Mazes and Mini Golf (and a Beach)

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We were in no hurry to get going today as we knew we would have the whole day to spend at the Mornington Peninsula, but us being us, we were ready to leave by about 9:30. Our car is parked in valet parking at our hotel, so after getting that, we set up the GPS and hit the road onwards to Mornington Peninsula. When we left, neither of us had any idea what we wanted to do there, or where we wanted to go. Then, halfway there, Ashleigh remembered about a maze she had researched, so we put that into the GPS.

This area of Victoria has many mazes, apparently, but I feel we picked the right one, as the others around are more targetted at families with small children. Ashcombe Mazes and Lavender Gardens is set in an out of the way area on the Mornington Peninsula. That's the funny thing about this place, which surprised us both - for a place which is a seaside area, it's actually has quite a country feel to everything. There are farms that are right by the ocean and towns tucked away in bush. It's a very unique setting in our opinion, considering our previous experience when you go to a coastal area. In other places there are beaches and seaside houses and coastal shopping centres as well.

Ashcombe is in a town called Shoreham, which is part of the countryside of Mornington Peninsula. It is $18.50 for an adult, but when you see the size of this place, it is good value. They have two hedge mazes with a central garden between them. The walkways are very narrow and you need to squeeze between hedges to get through.

We will say, neither is overly tricky to get through. They recommend 90 minutes to see the whole place, but we had finished the mazes in about 20 minutes.

They also have a rose spiral maze, which is harder than it looks. It has a low fence, and you can see the centre, but it's designed in a way that we spent a lot longer in that maze than any other one. It was very confusing.

They also have a lavender labyrinth, but we didn't spend too much time there. To be honest, the area is so big, we probably could have spent a lot more time than what we did there and see many more things. They have a café, which he stopped in before we left.

After leaving the maze, we travelled another 20 minutes to a town called Boneo. Like Shoreham, this is nothing big, but we found a mini golf course there. We tend to find a mini golf course wherever we go. It has kind of become our thing. It is called Boneo Maze and Mini Golf.

They have adventure things there as well, but we only did the mini golf. At first glance, the course didn't look like anything spectacular. There were no windmills, not tunnels, or anything like that that makes a mini golf course fun. But, once we got in there and read the rules, this place had added their own, unique version of fun. They had three holes on each one. At the start, you need to choose which hole you will be going for - red for beginners, blue for medium and black for professionals. Although neither of us are rally good at it, we chose black anyway. It added an element of fun, and most people were doing black and everyone was pretty terrible. But it was very fun in the end, and ended up probably being one of our favourite courses we've ever been to. If you are travelling in the area and enjoy mini golf, we highly recommend this place.

Our next stop was driving into the town of Mornington to a small shopping centre. There wasn't much there, but Ashleigh bought some new dresses, and we filled up the car. We wanted to go to the beach, so we drove to the nearest one (not before getting lost though) only to find out it wasn't a 'classic' beach with waves and sand, but a dog beach. It is a big trek down from where you park your car, it was hot, and we were very much disappointed to discover it wasn't what we were after. We almost headed back to Melbourne, but decided to take another route and after a few more failed attempts (finding one where the only access was through someone's house included) we found a nice family-friendly one.

Mills Beach. It still wasn't a typical beach as it had no waves and the floor was more rocks than sand, but people were bringing boats up close, and it had the little beach huts with storage facilities of kayaks, etc. The water was cold despite the warm weather, so we only spent about 30 minutes there before we left and went back to Melbourne.

By the time we got back to our hotel it was 6:30, and we got ready for the NYE celebrations. We decided on the Crown Casino to welcome in the new year. We expected it to be busy, but not as busy as it was. All restaurants had queues to get in, and after deciding to eat at the food court, we had to essentially stand up to eat. The casino itself was extremely busy to a point that most poker machines and rapid roulette tables were full. Bars were packed, and it was crazy. About five minutes to midnight, we noticed that it had thinned out and decided to follow the crowd outside to where everyone was watching the fireworks. Melbourne city fireworks were very pretty!

However, trying to get back was a nightmare. We were pushed and shoved as people were coming out the door as others were trying to get back in. It was very, very busy.

We left pretty much after the fireworks and got a taxi back to our hotel. We had a crazy taxi driver on the way back who zipped illegally around cars, beeped his horn at others, so we are glad we made it back safely.

One thing we will say about Melbourne is whoever designed these roads, we will never understand why they thought it would be a good idea to put right turning lanes in the left lane. In our opinion, it's very, very dangerous.

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