 300 metres north-north-east (the black
• lighthouse, 1861-2);
• - and at Point Lonsdale (4.5 km. south-west).

Ships fixing their position in relation to the first two lighthouses can navigate The Rip. A local fishing industry was established quite early, having access to both the Bay and to Bass Strait .

A telegraph station was built in 1856, and a municipal borough created in 1863. Its name is "Queenscliffe", and includes the town of Point Lonsdale.

Around this time several other institutions began.

• A Queenscliff detachment of the Geelong Volunteer Artillery and rifle Corps was formed, the forerunner of the Fort.
• Presbyterian, Anglican, Catholic and Wesleyan churches were opened between 1862 and 1869.
• Four hotels and the large Foresters Hall were built by 1875.
• The railway was extended from Geelong in 1879,
• and during the next decade Queenscliff's grand hotels were built.
• A gas works was opened in 1884.

Today it remains a holiday resort village, still has military connections, continues its tradition of fishing and plays a vital role in the smooth running of shipping to Australia ’s busiest port.

With many of the relics of early settlement still in evidence. Visit Fort Queenscliff museum and stroll along the main street of this very well-heeled seaside town.

Taking the ferry from Queenscliff, we cross the Heads to Sorrento, which was once considered for the state capital. (Please see the notes at the bottom of this page)

Then through Portsea, a popular, but rather exclusive seaside holiday resort of some 550 people, located 6 metres above sea-level and 93 km south of Melbourne.

In the early 1850s a ship entered the bay carrying passengers stricken with yellow fever. Consequently a quarantine station was set up in 1852, just west of the present townsite. Some of the original limestone buildings remain.

We can take the scenic route along the Nepean Highway or hasten our journey via the Mornington Peninsula Freeway which will take us as far as Rosebud.

Cape Schanck is next on the agenda, with a tour of the lighthouse.

The Cape Schanck Lighthouse has served shipping since 1859. It was built from dressed limestone and sandstone and is significant because the original mechanisms are still in place.

The lighthouse is also significant for its construction features. It is built of limestone with a decorative bracketed gallery, rock face base course, tapered window and door openings and rare stone spiral staircase (one of only three pre 1863 surviving Lighthouses with a stone spiral staircase).

The energetic might like to walk down to Pulpit Rock.

Hastings is the administrative and commercial centre of Western Port and the principal industrial area of the Mornington Peninsula.

With a population of over 6000, it is located 62 kilometres south of Melbourne on the western shore of Western Port, just off the Frankston to Flinders Rd.

It is a popular tourist destination with a pleasant foreshore area and a large and modern boat harbour. Fine swimming and surf beaches are located nearby.

Western Port Marina is typically adorned with numerous pelicans. On the other side of the Hastings Bight is Long Island Point, the centre of a heavy industrial complex.

We return to Melbourne via the seaside Village of Hastings and into West Gippsland, before returning to your hotel.

• The Sorrento leg of this tour can be replaced, with the option of a visit to the surfwear clothing outlets at Torquay, to get some great Australian surf wear. Don't expect too many savings though - it's mainly for the variety and range.
• A visit to Bells Beach, made famous in the film "Point Break"
• We still visit Queenscliff, but we then backtrack to Ocean Grove and Torquay.