Victoria (Melbourne Region)
Queenscliff
From Geelong, the Bellarine Highway runs 31km southeast to QUEENSCLIFF through flat and not particularly scenic grazing country. Queenscliff is essentially a quiet fishing village on Swan Bay – with several quaint cottages on Fishermens Flat – that became a favourite holiday resort for Melbourne’s wealthy elite in the nineteenth century, then fell out of favour, and only recently has begun to enjoy something of a revival as a popular place for a weekend away or a Sunday drive. Its position near the narrow entrance to Port Phillip Bay made it strategically important: a fort here faces the one at Point Nepean, defending Melbourne against an enemy that never materialized. Now the home of the Australian Army Command and Staff College, the fort can be visited on guided tours (Sat, Sun & public holidays 1pm & 3pm; school holidays daily 11am, 1pm & 3pm; 90min; $4).
Full details of other things to do are available from the tourist information centres in Geelong, or enquire at the Queenscliff Library on Hesse Street. During school holidays and in summer, Queenscliff Historical Tours (tel 03/5258 3403) rents out bicycles, on demand they also provide a map of the town, a cassette tape and a walkman so that you can do a sightseeing tour at your own pace. You can pick up the bike near the pier at the end of Symonds Road, or they will deliver it to your accommodation.

Among the attractions is the Queenscliff Maritime Centre & Museum, Weerona Parade (Sat & Sun 1.30pm–4.30pm; school holidays daily 10.30am–4.30pm; $4), which concentrates on the many wrecks caused by The Rip, a fierce current through the mouth of the bay. Outside, a tiny fisherman’s cottage is set up as it would have been in 1870, and there’s a shed where an Italian fisherman painted, in naive style, all the ships he’d seen pass through from 1895 to 1947 (imaginatively including the Titanic). Next door, the Marine Discovery Centre has a small aquarium (daily during school holidays 10am–4pm, other times by appointment tel 03/5258 3344; $3), stocked with local marine life; it also organizes a lot of activities, mainly during the summer holidays, such as marine biology cruises, rock pool rambles, canoe trips and snorkelling tours. The Queenscliff Historical Centre (daily 2–4pm; donation appreciated), on Hesse Street next to the post office, helps put the rest of the town into context. Every Sunday, the Bellarine Peninsula Railway operates steam trips from the old Queenscliff Railway Station to Drysdale, 20km northwest (11am & 2.30pm, more often during school holidays; tel 03/5258 2069; $5). Queenscliff Sunday Market is held on the last Sunday of each month from August to May on Symonds Street.

Point Lonsdale and Portarlington
From Queenscliff it’s about 5km to peaceful Point Lonsdale, whose most noticeable feature is a magnificent 1902 lighthouse, 120m high and visible for 30km out to sea. Below the lighthouse, on the edge of the bluff, is “Buckley’s Cave” where William Buckley is thought to have lived at some stage during his thirty-year sojourn with the Aborigines. At PORTARLINGTON, which sits on Port Phillip Bay about 14km north of Queenscliff, there’s a beautifully preserved steam-powered flour mill, four storeys of solid stone, owned by the National Trust (Feb–May & Sept–Dec Sun 2–5pm; Jan Wed, Sat & Sun 2–5pm).

Practicalities
Three grand Victorian-era hotels in Queenscliff are popular settings for romantic (but very expensive) breaks: the Vue Grand, 46 Hesse St, has a Spanish-style exterior and a fabulously ornate Victorian interior with a very expensive restaurant; the clifftop Ozone Hotel, 42 Gellibrand St, features sea views from two iron-lace decorated verandahs and a gorgeous dining room; while the refined Mietta’s Queenscliff Hotel, 16 Gellibrand St, is perhaps the best of all, and certainly the least intimidating. If it’s available, go for the octagonal room in the tower. 

Among the town’s eating places, the best fish and chips are to be had at Queenscliff Fish and Chips, 77 Hesse St. Among the cafés there are Mietta’s Shop & Bar (daily 11am–late afternoon) in the Queenscliff Hotel, which does light lunches, coffees, and drinks, and 38 South, a café at the car ferry terminal with a fantastic view of the heads of the bay and the Mornington Peninsula. There’s a lot more in the moderate-to-expensive price bracket; to name the most outstanding: Harry’s By The Sea, an excellent seafood restaurant at the foreshore at Princes Park (lunch Sat & Sun, dinner Fri–Sun; BYO) and the stylish (and pricey) restaurants at the historic Mietta’s Queenscliff Hotel and the Vue Grand, both of which are licensed and serve lunch and dinner daily.

Ferries run from Queenscliff across the mouth of Port Phillip Bay to Sorrento.