Today is a warm day in Melbourne and without any great plans, I pointed The Pointy Brick towards the Mornington Peninsula to see what I could find there. On a Great Ocean Road trip a few years back I stood on Queenscliff, on the other side of the harbour, and looked across. So, I wanted to look across from this side. It’s only 40km, so why not?

Half way along the peninsula is a hill known as Arthur’s Seat. I drove up for a look. It gave good views down the peninsula…

…and back the way I’d come.

It had been a bit wet and the low cloud prevented a distant look at Melbourne across the harbour.

I drove on along the peninsula towards a little township called Portsea and the Point Nepean National Park beyond. Portsea is your typical beach township, but a cafe there makes the best Waygu beef cheese burger. I drove on to an information centre and further on to parking spot. There’s a 3.8km walk to Fort Nepean at the end of the peninsula, so I put on my walking shoes and headed out along the sandy trail.

During WWI this peninsula was fortified for war and the first actual shot of that war was fired from Fort Nepean. It said so on the information board.

The initial couple of kms cut through vegetation until I came to an old bunker.

This was to be the first of many dotted along both inner and outer coasts.

When I got to the first of the forts, I could walk into some of the rooms but others were closed off. Next was a set of barracks including a myriad of tunnels…

…bunkers and gun emplacements.

At the end of the peninsula…

…the fort itself was complete with tunnels and gun emplacements at various different tiers.

After checking out everything I could, I headed back to the van and back to the caravan park. Sometimes you have just got to get out there an explore, you just don’t know what you might find…

The Lone Ruins Wanderer