OZ Encounter 19: A round trip in Mornington Peninsula

Mornington Peninsula is located in Victoria of Australia; you can find peaceful farms and dreamlike gardens here. It also word-class surfing paradise, natural springs, and dotted with wineries, cherry orchards and strawberry fields. It is also called ‘The amusement park of Melbourne’.

Walking into Ashcombe Maze and Lavender Garden, it seems that you have arrived at the Prague square. In this paradise of fragrance, you can explore the oldest and the most traditional maze in Australia. For all people, regardless of his/her age group, it is a place full of magic. This word-class garden is quite forest-style, where you can also explore the unique lavender maze and lavender exhibition park with flowers bloom all years, enjoy the world’s first annular rose maze, which is made up of 1200 colorful and fragrant roses.

The Eureka Sunrise farm covers an area of 63 acre, including 10 acre of vineyard, for making Point noir, Chardonnay and Shiraz wine. There is also a large area of lavender and Oliver trees. Besides industrial crop, there is Angus black cattle, sheep and lambs for wool and mutton. It is worth mentioning that this farm also breeds alpaca. Since the farm belongs to nature, you can occasionally see wild kangaroos, koala, hares and variety of birds. The two-level French style villa adds more exotics romance.

At night fall, the farm staff Carl is operating brush cutter in the vineyard. According to his introduction, the grapes in the garden are only one month away to reach its mature period. Right now, it is an important stage for grapes to absorb sunlight and for its color to transfer form green to purple. So the purpose of excess branches and leaves is to prevent it from growing to nowhere. Waking through the grape trellis, the shadow of sunset is tranquil and beautiful under grape leaves; it makes people relaxed and happy.

OZ Encounter is a video program produced by People’s Daily Online with introductions and comprehensive information on Australia’s tourism, food, leisure culture, news etc. The program brings information on beautiful views and delicious food around Australia, lead audience to experience the unique landscape and cultural glamour of Australia with micro-video. (People’s Daily Online/ Luyi Zhong)