Sorrento 16°C Sunset 5:48 pm Bay glassy, tide low Winter Insider · June 2026
Walk Red Hill 60 min

Summit Circuit Walk - Arthurs Seat

The Summit Circuit is the ideal short walk for most Peninsula visitors who want the Arthurs Seat view without committing to an all-day trek. A 1.8-kilometre loop at the top of the mountain that guides you past the major points of interest - Seawinds Gardens, the Matthew Flinders Cairn, the William Ricketts sculptures, bay-to-ocean lookouts at multiple points, and the Seawinds Nursery Indigenous Garden - all within an easy hour of walking.

The view from the summit is the entire Peninsula in one sweep: Port Phillip Bay on one side, the ridge and the ocean country on the other. On a clear day you can see as far as the You Yangs to the west and the city of Melbourne to the north.

Drive or take the Arthurs Seat Eagle (chairlift) to the top. Walk the full circuit. Take a coffee from the summit kiosk on the way back.

Pair it with a booking

Where to eat, drink, or stay nearby

The best explore pages should lead somewhere next.

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Spa Red Hill

Alba Thermal Springs & Spa

890 Mornington-Flinders Rd, Fingal VIC 3939 · $$$

The Peninsula's second-generation thermal springs complex, cleaner architecture, smaller crowds, better pacing than the original.

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Winery Red Hill

Avani Wines

112 Shoreham Rd, Red Hill South VIC 3937 · $$

Shashi and Rohit Singh's biodynamic family estate, one of the Peninsula's only serious Syrah programs alongside the Amrit single-vineyard range.

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Cottage Red Hill

Birch Creek

Red Hill VIC 3937 · $$

Two self-contained farm cottages on 40 acres near Red Hill, open fireplaces, outdoor tubs, dog-friendly, and goats.

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Keep going

More ways to use this side of the Peninsula

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Red Hill 90 min · Easy

Arthurs Seat Eagle

Arthurs Seat is the Peninsula's highest point and the Eagle is the gondola that runs people up it - twenty minutes each way, dangling over eucalypt canopy, with the bay widening out below until Melbourne appears on the northern horizon. As a first move on a Peninsula weekend it is surprisingly effective: you arrive, you go up, and the whole region orients itself around you in a way that makes the rest of the trip easier to plan. The summit has a cafe, a lookout deck, and short walking trails through the scrub. Come at the start of a clear day for the view north across the bay; come at the end of a clear day for the light spreading over the ridge. Go midweek if you can - weekends in school holidays can be busy. Book tickets online if visiting in summer.

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Balnarring 270 min

Eagle Ridge Golf Course

Eagle Ridge is the Peninsula's hinterland option — a parkland-feel 18-hole course set among gum trees and dams in the Boneo valley, away from the coastal exposure of the Cape Schanck courses. That makes it the better choice on windy days and in mid-winter when the links courses are playing hard. It is also consistently one of the better-value rounds on the Peninsula. The course is public-access, bookings are easy, and the pricing sits well below St Andrews Beach, Moonah Links, and The Dunes. Architecturally less celebrated than the top public courses, but the conditioning is good, the layout is varied, and for a casual or mixed-skill round it punches above its price. Practice facilities are solid. The clubhouse restaurant is decent — worth a post-round lunch if you're not planning to drive up to Red Hill. Best used as the second round on a 36-hole weekend, or as the round you book when the wind forecast is over 30 knots.

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Main Ridge 240 min · Moderate

Greens Bush - Two Bays Section

The Greens Bush section of the Two Bays Walking Track is the most rewarding bushwalking segment the Peninsula has - 8.9 kilometres one-way through the largest remnant bushland on the Peninsula, with ancient grasstrees (some more than two hundred years old), pockets of dense tea-tree alive with birds, fern gullies, and open eucalypt forest interrupted only by the sound of the occasional kangaroo. This is where the walking really slows down. The canopy closes overhead in places, the understory birds work the tea-tree continuously, and the track passes through a landscape that looks more or less as it would have before European settlement. Genuinely beautiful, and far quieter than the coastal sections of the same trail. Walk it one-way with a car shuffle, or do a shorter circuit from the Greens Bush Carpark off Baldrys Road. Best in autumn and spring.

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Further reading

Journal pieces that deepen this stop

Journal →
Editor's Letter 8 min

A Winter Peninsula Weekend: The Case for Coming in July

13 April 2026

Short days, cheap rooms, empty dining rooms, a fire in every cellar door with a hearth, and a coast that looks like a different country in a southerly. Winter is the Peninsula's most underrated season and the one that gives the region back to the people who actually live here.

Hub Guide 8 min

Red Hill: The Peninsula Insider Guide

2 May 2026

Red Hill is the Peninsula's food-and-wine centre of gravity, but the best version of it is narrower than most visitors think. This is a place for one market morning, one properly chosen cellar door, and one lunch that gets the whole day.

Curated by our editors.

Peninsula This Weekend

One useful Peninsula email. Where to book, what changed, what's worth the drive — sent when there's actually something worth knowing.

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Peninsula This Weekend 31 May

King's Birthday is the loudest winter weekend on the Peninsula. Two clear moves, and the rest of the weekend kept open.

  • The Cellar Door Short List
  • How to Build a Red Hill Saturday
  • Things to Do on the Mornington Peninsula
Read in 3 minutes · Used all weekend
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