I had the luxury of choosing which city I wanted to live in. When I arrived in Sydney from Seoul, I was faced with choosing either Sydney or Melbourne as my new Australia home; what other choices are there? Ask anyone and they’ll tell you they are both different – like comparing apples and oranges. Most say that Sydney is much more corporate and put together, but is close enough to a wide variety of beaches to ensure a laid back style. Melbourne is more European with alley ways full of cafes and bars. It has a lot of bridges because the Yarra River runs through it. The city is dotted with artistically designed buildings and AFL stadiums because this is where Footy or Aussie Rules Football originated. Desperate to find a job and knowing very well my resume beamed of corporate experience rather than the Arts, I had to choose Sydney. It was a decision I’m glad I made, but sometimes you gotta think ‘the grass is always greener’…
Having been only to the Hunter Valley for a day trip on my birthday, it was time Dave and I made our way to other great Australian destinations. Having the Easter holiday combined with Anzac Day (Australia version of Veteran’s Day), we had in front of us a 5 day weekend and we decided to spend it in Melbourne, Victoria. Travelling in Australia, you have to book things ahead of time. So for the first time in our adult lives, we booked everything from flights, rental cars, hotels to wine tours a good month well ahead of time. If you don’t, you’ll have no options – not even hostels.
The day of our flight, Tiger Airways, our carrier to Melbourne, splashed the front page of The Daily Telegraph because they weren’t being compliant. Eek! The dailies always have stories of passengers being stranded at the Domestic Airport because of the shoddy carriers, but this was not the day we needed this! All week I had been looking forward to a short work week and leaving work early. Leaving at 4pm may have been a little too early. Thankfully, our Tiger Airways was on schedule for our 7pm flight.
For an hour long flight, it turned into a nearly 2 hour flight due to rain and traffic at the Melbourne airport. We arrived to a rainy city only to find cover after running from terminal to terminal to find the shuttles to the city. This is where my soaked Ruby Shoes flats had enough and bore a hole where my two toes could peek through. We jumped on a pre-booked Sky Bus for a 10 minute ride to Southern Cross station. If you’re ever going to Melbourne, I highly recommend it as it is easy, fast and cheap – the way everything should be ;) The Sky Bus even had free transfers to your hotel. I have to give it to Dave for finding our accommodation. We stayed at the Citigate Hotel, right on in front of Flinders St. Station in the heart of Melbourne. Our room was typical, but only cost $99 on wotif.com. Starving, we walked around an unfamiliar city only to find fast food. We settled on Subway. I had the Pizza Sub for dinner and breakfast the next morning. Never again.
Warning: Ruby Shoes Does Not Last
We woke up bright and early for our tour of the Yarra Valley, another famous wine region of Australia. It took only 40 minutes and we were there by 11am. We toured 4 wineries including Chandon – famous champagne maker. Apparently, Chandon have only 5 wineries in the world and this was one of them. The wineries weren’t as good as the ones I had experienced in the Hunter Valley. I did find a new love – pear cider and dessert wine chardonnay.
Yarra Valley Winery Tours
First Winery & Tour Group Lunch
Biggest Cork I've Ever Seen!
At 1 of 5 Chandon Breweries in the World
At 1 of 5 Chandon Breweries in the World
Great View at Domaine Chandon
Lots of Wine & Feeling Cute
Last Winery & the Best Panoramic Opportunity
That evening, we took our first stroll through Melbourne’s CBD to find a beautifully lit city with the Yarra River sparkling through. We also found the Crown Casino and played 1 cent pokies (as they call slot machines in Oz). We stopped when we broke even. This vacation has only started!
Will You Really Be Driving After Gambling and Drinking?
Clever Machine at the Crown Casino
The next morning we checked out and got to Budget to pick up our rental car. This was the first time Dave or I had ever rented a car. This was also the first time we had ever driven on the opposite and affirmingly wrong side of the road. At first we drove our Hyundai i30 to the drop off on the 2nd floor of the parking garage. We knew this was not the exit when the attendant asked if we were done with the car. We left a bit unconfident, but set out anyway because today was the day we conquered The Great Ocean Road.
Our Very Own Hyundai i30
Only $90 per day for Easter Weekend
The Great Ocean Road is a strip of road along the Southern coast of Australia that starts near Geelong, Victoria and extends through Warnambool, Victoria. It has a lot of history as many of the GI’s came back after the war with no jobs. They helped build the road that serves as a major tourist destination for long drives overlooking the ocean and breath-taking cliffs and beaches.
The Start of The Great Ocean Road
I’ve been without a car since I left Lufkin at 18 for New York City. Dave, having to share the family car has been without a car too at 17 when he left for McMaster. This was our first car trip as a couple alone on the road and the first stop we made was breakfast at McDonalds or said Mackers or ‘Mackuhs’ in Aussie speak. From there we stopped by Torquay the first beach destination. We continued through Shelly Beach and Bells Beach where the Rip Curl Pro was being held and Kelly Slater, the American favourite won. I found out that Torquay is the home of Rip Curl, one of the first surf apparel companies to revolutionise wet suit technology. From there we worked our way towards Lorne, another favourite surf spot and half way from Torquay to our sleeping destination Apollo Bay. Lorne was packed with Easter roadsters slowing us down to a crawl. We decided to stop off for lunch and had probably the most over priced wings and calamari. For a shore town, you’d think their seafood was good, but it wasn’t. We continued driving on winding roads along cliffs and beaches stopping anywhere we could there was a shoulder. For a two hour journey, we took our time till 5pm when we arrived in Apollo Bay.
First Beaches of the Day
Green Coast Lines of The Great Ocean Road
Last Beaches of the Day & Very Long Pier
Sleepy Drive & The Best Invention Ever!
Trampoline Park
Trampoline Park
Enjoying a Cool Fall Drive
Panoramic Somewhere Between Lorne and Apollo Bay
We had luckily pre-booked a motel in Apollo Bay that was for the Easter weekend priced at $150 per night! Mind you this is a motel in the middle of nowhere taking advantage of tourists headed to the 12 Apostles. Still full from our 3pm lunch, we walked around the town 3 times looking for a place that sold entrees of bread and dips at a decent price. We finally settled on a place called Buffs, which ended up being the snootiest place I’d ever been to. I asked if they had a table for 2. The hostess said in a snarky way ‘No’. Then I asked how long it would be. She said about half an hour. It was already past 8pm! So I said we would wait. She said, you have to reserve a table. That was that. We left and ate at our Greek family-owned hotel restaurant, which was actually great. We got pitas with 3 types of dip; tzatziki, eggplant and hummus. Dave and I shared a lamb shank on a bed of mashed potatoes. Delish. Dave passed out early and I watched TV till midnight because I had slept a lot during the drive.
The next morning, we left Apollo Bay as soon as we could. We stopped by a small town cafe and had pide with bacon and egg. Stuffed, we left and headed towards Cape Otway to see Australia’s oldest lighthouse. On the way, we drove through the Dengaru Rain forest. When we got to the Cape Otway gate, it was locked. We had arrived an hour too early for the opening. We weren’t even sure if it would open because today was Easter Sunday. We left thinking I’ll be okay if I don’t see this lighthouse. Luckily, on the way back to the main road, we stopped by the rain forest finding sleeping koalas in the trees. Standing in one spot, we spotted up to 15 koalas sleeping in the trees. They looked like huge grey fur balls at the tops of branches. Afterwards, we drove to Port Campbell, the home of the 12 Apostles. This natural wonder is a set of limestone stacks off the shore of Port Campbell National Park. Standing at the wooden pier overlooking the 12 formations, we took in a breathtaking sight. It was as if the land had eroded leaving 12 large stone structures in a line. We only saw 9 because 3 of them had fallen over the years.
Wild Koalas Sleeping in the Trees
The Twelve Apostles and the Marine Life Around Them
I didn't see any whales!
View to the Right and to the Left
Beautiful Structures
An Apostle Up Close and Far Away
The Greenery Around The Apostles
The 12 Apostles
One Last Look of The Great Ocean Road
& 12 Apostles Before We Head Back
After Port Campbell, we drove towards the Princes Highway to get back to Melbourne because our car was due at 4pm. Plus, we didn’t want to backtrack what we had already seen in the past 36 hours on The Great Ocean Road. Our decision to go inland was good. We saw rolling hills of farmland and got to stop at a diary farm. Being the only customers at the time, the front desk/server was able to give us a cheese plate of all the cheeses they made. When I asked her a question, she responded the way a teenage girl not wanting to explain cheeses on Easter Sunday. I asked her how she knows so much about cheese and she said, I’ve memorised the tourist video. Props to this little dairy farm for making a video! Her monotone voice and matter-of-fact tone made us feel like we were in Napoleon Dynamite country! One neat thing we found out about this little dairy farm was that a calf was born two hours before we arrived and we got to see it!
Easter Surprise
Victoria Heartland
From the dairy farm stop, we drove nonstop to Melbourne. We arrived at 2pm and decided to take our little car around suburban Melbourne till we needed to head to Budget at 3pm. We drove through Richmond, St. Kilda and South Melbourne. One street that I had to go to was Chapel Street. Everyone told me to go the Paddington/Surry Hills of Melbourne. I found it to be a long street of stores I had been to in Sydney. Bust.
We drove towards budget and knew we had to fill the tank before dropping it off. Too bad no one told us where a gas station was. We drove round and round avoiding the notorious hook turn (to turn right, you must get in the far left lane and wait for cars and trams to pass). We finally drove towards Carlton in the Northwest suburbs. Luckily only a street away from Budget, we found a gas station. Inside, I asked the counter if they had a restroom. They said no. I asked where the nearest one I could go to. They said the hospital across the street. I’m thinking, this person does not walk to the hospital during his shift to use the restroom. Gotta love customer service in Australia.
After dropping off the car, we were craving Chinese food. After all the horrible food we had eaten from Subway to horrible calamari, we just wanted dirty Chinese food in China town. We checked back into the Citigate Hotel and set out for China town. We found so many overpriced restaurants and decided to eat off the main strip. My friend John who had travelled in Hong Kong had a saying about finding a good restaurant – if there’s duck in the window, it should be good. The very first place we saw with duck hanging in the window was it. We sat down with bok choy in oyster sauce, pecking duck and fried rice. Mmm. For $30, this was the best meal we had had so far on the trip.
Our next big event of the trip was the 25th Annual International Melbourne Comedy Festival. With comedians at various venues around the city, we were lucky enough to get seats on the last night of the festival at The Best of Edinburgh where we witnessed 3 amateur comedians, none of which were Scottish, mainly talking about pooping. One comedian asked if anyone went to Church today and there was one little Wooh! in the crowd.
Being back in Melbourne again, we wanted to experience the night scene. We were still not ready to drink again since our Yarra Valley tour, we decided to walk around the riverside in perfect moonlight. We walked through Federation Square, the bridges of the Yarra River and again over to the Crown Casino. Hoping to win back some of the expenses of the trip, we spent 3 hours on the pokies losing $100. At nearly 1am, we headed back to our hotel swearing to not go back to the Crown Casino.
The next morning, we were greeted by Anzac Day, Veteran’s Day in Australia. Flinders Street and Swanston street were closed won for the Anzac Day parade. Every pub had a line out the door because they were filled with military folk playing two up, a traditional game where two coins are thrown into the air where the better is hoping to get two heads up or two tails to double his or her money. Broken from the previous night’s losses, we decided not to wait an hour to go into a pub and risk losing more money. Instead we rode the free city tram around the city and walked around the gardens. We stopped by the Melbourne Museum and saw Born to be Wild, a documentary about orphan Orangutans and African Elephants narrated by Morgan Freeman. It was in 3D and luckily, Melbourne has the 3rd largest screen in the world! Afterwards, we went to Lygon Street or Melbourne’s Little Italy. We sat down at Il Gambero, a famous restaurant known for 30 years of pizza making. We had mussels in Napoli sauce and supreme style pizza. So satisfying to come back to Melbourne and eat good food! Since it was our last night, we walked all the way from Carlton and the University of Melbourne area through to the CBD again and took in the beautiful night.
RMIT Building - Looks Like an Experiment Gone Wrong
Walking Along the Yarra River
Visiting the Eureka Skydeck 88
Highest Point in the Southern Hemisphere
Highest Point in the Southern Hemisphere
Views of the City 88 Floors Up
Melbourne CBD & Flinders Street Station
Tram Ride Around the City
Beautiful Flowers Around Melbourne
Old with the New
Couldn't Help Ourselves
Again, Mixing Old with the New
Lest We Forget - Anzac Day
It's Autumn!
Funky Federation Square
Because we are so well traveled, Dave and I forget to plan for vacations in the country we're in. Australia has so much to offer whether it's the beaches of Queensland, the spiritual Ayers Rock or the rustic Tasmania. Where do you suggest we go to next?
3 comments:
Loved reading about your impressions of melbs, shady! Awesome photos too! One thing though, the rip curl pro was at Bells Beach, not Shelly beach... Other than that you were spot on! Xx darcie
Darcie, I'm so glad you're reading my blog. I never know if anyone does! Thanks for the edit. I'll fix that ;)
Sounds pretty similar to my road trip to Melbourne. Check out how close we got to the wild koalas at Cape Otway!
http://jayhorn5.blogspot.com/2010/10/melbourne-weekend-part-ii.html
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