It was about 45 minutes after we arrived to the central railway station of Melbourne, when I started dreaming about moving in this city. We had a long two weeks of road trip and 3000 km behind us. All of us needed a proper rest. So, 10 days in this city felt like a good idea.
We booked a flat from Elwood, the green side of the city, which is a large suburb area with nice town houses and green leafy streets. Majority of the buildings are Edwardian or Interwar style with small gardens. Nice combo of proper, rustic and boheme.
After unpacking the luggages we filled the laundry machine and everyone took a proper nap. Felt good to lay on a bed with clean sheets, even tough the temperature had fallen almost 15 degrees during the last 7 hours. Even the flat was so damn cold, that we needed couple of extra heaters to get it closer to regular room temperatures.
Fitzroy
Melbourne is a good place to visit. There are things to see and do, but nothing so spectacular that you shouldn’t miss. It is a city to live in not necessarily to be a tourist.. Looks like there is a competition going on between Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney seems more beautiful at first glance, but almost everybody we met said they preferred Melbourne’s easy going, open minded, artsy life style… Parks and shore line, nice cafes and hundreds of different restaurants give the city that relaxed vibe, what so many crave for.
picnic in botanical garden
Once again we met some old friends, which is always really refreshing and fun. With local company every new city becomes even more interesting. We tried also to keep these days a bit low key because Australia is so (damn) expensive, that we had already exceeded our budget for this part of the world. So having picnic in the parks and dinners at friends house was just perfect.
Twelve Apostels
The highlight of Melbourne is its surrounding.. We had a two days road trip along the Great Ocean Road. We visited the Twelve Apostles at the Port Campbell National Park, drove through a wonderful scenic road and visited some of the little towns and villages on the way. We stayed over night in Apollo Bay and continued the ride towards Queenscliff where we ate really nice calamari and fish burgers at Trident Fish Bar. That is really a place worth to visit.
After the lunch we took the ferry to Bellarine Peninsula and continued the drive to Phillip Island Nature Park where we joined the Penguin Parade. It is an event where you watch how the Blue Penguins returns from the sea and have their walk from the beach to the dunes and bushes of the island to meet their cubs. This happens every evening, just after the sunset. I have to admit that those small little swimmers are extremely cute.
2 days road trip to Great Ocean Road, Twelve Apostles and Phillip Island
This was a nice ending for the trip in Australia. Then it was a time to pack those four bags and head to New Zealand.
4 bags of clothes 