We took a mini trip to Melbourne! Even though it was rainy for most of the time, we still made the best of it and had a good time.
Thursday June 14th
Arianna, Erin, Becca and I woke up around 6 am, finished up packing, and headed down to the airport to catch our 10 am flight! We didn’t leave on time so for me the trip wasn’t starting out the best – I never like feeling stressed when I travel. We actually made it to bag check in with 1 minute to spare before they stopped check in. Yikes! But thankfully made our flight!
A little passed noon all 4 of us arrived in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Victoria is the southeastern state of Australia, and Melbourne (2nd most populous city in Australia) is the capitol. Upon arrival, we all grabbed a quick bite to eat and then took the SkyBus to Southern Cross Station – about a 40 min ride to the CBD (central business district). Our AirBnB was located a short 8 minute walk from the station which was nice! It definitely isn’t a high class AirBnB (and as I type with freezing fingers, I know it’s definitely not a heat filled one either) – but the location is good. We all settled in and were feeling pretty tired, so we took about an hour to just relax.
Around 3pm we decided to walk 8 minutes to Starbucks to see if coffee would wake us up (it did haha). Then we just decided to continue to walk around the city. There were plenty of skyscrapers, bus/train stations, sculptures, restaurants, and street art. The cool thing about Melbourne is it’s known for it’s street art – there’s murals and random paintings everywhere. My favorite one that I saw was a cat! But we didn’t even walk in the main part of the CBD with the famous street art, hopefully we’ll be getting to that this weekend.
Around 5pm we waited in the Flagstaff Gardens park to meet Becca’s cousin and friend. We ended up just sitting in the grass for a while and watching a bunch of dogs play – needless to say, that was enjoyable! After Becca’s cousin and friend arrived, we went to a Korean restaurant and I tried Beef Bulgogi which was really good – there was also about 2 servings worth of food in there! Then after dinner, we just settled in for the evening and relaxed. I finished up my New Zealand video (which you can watch here) and then around 10:30 pm I zonked out for the night!
Friday June 15th
We were up bright early again, but for a day-long tour! At 7:40 am we were picked up by Go West Tours for our Great Ocean Road trip. The GOR is a 151 mile stretch of road on the southeastern coast of Australia that has many landmark stops along the way of the Southern Ocean. About an hour out of Melbourne was our first stop: the town on Torquey. This town is essentially the surfing capital of Australia, and it’s where Rip Curl got its start. We first went to see the beach which was very beautiful but very windy. A theme for this trip definitely seems to be cold (mid-40s and 50s), wind, and rain unfortunately… but we’re making the best of it! After a quick trip to look at the beach (definitely not to swim) we had brekky and hot chocolate (technically Milo). It was really delicious and felt good to have something warm us up! The whole bus ride was hot and cold, because if it got too hot in the bus the windows would fog up, so occasionally the air con would have to be turned on. We were definitely thankful for something to heat us up on this chilly morning!
Our next stop was the Great Ocean Road Memorial Arch. The arch commemorates the building of the road by the veterans who served in WW1 who built it (I took some pictures of the signs if you’d like to read more about it). So we took a quick picture by the sign (I don’t know where I’m pointing haha) and then walked down by the ocean where our shoes got a bit wet by an incoming wave while we were taking a selfie. Oops. But 10/10 would recommend Merrill hiking boots because my socks remained dry!
Next we loaded back into the bus and drove through a lot of windy roads until we got to Kennett River, where we had pre-ordered lunch at the Koala Kafe. Arianna, Erin, Becca and I all ordered the classic fish and chips which were delicious! Then we decided to walk up the road to see if we could spot any wild koalas, and eventually after a 10 minute walk up the road and help from some other people we saw a wild koala (can you spot it in the picture?) Along with the koala, we saw plenty of exotic birds like the Australian famous Cockatoo.
Then the rest of the drive was a few random stops (like for a rainy walk in the rainforest to Anne’s Cascades), but eventually we got to the main event: the Twelve Apostles. When we got here the wind was coming down sideways (you’ll see that by the pictures), but eventually the rain held off enough for us to run out to the viewing decks and see the amazing landmark. It was so beautiful! The stormy waters looked beautiful crashing against the rocks. Fun fact: there is actually only 8 rocks. Even though it’s called the Twelve Apostles there was probably never 12 at any point depending on what you consider an apostle. The most recent rock to fall actually only fell in 2005, so the landscape is still changing. After this stop, we took a few quick hikes down to the Loch and Gorge and shipwreck shores (over 80 shipwrecks have occurred here) – but soon the storm clouds beat us out and we loaded up back into the bus for a ride back to Melbourne with a short stop for dinner. Overall, it was a good day despite the rain and it was awesome to see the Twelve Apostles in person!
Saturday July 16th
This morning we all slept in and then met Becca’s Dad for lunch in St Kilda which is suburb of Melbourne. I had a delicious chicken schnitzel, chips and salad – but it was huge! Then after lunch we walked a few blocks over to Luna Park, an iconic theme park. We took some silly pictures in front of the entrance, and then bought a single ride ticket. We wandered around for a bit and finally picked Power Surge to go on (it was more of a kid park so not many bigger thrill rides) – this seemed to be the most “thrill” ride and it was actually pretty fun!
Then we wandered down to the beach briefly, but we saw the rain clouds rolling in so we figured we better get moving. We hopped on the bus and rode it to Brighton Beach which is famous for the Brighton Bathing Boxes. We had a great time looking at all the boxes and taking some very fun pictures next to them! (My two favorites were the Aussie flag and old van – yours?) We watched the sunset over the ocean, were able to beat the high tide, and then caught the train back to the city.
Upon walking back to our favorite AirBnB (sarcasm) we heard fire alarms in the distance. And sure enough, it turned out to be coming from the apartment complex our AirBnB was located at. We sat downstairs with the rest of the residents for about 30 minutes until the fireman arrived to turn off the alarms and alert us that it was a false alarm. We spend a few hours just relaxing before we had a few drinks and went to a club for the evening. Club Retro was pretty cool because it played like 80s/90s music and then upstairs was the current generation’s music – so it was a nice variety!
Sunday July 17th
We all slept in this morning – I ended up waking up about 3 hours before anyone else, but luckily I was able to call Logan for a while and catch up with him! Eventually, everyone woke up but unfortunately, it was pouring rain outside and there was a 100% chance of that all day. Around lunchtime, Becca, Arianna and I ventured out in the rain and got some pizza. On our way back though, we were crossing the street and I heard something behind me … so I turned around and I see Arianna picking up her pizza box that accidentally fell in the street. Yes, the street was filled with puddles so the cardboard box was soaked but the pizza was just fine! Haha. We eventually made it back to our AirBnB, but we were soaked to the bone. We tried to warm up – which was hard to do in an AirBnB that doesn’t know what heat is – and Erin & I ended up taking a 2 hour nap while the others hung out. We originally planned on going to an AFL (Australian Football League) game… but with downpour all day and an outdoor stadium, it was obvious why we all didn’t want to go. So instead we just made dinner, popcorn, and watched The Notebook that evening! Then, at 2 am after we all had been sleeping for a while I woke up to the oh-so-familiar sound of the fire alarm going off in the hallway. I woke the others up since you could only faintly here it in our room and I was the lightest sleeper. According to the other residents the alarm had been going off so often. No one in our apartment or floor even left, and sure enough it was just another false alarm. We were no pleased at the rude awakening in the morning.
Monday July 18th
We all woke up earlier in the morning because Arianna had to be leaving for the airport @ 8 am – we were all so sad to see her go 😦 But she is now back, safe & sound in the U.S.!
After we dropped Arianna off at the SkyBus station, the 3 of us took the free tram to another part in the city famous for Melbourne’s street art. We followed the city art map and were able to see 4-5 of the art-filled alleyways! Some were better than others, but it was so cool to see some of the creative things people came up with and their talent. Any favorites?
At this point we were all getting quite hungry so we head to the cafe that I have been dreaming of: Cat Cafe. Although it was a $12 entry fee for only an hour, it was so worth it! Upstairs was the cafe (with delicious coffee) which had an adorable set up with cardboard boxes, a bridge, and miscellaneous toys. Downstairs was a mellow, darker room with about 10 cats. It had all sorts of toys and towers – anything cat related that you’ve seen on the internet, they had it. I was in heaven. It was so good to just sit and pet cats! They were all pretty adorable… see for yourself!
After our quick hour was up, we walked across the street to another cafe that actually had food so we could grab a quick bite to eat. Then we walked to our AirBnB, finished packing up our stuff, and finally moved out of that place. We hopped on the SkyBus and were transported to the Melbourne airport. After a very stressful time with the airline (don’t ever, ever fly Tigerair when your in Australia… it’s like Spirit Airlines but actually worse) we landed in Brisbane. Becca, Erin & I decided that sushi was a good decision. So we all had bellies full of delicious sushi and were happy once again!
These past 2 days I have just been relaxing and recharging again. Today, I did a quick sunset hike of Mount Ngungun with Luke and Michael. It was quite gorgeous!
Alison is currently flying over the ocean to Australia and will arrive in about 7 hours. So I am headed to bed now and ready for 12 days of adventures with her!! And then believe it or not, I am coming home already!
I am still working on finishing New Zealand blogs. Don’t worry haha. Life is just busy right now with finishing up my time in Australia. But I’m sure Alison and I will be sitting down to blog here and there because she has a blog as well, that you can follow here. I am looking forward to coming home soon as well and sharing my adventures in person! Message me if you’d like to catch up 🙂
Cheers!
Another Point of View 