Tootgarook, Rye, Blairgowrie, Sorrento, Portsea

The ‘pointy’ end of the Peninsula has been a tourism playground for 150 years when visitors came from Melbourne by paddle steamer.

Nowadays it’s about an hour and a half by car, and the gateway to the region is Rye, with its pier with scuba diving platform; a long, wide foreshore with car parking, children’s adventure playground, free gas barbecues and picnic areas; a good shopping centre with lots of takeaway and eat-in food options; a hotel; and plenty of accommodation from fancy to budget.

Blairgowrie, the next town along, also has a good shopping centre, a pier and marina, and ocean beaches across the narrow peninsula, where you will also find St Andrews Beach and Fingal, famous for golf courses, surf beaches and hot springs.

Sorrento and Portsea have fabulous beaches – on the rugged Bass Strait side, 35km from Portsea to Cape Schanck, and on mostly tranquil Port Phillip.

Sorrento’s pier is also the terminal for the ferry to Queenscliff, and a wide main street has shops, art galleries, cafes, restaurants and three good hotels.

Millionaires Walk is a 1.5km public clifftop path from Point King Rd in front of splendid mansions and private jetties. You don’t have to be rich and famous to enjoy the splendour of this coast.

Portsea has world-renowned Point Nepean National Park with walking and cycling tracks, lookouts, beaches, old quarantine station, historic cemetery, defence forts from two world wars, and a monument to prime minister Harold Holt, who disappeared at Cheviot Beach in 1967.