#queenscliff

Credits:

Miss Fisher Australia Tour (55)

S2E3 Dead Man’s Chest is one of my favorite episodes. There are so many memorable scenes – Phryne and Jack’s seaside date, Dot and Hugh’s public smooch, Hugh and Jack’s bather scene, Bert and Cec and Hugh’s City South scene, Jane’s first crush, Mr. Butler’s mentorship to Kip, Aunt P’s love and support for her old friend Hilly, etc. If Mac had also made an appearance, this episode would have been even more perfect. I was actually rather sad when they packed up the Hispano and drove back to Melbourne. It felt like my own summer vacation had come to an end. Luckily, the “boys on bicycle” and “pirate girls of Collingwood” toast that followed lifted my mood.

Now let’s pay a visit to Queencliff, where the majority of the episode was set and filmed. According to Wikipedia, the seaside town became a popular tourist destination in the late 19th century as the opening of a railway line to Geelong in 1879 brought increasing tourists to the area. This coincided with Aunt P’s complaints, “Queenscliff used to be such a select summering spot, until all the daytrippers and the riffraff moved in”. I am really hoping to pay the town a visit and become one of the daytrippers and riffraff that Aunt P was complaining about.

By the way, there are two routes to travel from Melbourne to Queenscliff, a little over 100 km (65 miles) apart. One is to go through the Mornington Peninsula and then take a ferry from Sorrento cross Port Phillip Bay. (Remember Hilly’s servants, the Johnsons, were trying to catch a ferry from Queenscliff to Sorrento?) The other is to take M1 and Bellarine Hwy via Geelong, which is just about 28 km (17 miles) from Queenscliff. There are trains running between Melbourne and Geelong if you don’t feel like driving. Mary and JoJo of @themissfisherphiles shared with me that by taking the route via Geelong, we can stop by Werribee Park Mansion – another beautiful filming location to be featured in the next post.