Mornington Peninsula

We have come back to our beloved campervan Wookie which was parked in Melbourne for the whole 4 weeks of our "break" from the long trip. 

The visit of my dad and his wife was really great, we spent a mostly relaxing time in Perth with a short trip to Bunker Bay in the Margaret River Wine Region. They have assisted us as best as they could while we were preparing for the move or actually the packers to pick up all our furniture and other stuff which will go into storage until we decide again where to settle. We had to go through everything in the house deciding if we take it with us, sell it or just give it away to charity. 

In the end it was a good exercise clearing out a lot and providing the "Op-Shops" (Second-hand shops run by charities) with lots of new stock. Marlene organised the clearance sale on Gumtree (like willhaben.at) having up to 52 ads running at one point in time, incredible. It was also incredible what we could actually sell and how quickly we got rid of stuff we didn't expect to, and how long it took for the stuff to sell which we thought would be an easy exercise. The last day before the packers arrived was horrible to be honest. At 11pm at night we still hadn't gone through everything and we were so exhausted and tired. But it all turned out fine and on Thursday before we left to Melbourne again we even sold the car (!), the elliptical trainer and the Foosball table just 5 hours before departure. There is nothing to worry about anymore, that's the greatest feeling being back to our camping life.

After our arrival in Melbourne we definitely wanted to take it easy the first few days, just went shopping and made our way to the Mornington Peninsula, south-east of Melbourne to a nice Caravan park. A long sleep and a nice breakfast in the morning and off we went just shortly before midday. We drove along the shores of the peninsula up to Nepean National Park which is the south-western tip of the Peninsula and also the entrance to the huge Port Philip protecting Melbourne from the Southern Ocean.

Point Nepean was used as a defence post to protect the harbour from enemy ships entering. Especially during the World Wars it was of importance, nowadays it is of course abandoned from the military due to modern technology.

You can still walk around in the tunnel system that was built as a fort and as protection for the huge guns that were stationed here.

On the next day we took the opportunity and went to Mornington Peninsula Hot Springs. A day long relaxation exercise in the 27 or so spa baths. You can walk all the way up a little creek with different kinds of baths lined up like a Hot Spa, Silent Spa, a Sauna and a Turkish bath and on top a 360 degree pool with views of the surrounding cattle fields, very relaxing.