photos and ramblings documenting my trip around the world and other stuff
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Australia - Melbourne
Day 41 - Saturday, March 3
Before I left New Zealand, I went ahead and booked a flight from Melbourne to Sydney, because at $50, it was cheaper than a bus, and I heard there wasn't much to see it Canberra, which is basically the only thing between Melbourne and Sydney. But the flights were much cheaper on tuesdays and wednesdays, so unless I wanted to pay a lot more, my choice was either to fly out that next wednesday (3/7), leaving only 4 days in Melbourne, or fly out the following week, resulting in 10-11 days in Melbourne. I think ideally, I would've liked to have spent about 6 or 7 days there, but decided 4 was better than 10.
I probably should've checked the weather forecast before deciding to spend just 4 days in Melbourne, but instead I checked after, only to find out that it was supposed to rain all 4 days. Sure enough, when I woke up on saturday morning, it was raining, so I just hung out at the hostel for a while, enjoying some slow, but free wifi (slow internet is quite common in NZ/Oz; free internet, not so much). Karrie Czaykowska, who some of you know (a friend from Newport for those who don't) lived in Melbourne for a while, so she was nice enough to put me in touch with some of her friends that still lived there, and they were nice enough to show me around and let me tag along while I was there.
On saturday afternoon (after a little mixup where I went the wrong way on the tram), I met a few of Karrie's friends just north of of the city center in an area called Fitzroy, which, like much of Melbourne, contains a lot of very cool cafes and shops, many of which are located on laneways (aka alleys), without much signage. The whole area had a bit of a hipster vibe. It was still raining on and off, so rather than spend much time outside checking out the city, we opted to settle inside a cool pub at the Napier hotel, which I would've never stumbled across otherwise and seemed to be more of a local spot. There I sampled a few of Australia's local beers and what I believe to be my first time having kangaroo, which I thought was really good, but that might've had more to do with the culinary skills of the folks at the Napier than with the inherent qualities of kangaroo meat. I didn't have my camera with me, so when I went google image searching for pictures of the Napier, I realized that their 'roo fillet is apparently somewhat renowned, according to one self-proclaimed Melbourne "foodie." No arguments from me, that 'roo was tasty!
Thanks to Ian Lewis and Rachael Blackman for putting up with an American tourist on a day where otherwise I probably would've just sat in a hostel and watched it rain but instead got to check out a cool spot off the beaten path.
Day 42 - Sunday, March 4
On Sunday, once again it was supposed to rain, but it was very nice Sunday morning, so I walked up to Queen Victoria Market (Vic Market for short). It was a pretty large market with hundreds of vendors selling all sorts of crap - handbags, belts, cheap clothes, and various other nicknacks, but part of it contained a lot of fruit and veggie stands and meat and fish counters, which were about the only place I've been yet in NZ or Oz where things seemed cheap. The market was filled with people and a bit crazy, definitely worth checking out if you're ever in Melbourne.
From there, I headed to Flinders St. and Fed Square, where I was meeting another of Karrie's friend's, Evelyn, who was kind enough to spend much of her sunday showing me around. A pic of St. Paul's Cathedral and the city center from the Flinders St. train station:
Since the weather was so (unexpectedly) nice, we headed south to St. Kilda and checked out the beach there, some of the cool restaurants and shops, and Luna Park (which seemed a bit like NY's Coney Island). Apparently there's also a Luna Park in Sydney with the same creepy clown mouth entrance.
It was Melbourne's food and wine festival while I was there, so we headed back towards the city and met up with Ian again and few others and got some food and drinks along the banks of the Yarra river. From there, we walked along the Yarra for a bit, including crossing the Aboriginal bridge, from which we had a pretty cool view of the city:
And then Ian and I headed to Double Happiness, a cool and cozy bar on an alleyway without much/any signage, where we capped off another great day in Melbourne with some quite tasty bourbon cocktails - probably the first proper cocktail I've had since leaving the states. The view from the outside:
Monday, again the weather called for rain, but again it was quite nice when I left the hostel, so I decided to check out some more of the city. I headed south to the Shrine of Remembrance, a veteran's memorial that provides nice views of the city skyline.
And then I headed down to the botanic gardens, where I managed to spend about 4 hours wandering around, checking it all out, and taking too many photos. It was definitely a cool spot worth checking out, and free, which is always nice.
Having seen a lot of the city over the previous 3 days, and hearing good things about a couple of the day trips to nearby destinations I decided to use my last day in Melbourne to take a day trip. The two most popular are to the Great Ocean Road, southwest of Melbourne and to Phillip Island, southeast of Melbourne. I definitely want to see the The Great Ocean Road at some point, but after all the awesome coastal scenery in New Zealand, and getting spoiled a bit by the incredible coastal roads in California, I decided to head to Phillip Island, which is famous for the ability to see and interact with wildlife, including kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, and probably most famously, the Phillip Island penguin parade.
The first stop was at the wildlife conservatory, where we had the opportunity to feed kanagaroos and wallabies that were just out roaming around in the park, and to get up close and personal with some koalas. Here's some photos, followed by a couple of videos. After this stop, I was pretty much convinced I needed a pet wallaby.
If you look closely you can see thousands of seals on the far islands to the left side of the photo. Okay, not really, but there are actually thousands of seals on those islands. At the Nobbies, there were a few penguins out and about, waiting on their loved ones to return from a day or two of fishing out at sea. I don't think this little guy was all too happy about me sticking my camera underneath the boardwalk:
And then we headed to the famous penguin parade, which is where, just after sunset, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 penguins exit the ocean and waddle up the beach in large groups (parade-like) to head to their burrows to deliver all the fish they've caught throughout the day. It is quite an amazing thing to take in. Unfortunately, there are strict rules prohibiting all cameras. (It used to be just a prohibition on using flash, but due to the incompetence of others and their inability to properly disable their flash, they had to change the rule to no cameras at all, flash or no flash). So once again I've turned to my friend google to find some pictures of the parade:
And here's a 3-minute video about the penguin parade in case you're REALLY curious/bored/love cute little penguins:
A post about Melbourne would be remiss without mentioning my discovery of BreadTop, a delicious asian bakery chain with locations throughout the city (hopefully throughout Australia). I visited 4 different locations between monday and tuesday, including multiple stops at the one closest to my hostel and sampled a few items, but nothing was quite as good as the blueberry bun, which I ate so many of, I lost count.
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