Bellarine Peninsula

We had a guided tour of the Bellarine Peninsula today. First stop was the iconic Bells Beach, on the Great Ocean Road near Torquay. Although this picture makes it look pretty deserted there were actually hundreds of surfers here and the carparks were full of people chasing some of the best surfing waves in Australia (or people like us looking at the beautiful lines of even wave breaks from afar).

We then drove back along the coast through Torquay and on to Barwon Heads, where we just had to check out Diver Dan's place from our fave "Sea Change" series from all those years ago. It's a very crowded waterfront cafe these days.... way too crowded for us to tackle this morning!

 More very familiar scenes from "Sea Change" (Pearl Bay) ................

 Next stop was the historic village of Queenscliff - time for great coffee from Saltbush Fine Foods and a chance to check out the ferry terminal for tomorrow's trip to the Mornington Peninsula.

The Bellarine Peninsula produces great wines too (cool climate maritime) and Ros had booked us lunch with Erin, John, Sam and Lili, at one of the best wineries of the region : Jack Rabbit Vineyard

 The vineyard cafe and restaurant overlook the bay across to Geelong, the You Yangs and Melbourne - an absolutely stunning outlook ........

 Lili has a birthday later this month so it was a great opportunity to deliver her presents in person this year!

 But it wasn't fair to leave Sammy out of the birthday fun - so we made sure he had deliveries too.

  

 Sam (and Lili) got almost as much fun out of playing with the gift's box as he did out of the gift itself!

These two gorgeous kids coped really well with our three hour long leisurely lunch, keeping us all entertained with their games and endless energy.

We saw such a range of stunning landscapes today in this beautiful part of our country. We can really see how lucky Ros and Pete are to have chosen it as their new home.

Sam and Lili and Heidi

Our morning started early with an 8.00am date at Chez Dre in Coventry Street, South Melbourne, to catch up with niece Erin and all the W family........which included a first sight of (and cuddle with) baby Sam (he's not even 3 months old yet and look how alert he is!).

Baby sam put up with all the cuddles and goo gaa-ing - all the while maintaining his general adorableness.

Lili is a very grown up big sister now and took a l-o-n-g breakfast session in a crowded (but wonderful) cafe with a bunch of adults in her stride. I really enjoyed our little D&Ms about Peppa Pig and co. Apparently she loves Peppa Pig just as much as her (second) cousin Abi does.

After our lovely catch up with the W family we dropped Claire back at the Intercontinental and then headed east of the CBD towards Bulleen, to the Heidi Museum of Modern Art.

Heidi (1) (the site of an old dairy farm) was bought by John and Sunday Reed in 1934. It was restored by them and eventually, throughout the 40s, right through to the 70s, became home to a collection of Australia's most important painters including Albert Tucker, Sydney Nolan, Joy Hester, John Perceval and Mirka Mora among others.

Sydney Nolan painted his iconic Ned Kelly series in the original Heidi dining room in the mid 1940s (allegedly with Sunday Reed's help).

We were stoked to find an exhibition of George Baldessin prints on show at Heidi 1 today - and to learn that Baldessin's original printing studio was in the old Winfield building on Collins Street - which has been absorbed into the Intercontinental Hotel now. Claire, Jeremy and the boys were possibly staying in a room that may have been a part of the old Baldessin studio!

I loved seeing the Mirka Mora "murals" painted on the glass windows of the old Heidi sunroom. She's 86 now - but just as much a free spirit as ever - a real Melbourne institution!

Heidi (2) was built for John and Sunday Reed in the early 1960s as a "gallery to be lived in". It remained their home until 1980. Today in the still very contemporary spaces of Heidi 2 we saw an exhibition of works curated from Mirka Mora's own personal collection.

This is the outside view of Heidi 2 complete with kangaroo installations.  We are lucky enough to have our own real life kangaroos in our front garden in Canberra.

The Reeds returned to live in Heidi 1 in 1980 after selling Heidi 2, their land holdings, and most of their art collection, to the Victorian government, after which Heidi 2 became a public art gallery.

After major re-development in 2005-2006 the current version of Heidi 3 opened as a contemporary gallery space adjacent to Heidi 2.

Today in Heidi 3 we were thrilled to see a room full of intricate and meditative work by Michael G Prior, based on the idea of the "Organum". His work was in the Explorations 14 show at Flinders Lane Gallery too, which we'd been to on Thursday night.

......as well as Emily Floyd's playful but carefully constructed Far Rainbow exhibition in the main gallery......

As we were leaving the gallery I am thinking....... this is a really interesting garden space I see in front of me ...hmmmm....espaliered gum trees...hmmm....never seen that before.....hmmm.... Then I see that Fiona Hall is responsible for this garden...she of the amazing fern garden installation at the National Gallery of Australia...hmmm. Now I see why it is such an interesting garden!

Before we left we walked around Sunday Reed's kitchen garden to the side of Heidi 1 - noting her poignant little heart garden created by Sunday when her beloved Sydney Nolan departed Heidi in the late 1940s.

..and her expansive kitchen garden, now fully restored and in full use by the on site Cafe Vue at Heidi

Melbourne

This is 12-18 Yarra Place in South Melbourne...an exterior shot of the reknowned St Ali (cafe) where we had arranged to meet Erin and John and baby Liliana for Friday morning brunch. Our first view of St Ali made us wonder how baby friendly the place might be.

Inside this unprepossessing industrial building though, the place was really buzzing, loads of atmosphere, great coffee roasting smells and uber cool but friendly service.

Liliana (9 weeks old on Friday) had no trouble at all continuing her morning sleep among the cafe hubbub while we caught up on new baby and Melbourne news from John and Erin.

Liliana slept all through coffees and breakfast, finally waking up for a relaxed feed, a bit more dozing and then time for a bit of socializing with us.

Erin and John look very happy with no sign at all of the reduced sleep time they now have. They are making a great life and a new family now in wonderful Melbourne.

We were treated to a full on display of Liliana's ability to charm. She is smiling up a storm now and is full of curiousity about facial expressions and making sounds.

I was lucky enough to have my own lively, smiley interaction with Liliana, which she seemed to enjoy - what a heart breaker!

We had a lovely two hours or so with E & J & L and it was sad to see them go.

Afterwards we spent some time up on Cavendish Street, exploring the wonderful South Melbourne Markets, the cool shopping options available in the little independent boutiques...

and exploring some of the character filled side streets in this very trendy part of inner Melbourne. It reminds us of some parts of Surrey Hills in Sydney but without the heavy traffic and crowding.

 







For a complete change we then walked up to St Kilda Road where we caught the number 8 tram to Toorak Village for bit of a wander around the very upmarket shopping village there. I found a pair of Arche boots to buy while Rob counted all the BMWs driving past on Toorak Road.

 
 
We caught the tram back to Flinders Street Station, enjoyed a lovely floral scented beer in the very comfy top floor lounge of Young and Jackson's Hotel before meeting Rob's dear friend David and his Vanessa for dinner at Akira, 177 Brunswick Street Fitzroy, their favourite Japanese Restaurant in Melbourne.

It's been almost two years since we saw David and Van in Bali so there was a lot of catching up to do, while enjoying the freshest most beautifully prepared seafood I've enjoyed in a long time.