Cottage Blog, The Mornington Peninsula Cottages in Rye, Victoria

Rye Yacht Club

The sport of sailing is an easy sale, the sparkling water, cool gentle sea breeze (unless you’re into racing), and the occasional visit of dolphins swimming next to you …

What people may not realise are many more benefits, especially for the development of our younger ones. One of my friend’s family have been learning to sail at the Rye Yacht Club for a few summers now.

“How do you sail back against the wind?” I asked. “You go zigzag.” My friend replied. “What happens if the wind and current bring you far out into the open blue waters?” … “Well, you’d learn to work the situation calmly, one step at a time, and you make it back to the shore a better man/woman.”

Well said indeed. At the Rye Yacht Club, they teach you more than the skills of sailing, but to be determined and self motivated towards problem solving. Every Sunday morning during the warmer months, you see kids as young as seven, dragging their little sail boats out, with a smile on their face, ready for their challenge ahead.

Learn to sail port phillip bay rye yacht club — Australian Instructor of the Year 2017 teaches children to sail

The Club ran courses for children, supported by safety boats, and taught by the Australian Instructor of the Year 2017. The second time the Club had won this recognition. People may be mistaken that sailing is a sport for the riches. I was amused when I heard about the costs. The Club is very noble in promoting the sport, and ran by many volunteers. They are a strong community who have supported each other and the sport since 1970s.

You don’t have to be the strongest swimmer nor a dare devil to get into the sailing. It can also be a family sport, about a good morning spent over the calmer waters of the bay.

Come visit the Rye Yacht Club at the Rye Foreshore, just a short walk from the pier, or from our cottages; smiles await.

Treasure Hunting

The Tyabb Packing House is an antique its own right, it is one of the largest antiques, old wares, art and craft market in Australia.

During the summer days, you may find the tin and cladding structure hot, and the humble shed a bit rusty and run down. However, don’t let your initial impressions fool you. You will soon appreciate it as you step through its collections. The location itself is a piece of the peninsula history. The peninsula was mostly consisting of fruit farms in the old days. The packing house was where the goodies were once stored, packed and sent to markets elsewhere. The site has gone through many renovations and expansions, and it now includes an old train carriage brought from their Moorooduc site.

Besides antiques and histories, you can also re-discover your childhood memories. This can be your favourite movies, cartoon figures, or your grandpa’s film camera.

The i-gadget generation will be amused with lives in the older days. What is a QWERTY keyboard, or should I say typewriter? A dial phone?

One of the Packing House’s star tenant is Andrew Fildes, who runs his camera emporium there. I would rather think it is a museum of his personal collections, and perhaps his autobiography. Andrew is a former commercial photographer who is also a writer, technical journalist and teacher. He is well known as a feature and review writer for the Australian Photography website. A film enthusiast of coz, Andrew also collects anything with a lens, including a a strike recording camera that was fitted into he Stuka JU87 dive bomber.

Young Instagram population new to film shooting can get some good tips from Andrew, and of course buy a quality and checked camera there.

The Tyabb Packing House is run by people who appreciate old wares, the memories they help keeping and the old style in person trading. You can buy online but you may not get the full stories and quality assurance behind each item.

The Tyabb Packing House is opened Thursday to Sunday 10 am – 5 pm, and public holidays. It is located at 14 Mornington–Tyabb Road, Tyabb, Victoria, with over 5000m2 in space. It is about a 30 min drive from our cottages in Rye. It would be a great day trip visiting the Moorooduc township and its winery. There is plenty of free parking, located opposite Tyabb train station, with free entry, licensed café and over 30 dealers specialising in antiques, deco, old wares, retro, vintage and specialty items.

Catch the Fresh Seafood Truck When You Can

Prawns swim 3 times in their lives, first in the sea, second in olive oil, third in wine.

Whether the above sounds cruel or appetite raising, is personal.

But first thing first, it’s critical to find fresh ones, and not letting them go to waste. Fortunately there is someone catching and selling them to us.

Photo credits (Peninsula Fresh Seafood Website)

They aren’t the “fresh food people” who shamelessly put up the fresh signs for days. They only sell you seasonal catches when they’re available. When they don’t catch any, they don’t open for business. I’m talking about the Peninsula Fresh Seafood. They park their truck on Safety Beach foreshore few days a week. When you are sun bathing, they’re filleting their proud local catches at the car park. Make sure you call ahead to avoid disappointment.

Photo credits (Peninsula Fresh Seafood Website)

Alright, let’s move onto the recipe. Relaxation at our cottages is your priority, hence it is our principle to only introduce easy dishes using local ingredients. How about wine tasting after a late brunch, pick up a locally pressed and bottled olive oil, and of course some fresh seafood, prepare a simple dish and relax in our private courtyard.

Gamberetti all’Olio e Limone – Poached Prawns with Olive Oil and Lemon Juice.

Time to prepare 15 mins (For 6 servings)

600g prawns

1 tbs lemon juice to taste

4 tbs extra virgin olive oil (there are good ones available for tasting and sales at wineries)

Black pepper and salt (available at our cottages)

1. Boil a pot of water, add the prawns in their shells and cook for 1 minute

2. Drain the prawns and shell

3. Put the prawns in a shallow bowl and while they are still warm, add the olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss well and allow to rest at room temperature for about an hour. Serve with good crusty bread to help wipe the plate clean of its delicious juices

Wine pairing? I’d say a Rose or Riesling. If you use olive oil with a hint of basil, try a good Pinot Gris from the peninsula.

Note : The dish tastes better without chilled

The Humble Beach Shack, Why?

Many people love the Mornington Peninsula, the beaches, the people, the wine, the fruit and many good things. But what is one of the hidden DNAs behind all these, and your childhood beach memories?

To be honest, like many I migrated to Melbourne as a teenager, I had never built sand castles along our bay beaches. But there was an instant charm, unmistakably recognised and felt as I wonder around this neighbourhood. More importantly, would my kids and fellow generation x, y, whoever, feel the same?

I can go on and on why did I leave a well paid office job, become an entrepreneur and start all these. This will be a good read to put you to sleep. But when we choose to start a holiday home business in Mornington Peninsula; besides the fact that we love this place, want to create a product and add value to here, where should we start ?

What kind of product should we develop?

Frankly I lived in many places around the world, I saw fancy Hollywood stars occupied Malibu mansions, I had stayed in Waikiki beach condos. I see none of these as the charm behind our beaches.

We spent 6 months looking up and down the peninsula, we saw holiday parks, golf course properties, farm houses and many more. In deciding the product we’d develop, we go back to the fundamentals, the old beach shacks.

Our original beach shack at Shirlow Ave Rye

“These simple, informal shacks are not showy. Made of lightweight, often salvaged materials, they were unobtrusive”, according to Melbourne architect Sally Draper.

Here we go, instead of some flashy tasteless box cutting homes, we bought ourselves a project, a big one indeed. Many of these fibro beach shacks are hardly utilised, old, falling apart. The panels are often barely held together by their paint, of the 50s colouring scheme. You can poke through with your fingers by just pressing lightly.

But we weren’t afraid.

old beach shack stripped down — Stripping down the old beach shack

While the world is changing at internet speed, we don’t have the luxury of time neither. The essence is in our time to market.

We certainly didn’t want to cut corners too, not willingly anyway.

Renovation and extension — During renovation and construction of extension

The result is what you can see today …. more on that later.