I got an email from Peter asking, “Would you fancy a ferryboat ride?” I’m always up for a ferryboat ride. Peter is an Australian broadcaster who had been on Raven Radio New Year’s Eve program for years reporting on festivities near the start of our day. I’d never met him but we’ve corresponded and he was in Sitka once while I was overseas. I told him we were coming to Australia and he invited us for an afternoon. He and his wife Deryn live in Ocean Grove, more than an hour south of Melbourne, where ships pick up the pilot.
He suggested we take a ferry to Portarlington (that is the way it is spelled), a little over an hour by high speed catamaran. So, we got on the ferry Saturday morning at 10:40 and were in Portarlington by noon.
Near Portarlington is Swan Bay, complete with black swans.
Peter and Deryn picked us up and took us to lunch in Queen’s Cliff, a Victorian resort town that Melbourne Gentry used as a summer escape by ferry or train.
Queen’s Cliff has the biggest morning glories I have ever seen. They grow on vines along the ground.
Peter and Deryn took us for some Australian tucker. The restaurant served a meat pie voted “the best in Australia.”
This one was seriously good. We also had lamingtons, an Aussie dessert made with squares of sponge cake dipped in chocolate icing and rolled in coconut flakes, in this case, served with a cream and jam filling.
After lunch we went to the Queen’s Cliff harbor for coffee and took an elevator up a viewing tower to see the narrows that are the entry to the bay where Melbourne sits. The narrows have tricky currents but also some wonderful beaches. This was February 28, the “last day of summer” and folks were enjoying themselves.
A highlight for me was Deryn’s Peugeot convertible. We were cruisin’ the shore to Port Lonsdale with the top down — a great way to end summer.
Port Lonsdale is at the narrows with a lookout near the lighthouse. Deryn pulled out their “crusin’ cap,” a baseball cap to wear with the top down, it was from Sitka.
Peter tells me that when the parents were taking the ferry to Tasmania they would stand with flashlights and send morse code to them on the ship and they would reply. Now we have mobile phones.
