Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road

Hello again!

The sophisticated and artsy city of Melbourne didn’t grab us initially.  On our first night we headed into downtown and wandered around a bit.  This is what we normally do when we reach a new city and it usually works quite well for us, but not so much in this case.  Maybe it was because we were STARVING!  Well, once we found food it became tremendously better.  It is wonderful what a delicious steaming plate of Thai noodles can do for your mood.

Melbourne caters to the tourist so they have a free bus and tram system that take you all over the central areas of the city and they both served our purposes well.  We explored the Docklands neighborhood, which is an area of industrial wharves converted into condos, shopping, and funky restaurants and cafes.  We then explored the Southbank area, Royal Botnnical Gardens, and War Memorial and surrounding grounds.  Throughout Melbourne, street art and interesting sculptures are in view everywhere! 

Free central district tram

Soldiers memorial

Memorial grounds and view of downtown

What city doesn't need a few cows stuck in trees?

 

One of the many pedestrian bridges across the Yarra river

This is a very large wind powered mobile and quite fun to watch in action

After a well deserved rest from walking most of central Melbourne, we had drinks at a rooftop bar with a former Rockette friend and her Australian fiance who now reside in the city.  It was so nice to see some familiar faces from home!

Queen Victoria Market was one of our favorite spots in Melbourne.  You could probably guess that it has something involving food!  It is made up of rows and rows of stalls with people selling everything from fruits and veg (that’s what the locals call it), fish, cheese, butchered meats, cured meats of all kinds, boutique chocolates and candies, and local trinkets and souvenirs.  Here’s a rundown of what we enjoyed...bratwurst and sauerkraut from the German shop, smoked salmon and cheese roll up from a smoked fish shop, spinach and feta burek from the Turks, peanut chocolate brittle from a handmade candy stall, and delicious homemade doughnuts from a converted RV!  Not bad for an hours work!  We then continued on to St. Patrick’s Cathedral which was equally as impressive to New York’s.  Next we moseyed our way up to Fitzroy which reminded us a lot of Park Slope or Williamsburg in Brooklyn with its sidewalk cafes, restaurants, and boutique shops.  Our stomachs were calling out for the next meal so we made our way home and enjoyed a delicious brick oven pizza.

One of the many produce aisles

Cured meat vendor

Not quite Brown's doughnuts but darn tasty and a very cool truck

The following day consisted of a long morning at a neighborhood cafe making phone calls and sending emails back home, making further travel arrangements, and drinking very potent coffee.  Lunch was at a traveller recommended Vietnamese noodle shop for some very tasty Pho (rice noodle soup) and dinner was spent eating Malaysian cuisine.  As you can tell the Asian food culture is quite influential throughout Australia.

The Pho soup only gets better the closer we get to Vietnam

Finally, The Great Ocean Road!  Heeding the advice of others, we booked a tour so we could enjoy the scenery and avoid driving and boy was it fantastic!  We saw the 12 Apostles and London Bridge rock formations.  Also along the way were Bells Beach which is a location of some of the largest surfing waves in the world and a famous surfing competition, and a rainforest walk in the Otway mountains.  While stopping to look at a few Koala bears munching in trees, Wes made friends with some wild Cockatoos.  Pictures are the only way to describe how beautiful everything was and even they have a very hard time doing it justice. 

This is beside the road outside of Melbourne

While Melbourne got off to somewhat of a rocky start, I guess it kind of ended that way too, but much better ;)  We had an amazing experience in Australia and could certainly have stayed much longer.  That said, we are very excited to update you soon from our next stop on the North Island of New Zealand!