Victoria: Escape to the Mornington Peninsula

The Mornington Peninsula is an hour or so from Melbourne.

Dominic Corry learns drinking and horse-riding are a good mix.

Some things simply go together - peanut butter and jam, jeans and T-shirts, Mike and Hilary. And, as I discovered recently, drinking wine and riding horses.

Located southeast of Melbourne, the Mornington Peninsula is just an hour or so's drive from the city via a new-ish motorway (watch your pace - it's riddled with speed cameras), but it feels a world away. Rolling hills covered by lush Australian bush surrounded by endless coastal wonders, it's an area with a deep history and a mythic feel.

It's also become a hive for a variety of moderate adventure tourism activities, including diving, kayaking and cycling. The bike tour I did took me through the imposing Pt Nepean Quarantine Station, which housed diseased immigrants in the 1800s. Now a heritage site, the buildings project an eerie lifelessness that must be experienced. It is a place like no other.

As delightful as the cycle tour was though, the most enduring memories I took away were the ones I made while astride a beautiful, even-tempered Clydesdale named Tank.

I was paired with Tank for a horseback winery tour run by a local company, helpfully named Horseback Winery Tours. Located next to Red Hill, smack dab in the middle of the Mornington Peninsula's vineyard area, the business is owned and run by prize-winning horse rider and breeder Alisha Griffiths, who was overseeing a the final touches of a major refurbishment when I attended. Speaking as an outsider to the equine world, it all felt very authentic. On being assigned a horse and getting to know it, our small group was led out of the station and along a country road, before ducking down a path between two large estates. We eventually emerged at Mantons Creek Vineyard, where wine and food awaited us.

Photo / Getty Images

Photo / Getty Images

Like any remotely colonial task, horse-riding is great for building up a hunger and a thirst, and the picturesque surroundings of Mantons Creek was an elegant setting for us to meet those needs. Once we got back on our steeds and trotted away from Mantons Creek, I began to realise how well-suited horses are to the task of ferrying about people who may be enjoying a drink. We ambled on to our second destination, the idyllic T'Gallant Winery, just one of a variety of vineyards visited by the tour, which also offers "Ride and Stay" and even "Ride and Bathe" packages.

The seven of us in our group all had varying degrees of riding ability, but the pace of the tour was such that nobody was held up and nobody was left behind. I hadn't been on a horse in 20 years, but my horse and I got along so well I was cantering down the country paths in no time. I may have been a little bit tipsy by the end of the day, but I was fully confident in Tank's ability to see me home.

Dominic Corry travelled to Mornington Peninsula courtesy of Tourism Victoria.