For anyone who knows me personally not only do I love the Mornington Peninsula but I love travelling with my fur baby Ava even more! We have made a few trips to the Peninsula coast across the years with the pups and have found a few of our favourite things that keep us going back for more!

Things to do in Mornington with dogs

Dog Beaches:

Google likes to tell you that there are only a few off-the-leash dog beaches close to Mornington but there is a few others around that are close by:

• Fossil Beach – full of rocks/stones no sand and a trek down from Mornington towards Mount Martha, not our favourite as we were kind of disappointed when we arrived and there weren’t many other babies for Ava to play with.
• Royal Beach – sandy, close to town (much better pick compared to Fossil Beach)
• Mothers Beach – sandy, right in the heart of town (just off the main street) but over daylight savings time it is supposed to be dogs prohibited but we did see some dogs in the area and they looked super happy keeping to themselves and just swimming around!
• Fosters Beach
• Rye Front Beach
• Safety Beach

You can find the council’s regulations here.
Bright Pups also made a very useful map here.
Holidaying with dogs guide here.

(Pictured is Royal Beach & Rye Front Beach)

Activities:

If you’re after places to go and things to do in Mornington with dogs , here are a few things you can do around the Mornington Peninsula area:

• Millionaires Walk (Sorrento)
• Red Hill Rail Trail (Red Hill)
• SUPs for PUPs – Stand-up Paddleboarding
• Gourmet Paw Prints – Dog Winery Tours
• Briars Community Forest (Fenced Dog Park) (Mount Martha)
• Balcombe Estuary Boardwalk (Mount Martha)
• Truemans Golf Range (Boneo)

A great interactive map can be found on Pupsy.

Restaurants:

The general vibe of the cafes of Main St Mornington is it is a very dog-friendly town which is beautiful to see, as our hometown of Traralgon is not like this and as a fur baby mum it made me extremely happy! As soon as you take a seat most staff bring over a dog bowl with water or point out where they have one located which is just beautiful.

On one of our trips, we even made a reservation at the Mercetta and they made us a reservation paper that even included “+ dog” which is super cute! They made sure we had a table in their outdoor garden area, I would highly recommend this place, we even come across another pup while we were there.

A few other options you can consider:

• Mercetta (Mornington)
• Panda (Blairgowrie)
• Portsea Hotel (Portsea)
• Morgans (Sorrento)
• Green Olive (Red Hill)
• Epicurean (Red Hill)
• Miss Drew’s Bakery & Dog Cafe (Tyabb)

Little tip: although the town is super dog friendly, if your dog doesn’t do well in crowds or is not great at socialising, probably not the best place to take them as it can get quite busy.

Accommodation:

Unless you own your own holiday home in the area, it can be quite hard to find a place to stay when you have a fur baby. As much as I would love them too there aren’t any hotels that allow dogs like Ava so we have tried out a few dog-friendly and Air BnB’s across our visits. We just recommend you do your research and also make sure you discuss the requirements for your dog to share respect both ways.

• Private Air BNB properties
• Beach Club Cottages (Tootgarook)
• The Starfish Cottage (Tootgarook)

(Pictured one of our Airbnb stays in Mornington CBD – Property no longer available to rent)

Other great options are listed on Dogs on Holidays.

This is our personal guide only, we just love to share our favourite things!

(Post updated June 2023)

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