For our second stop in Australia, we took a short flight down to Melbourne. The moment we got off the plane we realized we entered a new type of weather – let’s just say Sheila could have used more than the 5 layers she brought along! But despite a very cold and rainy forecast, we managed to have several sunny mornings and mostly dry days.

Melbourne is the 2nd largest city in Australia and is known for being more hip and progressive. We saw a couple different protests while we were there, and the street art culture is very prevalent. We got around on the mostly free tram system in the city center which was wonderful. Our favorite spots were the library – the first library in Australia – and the Queen Victoria Market – a huge open air market with everything you could want.

The Great Ocean Road

We took a 14 hour bus tour along the Great Ocean Road, a beautiful coastal highway along the southern coast of the state of Victoria. Now as horrible as a 14 hour bus tour sounds (at least to me, Sheila loves bus tours so she had no hesitations), it was actually wonderful and I would absolutely do it again!

Our first stop on the tour was in the city of Torquay, which boasts that they are the capital of surfing (though the ocean was about as flat as I’ve ever seen it while we were there). We had a short stop at the beach where we were fed coffee and “breakfast cake”, which was essentially cake without the frosting but we were happy to pretend it was breakfast.

We then started the actual Great Ocean Road highway, which was built as a project for veterans when they came back from the war and were having a hard time finding employment. It is a gorgeous ocean highway with spectacular views at every corner. We stopped several times for picture opportunities, and once to spot koalas and parrots. There were also several kangaroo hopping/laying around near the road throughout the day – they seem to be the equivalent of our deer, fairly common and a bit of a road hazard!

The main event was our stop at the 12 Apostles, rock stacks just off the coast. Now we could only spot about 9 of them, it seems a few of a them have collapsed into the water over the years. We were also offered a helicopter tour around the 12 Apostles for about $200 per person, which a couple on our tour decided to do. Turned out the flight was only about 15 minutes long – we couldn’t believe they charged that much!

We had a few more scenic viewpoints before our long drive back to Melbourne. All in all it was a very long but beautiful day, and another example of a day forecasted as downpours but ended up being incredibly sunny. No complaints from us!

The Walking Tour

After we had already been in the city a few days, we decided to take a free walking tour that focused on the alleyways on Melbourne. The city is well known for their “alley culture”, with street art, coffee shops, restaurants, and concerts all taking place depending on which alley you walk down. 

We walked through several alleys that are famous for their street art, which were unlike anything I had seen before. They have some more standard spray paint murals of course, but many alleys had unique takes on what counts as street art. For instance, one alley was full of various mosaics, one was full of framed drawings, and one had clay squares attached to the walls. According to our tour guide, the government’s “rule” is you can only cover/replace someone else’s art if you are positive you are replacing it with something better. Apparently they tried to regulate it more years ago when Banksy (world famous street artist) created a mural in one of the alleys and the government put a plastic cover over it to protect it from being covered by someone else. This made the local artists mad and they found a way to destroy it – so now the government learned to let the artists regulate it themselves.

We also learned that they have an alleyway music festival every year, which is where some very famous artists actually got their start! Tame Impala being the most notable/exciting for me to learn about.

The Food

We had a kitchen at our Airbnb in Melbourne so we mostly ate at home, but we were adventurous one day and bought a kangaroo sausage from the local farmers market and prepared it for dinner. It wasn’t bad, but we both decided it was a little too gamey for us and were glad we only bought one to share.

We also tried scallop pies while out on our Great Ocean Road tour. Mine was curry while Sheila’s was traditional – both were delicious!

Final notable item – though calling it food may be generous – is Vegemite. I’ve tried it before, but this was Sheila’s first time. Her thoughts are similar to mine – we truly don’t understand how people eat it!

On our last day in Melbourne we had to check out of our place in the morning but our flight out wasn’t until midnight. It was a very rainy day, so we took the free tourist tram that circles the city – twice – and enjoyed the warmth and dryness while enjoying the sites. If you ask Sheila what her favorite part of Melbourne is she’ll probably mention the trams – they’re always warm! 🙂

Christine