After arriving in Melbourne well past midnight, the first activity was a lie in. We then launched straight into the city’s culture; coffee and brunch.
Fuelled up on some Smashed Avo (not to be confused with Arvo; ‘strayan for afternoon) we headed to the Shrine of Rememberance.
This happened to be right next to the Botanical Gardens. This being our favourite past time, second only to walking up unexpected hills, we thought it would be rude not to.
Next stop was Federation Square & Flinders street station. After a refreshing drink, we retreated to our AirBnB & foolishly tried out the gym.
We set off for our Sunset Tour of the Great Ocean Road the next day. We’d chosen the worst day Melbourne had seen yet for smoke haze so our expectations of seeing anything were pretty low. Surprisingly we not only saw a fair amount of Ocean and Road, we also saw quite a bit of wildlife.
Our guide furnished us with some pretty interesting Aussie animal knowledge accompanied by comedic songs (See our playlist for smash hits ‘Please don’t call me a Koala bear’ and ‘Deadly Animals (Come to Australia)’). She also told us our favourite Melbourne fact – at one stage a man called John Batman named the land himself, and dubbed it Batmania. Until the Australian government decided this was far too silly and renamed it Melbourne.
Top Koala fact: They sleep 20 hours per day.
Top Kangaroo fact: A female kangaroo can pause or self abort her own pregnancy if stressed/ not feeling it.
Top Echidna fact: They are monotremes; mammals that lay eggs.
The ultimate aim of the tour was to make it to the ’12 Apostles’ for a scenic sunset, but we had some time to kill beforehand so we stopped off to admire the beaches & get attacked by flies.
One pizza pitstop later, we reached our destination, managing to avoid the deadly wildlife on the way.
Many people were upset the smoke haze had ruined their perfect sunset but we thought it looked pretty cool.
Arriving back about midnight, it was another lie in the following day. We took a trip to the NVG admiring their fantastic air conditioning, and art.
After a banana bread stop (a foodstuff Australia has perfected) we went back to our AirBnb as Melbourne was due some much needed rain.
The rain came, and so did the thunder and lightning. And with that, the power went out and we were plunged into darkness. Our host was very apologetic and ran around the house finding us torches and candles. We didn’t mind, it gave us an excuse to eat out.
We caught an Uber to the Queen Victoria Night Market, which thankfully was largely indoors. It’s safe to say we overindulged here with the choices of street food on offer. We chose 2 mains and 2 puddings to share. What follows is a bite-by-bite analysis
Main No.1 was Spanish Paella; mainly to ensure Frances didn’t get too hangry whilst we made more informed decisions. Much to Andrews delight the dish featured MASSIVE PRAWNS.
Main No.2 was Greek. Melbourne is an incredibly multicultural city and has the highest Greek population outside Greece so we thought this was a fair shout.
Pudding No.1 was an ice cream filled doighnut.
Yes.
That’s a thing. That exists.
Andrew couldn’t believe it either. Our enthusiasm for this was greatly appreciated by the store holder who was struggling with reluctant customers when we arrived. He offered them a free ice cream taster, to which they shook their heads (honestly what kind of person refuses that. They need to be put on a watchlist). Frances yelled “Well I’ll ‘av it then!” like a cockney stooge who’d been planted to drum up business, and to be fair the queue did grow from there.
Pudding No.2 was perogis, and probably excessive to the point that we need to do some more exercise in Tasmania to compensate.
We waddled home with our full bellies only to find the house still pitch black. Our host was emptying his fridge full of beer and we kindly obliged in helping him finish them before they got too warm. We waited up chatting until the power men (superheroes) arrived. All in all we had a very enjoyable power cut.
We are now in Tasmania where we have escaped the smoke and the heat for a little while. We’ve hired a car to explore the island for a week and will be writing another blog post at the end of this. We will be relying heavily on the playlist during our roadtrip – so if you have any more additions, now’s the time.
There & Back Again 