Day Trips from Melbourne

During our month in Melbourne, we decided to rent a car for three days to explore the surrounding area. We mapped out a trifecta of day trips to visit Yarra Valley, Great Ocean Road, and the Mornington Peninsula.

Day 1: Yarra Valley

The first day of our three-day day trip extravaganza took us to Yarra Valley. Yarra Valley is a region northeast of Melbourne known for its vineyards.

We picked up the rental car from downtown Melbourne around 10am, and I grabbed a couple flat whites from a nearby coffee shop while Jeff worked through the paperwork and pick-up process. After successfully making it out of the CBD, we were on the road, only one hour from our first destination.

Our first stop was a winery called Levantine Hill Estate, which our waitress at Neighbourhood Wine (from our Valentine’s Day dinner) had recommended. It was a sleek estate, with a helicopter out front (for fancy helicopter ride tastings!), and a nice restaurant beside a tasting area. We tasted 10 different wines, and I really enjoyed trying the different white blends which had unfamiliar scents and tasting notes (even though I didn’t care for them much!). We enjoyed the rosé, estate pinot noir, a red blend, and the chardonnay she let us sneak a drink of.

After Levantine, we stopped by Four Pillars Distillery, which had been recommended to us by a few different people. The gin distillery turned out to be amazing! I had never been to a distillery before, and it was a fun experience. It was pretty empty since it was a Monday, and the staff was super friendly and able to spend more time chatting with us, educating us about their gin. We had a gin and tonic tasting, which was superb, and they let us try three additional gins (including a Shiraz one!). The place smelled amazing (from all the herbs and citrus used during the distilling process). Jeff ended up scooping up a small bottle of our favorite gin and the tonic they served with it, which was the best we’d ever had.

Our next stop was Healesville Sanctuary, a non-profit organization focused on conservation of native species; it's essentially a zoo featuring Australian animals! We loved seeing the koalas, kangaroos, and wallabies. The Tasmanian devils were cozied up hiding in logs (it was a hot day!), and the wombats and dingoes were not around, but we didn’t leave disappointed. The kangaroos were crazy - they were like odd deer, and we loved seeing them hop! There was a massive male kangaroo, which was a little frightening to see hopping toward us at one point. It was also interesting to see the kangaroos move slowly - I don’t think I had ever seen one in motion besides hopping! When they aren’t hopping, they’re actually pretty awkward, slowly crawling on all fours legs.

When we first arrived, the kangaroos were all asleep, so in an attempt to wake up them up, Jeff played some hip-hop from his phone, and it worked! More kangaroos showed up and before you knew it we had ourselves a kangaroo hip-hop party. The wallabies on the other hand gave us an unexpected surprise when we realized they could move freely in their enclosure....although there were ropes bordering the walking paths, we all of a sudden noticed a couple wallabies hopping right through them!

Finally, there was the koalas. OMG, the koalas! So unbelievably cute and cuddly-looking, you could watch them all day, and we were lucky enough to have a “close-up encounter” with them! The ranger took us into one of the koalas’ enclosures to see one up close and take photos. We were lucky enough to visit with Mary, a three-year-old little female koala who even crawled across a branch to the other side to chew on eucalyptus leaves! It was a treat.

After a great afternoon at the sanctuary, we went to Healesville Hotel for dinner, which had been recommended by a few different people we had met. Jeff ordered pork, pear, and sage sausage with beetroot sauerkraut and feta, which turned out to be amazing! I couldn’t believe how much I liked it, and the feta was surprisingly tasty with the sausage. I ordered slow-cooked chicken Thai curry, which was also delicious. We left Healesville with happy bellies.

We had an easy drive back to Melbourne and settled into our PJs for an early night!

Day 2: Great Ocean Road

The second day of our day trip fiesta took us along the Great Ocean Road. We started our day with brunch at Proud Mary in Melbourne with two flat whites (fantastic!), kimchi avocado toast, and chocolate salted caramel brioche topped with potato chips. The food was good but not our favorite of the places we’ve been to (still Archie’s!), but definitely earned the title of most unique brunch.

After Proud Mary, we hit the road! It took awhile to leave the sprawl of the Melbourne suburbs, but we arrived at our first stop, Torquay, after about an hour and a half. Torquay is considered the eastern start of the Great Ocean Road, and it’s a major surf town; it’s home to Ripcurl and Quiksilver, and a beach called Bells Beach which hosts a surf competition every year. We cruised around the town to check out the area and stop by the beach to see the Indian Ocean, then parked to walk around a bit. We popped into The Bottle of Milk to split a sandwich and a couple “pots” of beer (smaller than a pint...they offer beers in “pots” and “pints”) before hitting the road after taking a pitstop at Bells Beach.

We cruised through Anglesea and Lorne, which looked nice but seemed very buzzy and crowded, so Jeff suggested stopping there on the way back. The scenery along the Great Ocean Road became increasingly breathtaking and reminded us a lot of Point Reyes back home. 

Our next and furthest stop was Kennett River, which I had on my list as a good spot to see koalas in the wild. We found a gravel road through a eucalyptus forest and drove slowly while scanning for koalas, and we were lucky enough to spot 10 koalas in the wild! It was amazing and so exciting! The road was endless, making it tough to turn around and leave, so Jeff set a goal of finding 10 before we left, which made for a fun scavenger hunt!

Feeling excited about our success, we turned around to head back toward Torquay. We stopped in Lorne and walked along the main road, and we loved the town! It was full of good shops and some cute restaurants, and the beach was really nice. Jeff said he was craving a burrito, and we were lucky enough to find a Mexican restaurant called Mexican Republic off a side street. It was Taco Tuesday, and we had a great time! The tacos, burrito, and sangria were delicious, and we had a great seat by the window.

After a tasty dinner, Jeff suggested a walk along the beach, which was lovely! We stopped for ice cream before hitting the road, and we were so glad we did - we ordered the mint chocolate chip flavor, and it was unlike any other we’d had before with fresh mint in it.

We grabbed gas and hit the road back to Melbourne, taking the same route back. As we approached Torquay at dusk, we started to see some road signs for kangaroos, and we had our eyes peeled for a sighting of a wild kangaroo. After a while of scouting, Jeff spotted a huge group of kangaroos in a grassy field around a pond. It was an exciting sight to see them hop around as we gazed at the ocean in the distance. They looked so much like deer until they started hopping! We were on a high after seeing wild kangaroos, then drove just a little bit when I noticed more kangaroos even closer to the road! We jumped out of the car again to get a closer look, but I became nervous about the big male kangaroo who kept looking up and staring straight at us as he moved closer and closer. We got back in the car and hit the road, so excited to have seen more.

As we drove toward the main M3 highway toward Melbourne, we had one last sighting of 'roos. I rolled down the window and looked out at them, smelling the eucalyptus trees along the road, and we truly felt like we were in Australia!

We arrived home tired and happy but excited for one more day trip the next day.

Day 3: Mornington Peninsula

The third and final day of our day trip trifecta took us to the Mornington Peninsula. Our first stop was Peninsula Hot Springs. The weather worked out well for hot springs; it was warm but overcast with a nice breeze. We were surprised by how packed the hot springs were for a Wednesday at morning, but we found our groove at a hot pool next to an area with a steam bath, sauna, and cold plunge pool. I had never been in a steam room (Turkish “hamam”) like that before, only a sauna, so it was a little intense and overwhelming when I first walked in. After that, Jeff and I took turns doing rotations. I would return to the hamam for a few minutes, then dunk myself into the plunge pool.

Our next stop was a deli in Sorrento called Just Fine Food to try their “vanilla slice” dessert that Jeff’s friend had recommended.

We left and headed to Montalto, the winery we had picked out to visit. It was superb! We loved the layout, which had a casual restaurant with cute indoor seating, as well as outdoor seating beside their amazing garden full of beautiful vegetables, fruit, and herbs. After seeing their impressive garden, we knew we wanted to have a bite for lunch at their restaurant, but we started with a tasting in the cellar door to try their wines first. The wines were excellent! As a wine region, Mornington Peninsula is a cooler climate that specializes in chardonnay, pinot noir, and shiraz, which was right up our alley! Jeff got us a bottle of the pinot to enjoy back in Melbourne, and we moseyed over to the cafe for lunch. We ordered a delicious warm zucchini salad with mint, manchego, and almonds, along with a Margherita pizza topped with the most perfect basil leaves that we had noticed in the garden. It was a lovely lunch!

Armed with a couple more recommendations from the Montalto cellar door server, we left for more wine tasting. We first stopped at Point Leo Estate, a place recommended by a few different people for its sleek new digs overlooking the water and its sculpture park. The Neighbourhood Wine waitress and Montalto server both told us it was new and worth “having a look around.” We popped in and took a walk along the winery to see the view and the sculptures, which made for a really nice setting.

Jeff suggested we leave to check out one more winery since they all closed at 5pm, and we opted for nearby Stonier. What a perfect ending! We had the place to ourselves and a robust tasting of our favorite wines; Stonier only produces chardonnay and pinot noir! The server let us try so many different vintages, including ones not listed on the tasting menu. Jeff couldn’t resist picking up the 2012 pinot she let us try, so we now had two new bottles of pinot to enjoy during our last week in Melbourne!

We left to head back to Melbourne to drop the rental car off and unfortunately hit a surprising amount of traffic into the city, even though it was past 6:30pm! After successfully dropping off the car at the rental car garage, we wanted to check out the Queen Victoria Night Market since we were already downtown and it was the last chance we’d have to see it. We enjoyed a fun dinner and grabbed an uber home, happy and exhausted from our final day of daytripping around Melbourne!