Weather today was mainly sunny with some cloud about especially in the morning and temperatures rising to 24C.
Today's ride started with a ferry trip across to the Mornington Peninsular. I had stayed overnight at Cowes on Philip Island which is at the bottom end of the Western Port Bay. The Mornington Peninsula is the land between this bay and the much larger Port Philip Bay to the west at the top end of which Melbourne is located.
Philip Island has many similarities with the Isle of Wight. It is a diamond shape, the main town is Cowes and it also has a Ventnor. It has a rock at its western end called the Needles.
Not to be outdone the Mornington Peninsula has Hastings, Shoreham, Rye and Portsea.
I caught the 9.10 ferry as there are only 2 sometimes 3 a day. This was a small catamaran passenger ferry which stopped first at French Island in the middle of the Bay and then on to Stony Point on Mornington Peninsula.
The bottom end of the suburbs of Melbourne curving down Port Philip Bay are less than 20 miles away so nowhere on the Mornington Peninsula is very quiet. However I found some backroads and lots of hills in the middle of the peninsula and took a ridge route along the middle on the Red Hill Road.
I then came down to Shoreham Beach on the south coast for a picnic lunch. There is no town, just a shrubby beach but it did have views across to Philip Island and the Needles.
Then the coast road via Flinders with many ups and downs as the route crossed valleys before a long downhill to Rosebud on the north coast where I will stay 3 nights.
Rosebud has advantages as a base including being close to the hilly scenic areas and a very good long beach. It is however a fairly characterless town being ribbon development USA style.
After dinner I took some pictures of the sunset on the beach.
40 miles for the day and 2358ft of climb.
Edwin
Posted by Edwin
at 5:08 AM EADT
