Wind Song

From the Travel Log

 

 

Destination: Mornington Peninsula.

I had heard about the wineries in this region, the cheese and the wine. Did I say that already? Wine. There I go again.

I had never been to a winery, have drank plenty of wine, but had never had the experience of wine tasting, the whole sniff, swirl, taste and spit process would be a first. Needless to say, I was excited. Needless to say, there would not be very much spitting…if any.

I would be staying with my cousin and her partner at their home in Blairgowrie for a few days and I could hardly contain myself. Like a child in the back seat, ”Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

Finally, we arrive.  Outside of the car a light breeze carries a salty signature that I am familiar with. The ocean?? I cannot see it, or even hear it, however I feel it’s presence.

Don’t ask me why, I was never very good at geography, however, for some reason I never associated the Mornington Peninsula with the ocean. Slap me…I know.  The word PENINSULA should have given it away. I was so busy channelling grapes, farmland and cheese that it simply didn’t register. Yes, I knew there was water, the beautiful Port Phillip Bay, I just never thought about what was on the other side.

Out the back gate we went and into a sunny sand dune wonderland. I could hear it now, rumbling away in the distance. Through the sand and scrub we wandered in a maze of secret tracks, known only to the locals, leading from the neighbouring homes out to the edge of Victoria itself. I lingered back, transported back in time to a place uninhabited and raw. I was somehow connected to this land. It felt so familiar, like we were one in the same, this earth, sand, wind, ocean and I.  Hauntingly strange this feeling and yet beautiful at the same time.

 

 

We mounted a rise atop craggy rock cliffs and there she was…the ocean of the Bass Strait, pounding away majestically. Indigo and cobalt surging together while white walls of ocean spray, metres high, exploded into the sky. Massive flat rock platforms were revealed, as the white wash retreated in cascades of lace-like curtains from the rock shelf.  I wanted to laugh, to shout, to clap my hands. The wind was cold against my face but it couldn’t suppress my smile.

 

 

 I was aware of the secluded beach below. The wind worn cliffs had been sculptured into a sheltered cove, caves and crevices beckoned.  The grass whispered to me, the wind and water were poetry in motion. It was not as though I was seeing the ocean for the first time. I live on the coast in Northern New South Wales and walk the beaches there daily, but this deep blue ocean, this Bass Strait, had an energy all of its own. It called to me…sang my name.

 

We returned back to the house, me slowly, reluctantly. Tomorrow we would venture out. So much more to see and do here. More ocean, more cliff faces and yes, although I had temporarily been distracted, there would be wineries, many wineries. Tomorrow would reveal new wonders, new surprises. The Mornington Peninsula was so much more than I had imagined and I had only been here a few hours!

In front of the fire, a glass of one of the local grapes in hand, I felt changed. My heart still sang the song of that ocean, over and over again playing to my soul.  Today, I hear it still…calling me home.