We got our last night bus of Australia from the Blue Mountains to Melbourne and arrived wrecked and grumpy early in the morning. We gave ourselves a couple of days of chill time (and catching up on the blog time!) before venturing forth to discover the wonders of Melbourne.
And wonders we found, including a girl playing the piano while standing inside the piano. Melbourne is known for its music, and we can vouch for it based on the buskers alone.
Our first outing was a sunset picnic trip organised through the hostel, which was a lot of fun. We had the picnic in a big park near the Yarra river and watched all the fit people jogging and rowing up the river. We thought, "Wouldn't it be great to be that fit...Now where's that bottle of wine!". After the picnic, we hopped on the bus and drove down to a beach at St Kilda's to watch the sunset. We were lucky and got a really nice day for it. We had a couple of glasses of wine cause it is good for the heart and then went to visit the penguins. I harboured a secret resentment of penguins ever since they stood us up in New Zealand, but they obviously felt really guilty cause they made it up this time. At one stage an adult penguin came in with food. The volunteer was really surprised as the chicks weren't making any noise. Then all of sudden they launched themselves on the poor adult. They are quite vicious and were pecking at its neck. They are nearly the size of the adult, as they constantly eat and the adults lose weight spending their whole time fishing and regurgitating, as you do. So in summary, I love penguins.
We stayed in Discovery Melbourne, which we had a complex relationship with. It was another resorty backpacker place, you have heard our rants, so I won't go on. Unless you want me too, I always enjoy a good rant. No, okay then. Added to that, it had a crap lift, an awful under resourced kitchen and some of the rooms were absolute kips, depending on what floor your on. On the other hand, some of the staff were absolutely lovely, the tour we done with them was excellent and some of the rooms were quite decent.
The next day we signed up to do some volunteering (now by we, she means Niamh signed us both up) with conservation volunteers, it does what its says on the tin. We laid mulch on some trees, drank tea, had lunch and then killed some non native plants. Niamh now owes Emmet a visit to the pub to watch a football match at some ridiculous hour of the morning.
The next day we put on our tourist hats again. We visited Federation square (where they randomly have chess sets laid out for people to play) and had lunch in a great cafe called Kinfolk cafe. It is a social enterprise and all the profits go to good causes. The cafe is run by volunteers. Afterwards, we went for a walk in the trendy Fitzroy area, where we had gnome guarded cake.
That evening, we had a reunion with Julia and Simon, who we first met in Vietnam. They brought us out to a night market for dinner, just like being back in Asia. It was great craic. We ate Kangaroo burgers, which are surprisingly tasty. Then we skipped to a great artists market that had bunting and on a little trip out to an entertainment complex for a drink and catch up.
We have been cooking ourselves in the hostels most days, but decided to have a day off. We got pancakes topped with ice cream in a lovely pancake house. We then went to the Melbourne museum, which was really good. It is huge, so we only made it to a few sections. In the wildlife section they have loads of stuffed animals, slightly cruel, but I am sure they were killed years ago. Anyways, it was really interesting. They had some extinct animals, which on the plus side, they can't kill any more, so there is always that I guess. We got Malaysian food for dinner. Loads of people we have met have been to Malaysia and raved about the food, so we wanted to give it a try. It was grand, not a touch on Thai though.
We rented a car for a few days to drive the Great Ocean Road and go to The Grampians National Park. We picked up the car in the evening and drove the short journey to the start of the Great Ocean Road. We tried booking our first nights accommodation online, but everywhere was booked out. Then we tried ringing, but kept getting Chinese answering machines, we have since found out we were using the wrong code, oops. Note to self, check country codes carefully. Sometimes Hostelbookers tells you it is booked out, but when you get there, there are loads of spaces. So we figured if we just showed up we would get something, or worst case scenario, we would sleep in the car.....soooo, we ended up sleeping in the car. It was a better nights sleep than an Australian bus where you sleep sitting up, but worse than a Vietnam bus where you get to lie down and are rocked to sleep by an insane bus driver with a death wish.
The next day, we set off along the Great Ocean Road. It was spectacular. We visited the lighthouse from the programme Round the Twist. There was a really nice cafe which has given me a theme for my garden when I get home (and have somewhere to live). It involves bunting, cushions, a shelter and lots of tea/coffee. We stopped in a few sea side towns. The villages in Australia, and New Zealand, are by and large not very picturesque. There are a few exceptions, but they love shed like wooden buildings and bright coloured signage.
It is 'schoolies' which is when the school kids finish their final exams and go mental. This is the reason everywhere was booked out and we had to sleep in the car! Anyways, we were in a shop in a town where a load of them were camping and drinking for the weekend queueing to pay for our stuff. The woman in front was chatting to the shopkeeper about the fact that none of them were smoking. The shopkeeper was saying 'yeah, we have hardly sold any cigarettes'. Then the woman turns to us and says 'Well done, good to see you's aren't smoking'. We were a little shocked as we are over a decade older than the school kids, but also very chuffed.
We went Koala spotting in the rainforest. It wasn't hard. There were loads them and loads of tourists standing under them pointing. We got loads of great pictures. They are adorable. In summary, I love Koalas. There was also other wildlife there, meh.
There were also loads of Cockatoos, one of which pooed on Emmets shoulder, which was hilarious for all involved, except for maybe Emmet. Someone gave him the old line that it is good luck. It should be noted that it is never good luck to get pooed on. In fact, its the definition of bad luck.
Our final stop of the day was the twelve apostles and Loch Ard Gorge, where a Tollywood film was being filmed, no I hadn't heard of Tollywood before either (not sure if this name is Irish/Scottish- big lake doesn't really make sense since it is the sea, but maybe). The twelve apostles are large stacks in the sea that used to be connected to the mainland, until parts were eroded away.
We stayed the night in Port Campbell, in a bed, not in a car. The hostel was really nice, really clean. It had ovens. We weren't prepared enough to bake unfortunately.
The next morning stopped off at another few sea stacks. One of which is called London Bridge and is very impressive. It was our favourite. What is your favourite sea stack?
We stopped at a national park on an extinct volcano and spotted some emus, just chilling and done a short walk up to look into the crater.
We had noticed a sign for a historic Irish village and went to explore. With hindsight, this behaviour is quite strange as we live in Ireland. In fact, Emmet used to live in a historic Irish village. Anyway, we went, we saw, we were disappointed as it was falling apart and we left. The moral is, if you want to see a historic Irish village, go to Ireland.
We wanted to leave enough time to get the Grampians so we left the Great Ocean Road and made tracks. We arrived in time to see the sights that evening, including a number of scenic look out points and McKenzie falls. We also saw lots of Kangaroos. We have seen a few in Australia so far, but they refused to pose for pictures. We found some that were hungry for fame in the Grampains, show offs! It is beautiful there and our only regret was that we didn't have more time. We kind of wish we had spent a little less time on the East Coast and left more for the Blue Mountains and the Grampians.
We stayed in Tim Place, which was a great little hostel and were made feel very welcome by his neighbour Maree who was standing in while Tim was on holidays. The next morning we set back for Melbourne to prepare for our help exchange with Megan, Tao and their two children.
Here's some street art from Melbourne.
And wonders we found, including a girl playing the piano while standing inside the piano. Melbourne is known for its music, and we can vouch for it based on the buskers alone.
 |
| Fail |
Our first outing was a sunset picnic trip organised through the hostel, which was a lot of fun. We had the picnic in a big park near the Yarra river and watched all the fit people jogging and rowing up the river. We thought, "Wouldn't it be great to be that fit...Now where's that bottle of wine!". After the picnic, we hopped on the bus and drove down to a beach at St Kilda's to watch the sunset. We were lucky and got a really nice day for it. We had a couple of glasses of wine cause it is good for the heart and then went to visit the penguins. I harboured a secret resentment of penguins ever since they stood us up in New Zealand, but they obviously felt really guilty cause they made it up this time. At one stage an adult penguin came in with food. The volunteer was really surprised as the chicks weren't making any noise. Then all of sudden they launched themselves on the poor adult. They are quite vicious and were pecking at its neck. They are nearly the size of the adult, as they constantly eat and the adults lose weight spending their whole time fishing and regurgitating, as you do. So in summary, I love penguins.
We stayed in Discovery Melbourne, which we had a complex relationship with. It was another resorty backpacker place, you have heard our rants, so I won't go on. Unless you want me too, I always enjoy a good rant. No, okay then. Added to that, it had a crap lift, an awful under resourced kitchen and some of the rooms were absolute kips, depending on what floor your on. On the other hand, some of the staff were absolutely lovely, the tour we done with them was excellent and some of the rooms were quite decent.
The next day we signed up to do some volunteering (now by we, she means Niamh signed us both up) with conservation volunteers, it does what its says on the tin. We laid mulch on some trees, drank tea, had lunch and then killed some non native plants. Niamh now owes Emmet a visit to the pub to watch a football match at some ridiculous hour of the morning.
 |
| It helps you see my physique better |
The next day we put on our tourist hats again. We visited Federation square (where they randomly have chess sets laid out for people to play) and had lunch in a great cafe called Kinfolk cafe. It is a social enterprise and all the profits go to good causes. The cafe is run by volunteers. Afterwards, we went for a walk in the trendy Fitzroy area, where we had gnome guarded cake.
 |
| Whoever buys me this bike is my best friend forever. |
That evening, we had a reunion with Julia and Simon, who we first met in Vietnam. They brought us out to a night market for dinner, just like being back in Asia. It was great craic. We ate Kangaroo burgers, which are surprisingly tasty. Then we skipped to a great artists market that had bunting and on a little trip out to an entertainment complex for a drink and catch up.
 |
| The single greatest coffee shop |
We have been cooking ourselves in the hostels most days, but decided to have a day off. We got pancakes topped with ice cream in a lovely pancake house. We then went to the Melbourne museum, which was really good. It is huge, so we only made it to a few sections. In the wildlife section they have loads of stuffed animals, slightly cruel, but I am sure they were killed years ago. Anyways, it was really interesting. They had some extinct animals, which on the plus side, they can't kill any more, so there is always that I guess. We got Malaysian food for dinner. Loads of people we have met have been to Malaysia and raved about the food, so we wanted to give it a try. It was grand, not a touch on Thai though.
We rented a car for a few days to drive the Great Ocean Road and go to The Grampians National Park. We picked up the car in the evening and drove the short journey to the start of the Great Ocean Road. We tried booking our first nights accommodation online, but everywhere was booked out. Then we tried ringing, but kept getting Chinese answering machines, we have since found out we were using the wrong code, oops. Note to self, check country codes carefully. Sometimes Hostelbookers tells you it is booked out, but when you get there, there are loads of spaces. So we figured if we just showed up we would get something, or worst case scenario, we would sleep in the car.....soooo, we ended up sleeping in the car. It was a better nights sleep than an Australian bus where you sleep sitting up, but worse than a Vietnam bus where you get to lie down and are rocked to sleep by an insane bus driver with a death wish.
The next day, we set off along the Great Ocean Road. It was spectacular. We visited the lighthouse from the programme Round the Twist. There was a really nice cafe which has given me a theme for my garden when I get home (and have somewhere to live). It involves bunting, cushions, a shelter and lots of tea/coffee. We stopped in a few sea side towns. The villages in Australia, and New Zealand, are by and large not very picturesque. There are a few exceptions, but they love shed like wooden buildings and bright coloured signage.
 |
| My Dad would love these, as they are a bit like him. Old, a bit rusty, but if you spruse them up, they still got style! |
It is 'schoolies' which is when the school kids finish their final exams and go mental. This is the reason everywhere was booked out and we had to sleep in the car! Anyways, we were in a shop in a town where a load of them were camping and drinking for the weekend queueing to pay for our stuff. The woman in front was chatting to the shopkeeper about the fact that none of them were smoking. The shopkeeper was saying 'yeah, we have hardly sold any cigarettes'. Then the woman turns to us and says 'Well done, good to see you's aren't smoking'. We were a little shocked as we are over a decade older than the school kids, but also very chuffed.
We went Koala spotting in the rainforest. It wasn't hard. There were loads them and loads of tourists standing under them pointing. We got loads of great pictures. They are adorable. In summary, I love Koalas. There was also other wildlife there, meh.
There were also loads of Cockatoos, one of which pooed on Emmets shoulder, which was hilarious for all involved, except for maybe Emmet. Someone gave him the old line that it is good luck. It should be noted that it is never good luck to get pooed on. In fact, its the definition of bad luck.
Our final stop of the day was the twelve apostles and Loch Ard Gorge, where a Tollywood film was being filmed, no I hadn't heard of Tollywood before either (not sure if this name is Irish/Scottish- big lake doesn't really make sense since it is the sea, but maybe). The twelve apostles are large stacks in the sea that used to be connected to the mainland, until parts were eroded away.
We stayed the night in Port Campbell, in a bed, not in a car. The hostel was really nice, really clean. It had ovens. We weren't prepared enough to bake unfortunately.
The next morning stopped off at another few sea stacks. One of which is called London Bridge and is very impressive. It was our favourite. What is your favourite sea stack?
We stopped at a national park on an extinct volcano and spotted some emus, just chilling and done a short walk up to look into the crater.
We had noticed a sign for a historic Irish village and went to explore. With hindsight, this behaviour is quite strange as we live in Ireland. In fact, Emmet used to live in a historic Irish village. Anyway, we went, we saw, we were disappointed as it was falling apart and we left. The moral is, if you want to see a historic Irish village, go to Ireland.
We wanted to leave enough time to get the Grampians so we left the Great Ocean Road and made tracks. We arrived in time to see the sights that evening, including a number of scenic look out points and McKenzie falls. We also saw lots of Kangaroos. We have seen a few in Australia so far, but they refused to pose for pictures. We found some that were hungry for fame in the Grampains, show offs! It is beautiful there and our only regret was that we didn't have more time. We kind of wish we had spent a little less time on the East Coast and left more for the Blue Mountains and the Grampians.
We stayed in Tim Place, which was a great little hostel and were made feel very welcome by his neighbour Maree who was standing in while Tim was on holidays. The next morning we set back for Melbourne to prepare for our help exchange with Megan, Tao and their two children.
Here's some street art from Melbourne.
