To the end of the line: Stony Point

It was desire borne out of my passion for travelling that brought me and my two Melburnian neighbours to a remote Victorian place called Stony Point. We previously discussed heading there when the place first caught my eye on a train map at Jewell Station after a Hari Raya Open House—it was marked as a place that branched off Frankston Station at the end of its line, and I was suitably curious, especially as it seemed to be really far away from the city.

(Funnily enough, as I was googling for the place, it was listed on Lonely Planet as an experimental travel. That is, the entire idea of hopping on a train to go towards the end of its line.)

And so on Saturday the 3rd last week, I woke up bright and early at nearly 6am (my alarm was set at 5) to prepare myself for the day trip, although we almost never went ‘cause apparently Ethan just reached home from his clubbing or whatever last night (WTF) and Desmond apparently asked if we could go the next day instead. I insisted that we should go, and so the three Walsh St boys made their way towards Melbourne Central Station to catch the 7.30am train (researched the night before).

#1 At Melbourne Central Station.

#2 While waiting for the train.

#3 The 7.30 Frankston train.

I pretty much slept my way through the 1-hour long ride to Frankston, before we had to switch to a diesel train (we noticed a curious old lady with a paper bag with labels related to witchcraft WTF. It’s located at Little Bourke St in the city, and we may have to check it out one day). And that set me off in a kiddish excitement ‘cause I don’t think I’ve ever sat in one before. (In an unrelated note, Ethan’s feet really stinks wtf.)

#4 Our diesel train which looks decidedly modern, and it would supposedly take 40-45 minutes to reach Stony Point Station from Frankstion Station. There were overhead racks which we could use to put our luggages too, had we had any.

#5 The scenery of greens, grass, and trees outside our window as the chain chugs along.

#6 At Stony Point Railway Station! We made it. =D

#7 I don’t know what the label ‘Faith Leech’ means, but if it’s the name of our train, it has to be awfully weird.

#8 The beach and the mini pier of Stony Point. It’s located at Mornington Peninsula (refer to the map at the end of this post, it’s relatively far from the city), which was really near to Phillip Island (!!) and French Island. We didn’t take any ferries (there’s a ferry service running to the aforementioned islands) but Ethan didn’t want to go as he has a severe lack of sleep and prolly won’t enjoy it as much wtf.

#9 There were many tiny yellow flowers scattered everywhere. After an awful weather this week (what’s new?), the sunny weather at Stony Point was rather welcoming, even though it was all cloudy in Melbourne when we left.

#10 The pelicans, something I’ve never seen before in Malaysia. I thought they were decidedly ugly too wtf.

#11 A bird which I thought had only one leg, but Ethan told me it was merely hiding its leg (for some reason), and true enough, it was.

#12 The birds which seemed to be gathering at this very spot for some reason.

#13 Ethan’s favourite pose.

#14 C’est moi a Stony Point wtf.

#15 The milk bar and the house which we could go to to sign up for a ferry service.

#16 We decided to head out of the incredibly small town (if you can even call it that) to explore the surroundings, and were greeted by mosquitoes and bees wtf.

#17 The long and winding road.

#18 The yellow flowers (which I don’t know the name of).

#19 There were many pretty flowers planted by the roadside (belonging to some people methinks). Ethan has an odd fascination with flowers and even decided to pluck a few and keep them in a piece of paper.

We then decided to turn back ‘cause it looked like it was gonna be a long trek.

#20 A pair of vehicles were towing away some boats.

#21 We went to the opposite end of this small area, and then went into the caravan’s compound. These field of yellow flowers were to our left.

#22 Said compound for caravans. There’s a small dog in this picture too if you can spot it, which two kids were playing with.

#23 A small hike up an incline revealed nothing special.

#24 Went back to the seaside to take a group photo!

#25 And more.

#26 A bird pecking away at a fish.

#27 One more.

#28 A woman bringing her child and two dogs for a walk. We encountered them up close at the station later, and the dogs were mighty unfriendly wtf.

#29 Birds in flight.

#30 The returning train at 11am.

One of the cons of travelling to Stony Point by train is that the diesel train service only runs every 2 hours or so, which was why we couldn’t just up and leave when we discovered that there wasn’t anything particularly stony with Stony Point, nor was there anything remotely interesting to do, except to feast our eyes on the sea.

#31 We then took the train to Frankston, which was less than 2 minutes away from the nearby mall. While we were crossing the road, an old dude passed to me a pamphlet with a self-test assessment to determine if you have sinned wtf, with questions like, “Have you ever lied?”, “Have you ever used God’s name in vain?”, and “Have you ever looked at someone with lust?” hahahaha wtf.

#32 After walking around for a while, we decided to just eat at Big Mouth. Pretty funny-looking cow as their mascot.

#33 Another look at the restaurant.

#34 This juicy, large burger set me back about $8-9. (You can see the aforementioned pamphlet here which was in red.)

On the way back, I had a bet with Ethan (which involved a gelato ice-cream) as he told me I’d most likely fall asleep while trying to read up my book (he’s most likely right wtf). During that one hour journey, I had trouble trying to keep myself awake, but later on surfed the Net on my phone to keep my mind awake briefly and I.. won the bet! =D Des made a side bet with Ethan too, that he thinks that I could stay awake and subsequently won an ice-cream as well.

We actually arrived back in Melbourne at around 2 or 3pm-ish, after which Des and I went to Coles to buy some stuffs for our cook-off later (in the end we just got ourselves another 4L white goon instead wtf), then to Queen Victoria Market to purchase some broccoli (only 3 for $0.60, as opposed to Coles where it’s $4/kg..) before we headed back home. When we stopped at Southern Cross Station earlier, Ethan decided to go back first to catch some much-needed shut eye.

As it was Mid-Autumn Festival (aka Mooncake Festival), we decided to celebrate it a little special by cooking plenty of dishes: beef in a Spicy Korean Bulgolgi sauce, a veg dish consisting of carrots and broccoli, some lamb meat (I think), and one more which I forgot.

We ended up playing choy dai di, followed by an exciting game of Mafia to investigate who murdered who.. and we also had:

Mooncakes! Nomnomnom can’t believe I get to eat it in Melbourne too. Ethan bought this earlier from Laguna, the Asian groceries shop at QV.

We drank some goon, until Ivan came back from playing beer pong with the Americans and brought back a bunch of beer when they left to go to a backpacker’s for further drinks.

I stayed till around 1.45am-ish, then went back to my room to Skype with Haensly.. and stared at the laptop’s clock with fascination as the clock turned from 1.59am to 3am wtf.

So one full hour of my life simply vanished just like that, simply because the humans dictate it so. Silly Daylight Savings.

Map of where I snapped most of the above photos: