Bellarine Peninsula: A Two-Day Escape from Melbourne
From Melbourne, the Bellarine Peninsula is close enough for a day trip, but stay two nights and it starts to feel like a proper holiday. That was the surprise for my husband, Andrew, and me on a recent visit. We live in Melbourne, so we expected a quick coastal detour, not the kind of reset we’d normally travel much further for.
I am a travel writer. With Andrew, I run a YouTube channel about travel, so we’re lucky enough to visit a lot of amazing and far-flung places. This trip was a reminder that we don’t always need to go far to feel like we’ve properly gotten away.
Our Bellarine Peninsula Two-Day Itinerary
A moving restaurant
We had a couple of days where we concentrated on food and drink, and a highlight was lunch on The Q Train. The Q Train is a family-owned restaurant. On a train! They run lunch services (and Saturday dinner during Daylight Savings). You sit in a heritage carriage and enjoy a five-course meal with drinks. You can travel in Q Class Social Dining as we did or in First Class in private compartments.
The train trip was gentle and pretty – you travel for about three hours past bucolic farmland and wetlands and even a winery from Drysdale to Queenscliff and then back again. At one point, you pass chickens being guarded by fluffy Maremma sheepdogs. So cute.
The Q Train features local producers as much as they can. We had visited the 100% sourdough bakery, Ket Baker, and their bread was our first course, served with the excellent and local “Lard Ass” butter and locally foraged saltbush. Shout out to the creator of this first course, which was on the table as we arrived. A “Butter Board” should be a staple of any meal, especially when the bread and butter tastes like this!
Later in the meal, we had plump Portarlington mussels and rock flathead from “Jenkins and Son,” a company that has been fishing locally for 100 years.
There was a range of local wine and beer too. I enjoyed a glass of local BAIE 2021 Shiraz and Andrew had a beer from nearby Blackman’s Brewery. I spied wine from Scotchman’s Hill where we had visited the day prior and from Banks Road which I had sampled at The Queenscliff Hotel.
The owner of The Q Train, Marie-Claire Trotter, explained that they want to showcase local producers in the hope that you try their products on the train and then go and visit the local producer. They even give you a map where the local producers are marked. “Meet the Makers” it says – “Discover the local producers behind today’s menu. Circle your favourite and take the map home.” How’s that for community?
More information to book The Q Train here.
Local spots
Speaking of community, we visited Bellarine Smokehouse and Provedore, where staff member Phoebe told me that a tea house is coming soon because the owner sees a loneliness issue in the community. To alleviate that, she wants to create somewhere for locals to come and chat.
There’s a new, great spot for the community and visitors alike to gather in Queenscliff. The Esplanade Hotel which dates from 1879 reopened in September 2025. The refurbished Public Bar, Sports Bar and Bistro are terrific, and a mainly roofed brand new outdoor area with shaded play equipment and a soft-fall rubber floor is perfect for the kids. Strip heaters are coming so as to make the area usable all year round.
Another brand new place in Queenscliff is a couple of doors up from The Esplanade on Gellibrand Street – The Queenscliff Hotel. Newly restored and magnificent. We were lucky enough to stay there and highly recommend it.
There are food and drink options for all budgets nearby. From a coffee at Café 1888 to a drink at The Boat Bar, a meal at The Conservatory or a tasting menu at fine dining restaurant, Miettas. Having a coffee on the front verandah is a lovely spot to sit and survey the Bay and the divine restoration.
Little Creatures, Geelong
For a casual place to eat and drink, there is Little Creatures Brewery in Geelong. Located in historic, former woolstore buildings, this is a huge fourteen-acre site. Including the outdoor space, 300-400 people can dine and drink here. And you can feel good about it as this is a success story for local jobs. When the Brewhouse was opened in 2013, they started with ten fermenting tanks. There are now thirty-five. They produce all their own electricity too, using solar energy.
We did a Brewery Tour which ran for about forty-five minutes and was really fun and informative. Whilst beer the world over has only four ingredients, namely water, malt, yeast and hops, Little Creatures Geelong uses over twenty-five varieties of malt and over thirty varieties of hops. Who knew?!
Tours run Wednesday through Sunday but they only brew on weekdays so weekend tours won’t show brewing in action. We saw beer being bottled and our Guide, Emily, told us that Little Creatures Geelong can bottle twenty thousand cans, eighteen thousand bottles and eighty thousand kegs… Per hour!
More food options
Anyway, enough about beer and back to food. We had an excellent dinner at Sociali, the in-house Italian restaurant at brand new Crowne Plaza Geelong. And a yummy breakfast down the road at Pavilion on Eastern Beach looking at Corio Bay.
If you want to see Corio Bay in all its glory, check out the Skyline Bar at the Crowne Plaza or stay in a bay view room. We enjoyed a one-bedroom suite with a Bay view and the views were truly incredible. It was actually a rainy and dark day but the stormy views across the Bay were stunningly dramatic.
After dinner downstairs at Sociali, we had a cup of tea in our beautiful room and just gazed at the view which, by night, was of pretty, twinkling lights.
Details for Crowne Plaza Geelong here.
On the way home
On the way home to Melbourne, we stopped at the Federal Mills precinct, a heritage-listed Woollen Mill. Now home to offices, gardens, restaurants and retail, we popped into The Paddock Bakery and Anther Distillery.
The Paddock Bakery started in Burleigh Heads, Queensland, and chose to open their second outlet in North Geelong. They bake a range of Insta-famous pastries and wood-fired sourdough. We tried their famous and delicious crème brulée donuts. Crunchy yet creamy…yum!
As for Anther Distillery, husband and wife owners Derv and Seb wanted to entertain people so they have set up a distillery for spirits and liqueurs as well as a venue for gin tastings and cocktail flights. Derv holds a PhD in Microbiology and she brings her scientific knowledge to distilling spirits. I would have happily sampled a few creations but the drive back to Melbourne beckoned. Instead, I took home a bottle of their limoncello. The recipe is from a colleague’s Nonna. Now that I am home and have tasted the limoncello, I can confirm it is molto bello!
Two days away. Loads of memories. Loads of fun. A reset and recharge. And only an hour’s drive from Melbourne.
Before you go
Getting there: By car, it’s roughly an hour from Melbourne to the Bellarine via the M1 to Geelong, then the Bellarine Highway.
By train, V/Line runs from Southern Cross Station to Geelong roughly every 30 minutes, taking about an hour. From Geelong Station, McHarry’s Buslines Route 56 connects on to Queenscliff via Ocean Grove.
By ferry, Searoad Ferries run between Sorrento and Queenscliff every hour on the hour, 7am to 6pm, 365 days a year, with the crossing taking about 40 minutes. This is a nice option if you’d rather avoid the drive around the bay altogether.
Little Creatures Geelong: Brewery tours run for around 90 minutes and are wheelchair accessible, though it’s worth calling ahead to confirm arrangements for your visit. Tours are typically bookings-essential and run over the weekend.
Worth checking before you book: If step-free access or mobility considerations matter for your visit, it’s worth calling ahead directly.
Leonie was a guest of Visit Geelong and The Bellarine.
You can follow Leonie on Instagram @we_like_to_cruise_and_travel and you can follow Leonie and her husband, Andrew, on YouTube at @weliketocruiseandtravel
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