Melbournes cool.. just not as cool as Sydney

Spoken like a true Sydneysider - Melbourne is a great city, but I'll never say it's better than Syd.

We arrived early in the morning, too early to get into our hotel for a nap. I was sick and grumpy...

For starters, we walked over to the Queen Victoria Market, but the intense amount of stalls, smells, sounds, and general overwhelmingness had me ready to leave immediately. We hopped on the city tram to check out another part of Melbourne.

Our first stop off of the tram was the square in the middle of the city. It boasted really interesting architecture, museums, a riverfront view, and was right across the street from an antique-looking train station. In the square we stopped for breakfast (again, I need to apologize profusely for my grumpiness, I was really unpleasant that day) and took some time to check out the Centre of the Moving Image where there was an exhibit showing the work of Marclay. Marclay viewed the world differently than most of us. Dad and I are convinced he’s probably autistic, but brilliant, nonetheless. He heard every noise as a part of music and the exhibition was full of videos and films and noises compiled together from fragmented movies or self made that somehow made music from the crash of pans falling or the ringing of a telephone or the flipping of pages in a book or the smashing of a guitar. It was incredible.

After a visit to the information centre and setting up a tour of the Great Ocean Road for later in the week, we took off towards the Old Melbourne Gaol (translation: Jail, Prison). Though Victoria is the only Australian state not founded by convicts, the Gaol is famous for its large number of hangings and brutal conditions. Most famously, it is the site where Ned Kelly was hanged. While we were there, they had a Ned Kelly performance and we got to see the tragic story of the man himself (play-acted by two lively Aussies).

We went back to our hotel to wash up a bit, I took a very long nap to kill off the sickness that was making me so grumpy, and Mom and Dad did some more exploring around the city. Melbourne is known for its great shopping, red coat wearing tour guides, interesting architecture, and general big-city bustle. They took a walk towards the harbour and ran into Greek town (where we went later for dinner), China town, and some sculptures.

Day 2 – I was feeling much better and ready to handle the crazy Queen Victoria Market in the morning, if you’ve been to Sydney, it’s like paddy’s on crack. Soooo many stalls, types of food, raw meat, cheeses, olives, fruit, toys, souvenirs, clothes, shoes, jewellery, it was a lot of fun!

Then we met our guide for a Penguin Adventure! We spent the afternoon on a long drive towards Phillip Island. On the way we took a tour of a koala park, stopped at an old farm (they had baby animals and old ladies dressed up like 1823) really beautiful grounds, stopped at a gross winery with a great view, stopped to check out a great surfing beach.. and then to the penguins at sunset. Katie, our tour guide, is Mom’s new best friend, she was really talkative and gave a great tour of the area. The Fairy Penguins, as they used to be called, are about 1 foot tall and blue! They have been coming up on shore at this beach and many others along southern Australia and New Zealand for hundreds of years, visitors have been watching them for so long that it’s not a problem for them (though photography is prohibited) and groups of penguins come on shore each night at sunset to trade places and sit on their eggs. The chicks will one day return to the same beach. People have been watching them from this spot since the 1920’s so the lights and stands are now part of their existence, they don’t seem to mind the tourists that are there every night when they come on the beach. They are counted daily for the first 50 minutes… 650 the night before we were there. No photos allowed outside, but we took some in the visitor centre. We sat on the sand in front of the bleachers built on the beach to watch them come in. The surf in groups of 10-50 and when they decide its safe, waddle on shore and up to a mile towards their dens. We sat watching them for nearly 45 minutes, they’re so goofy looking, but we couldn’t take our eyes off of them! We got back to Melbourne around midnight and crashed in bed, the next morning we were up early for our drive down the Great Ocean Road.

Great Ocean Road: Full day trip with Mr. Grumpy tourguide. Travelled along the Great Ocean Road (created btwn 1919 and 1936 mainly as a tourist attraction with limited tools – lots of early regulations on who and what can establish towns there, it remains a very quaint area). Stopped at some beautiful lookouts, the whole road is really magnificent. As a special bonus, we stopped at a location where koalas live - in the wild! Finally we got to the 12 Apostles – limestone cliffs in the water that were once part of the mainland, but the area between has broken away and they now stand alone in the water. The formations were beautiful, it’s a huge tourist attraction. There are only 11 standing now, one fell into the ocean about 18 months ago. Others are starting to deteriorate, but more are forming from the mainland as well. We also saw the “London bridge” rock formation and the Loch Ard Gorge, where two people who were lost at sea on shipwreck coast washed ashore. The entire coast is known for its great surf beaches and huge number of shipwrecks in the area between mainland and Tasmania, the Bass Strait.

They’re off to Cairns, I’m off to Sydney.

Aaaaand here's the album :)