Melbourne - Back to being a tourist, and enjoying every minute of it!

St. Kilda's Beach my first day in Melbourne
see all photos »

My adventures in Melbourne officially came to a close and it's now time to share all of my wonderful adventures with you!

My first day in Melbourne, after a long anticipated good nights sleep, was deemed a beach day! I headed down to the St. Kilda's beach and lazed around for a few hours, working on my tan lines. That ate up a large part of the day and then I wandered around to see what else St. Kilda's had to offer. St. Kilda is a smaller suburb on the edge of Melbourne, so it really has a small beach town feel about it. After grabbing some food from a local cafe, I headed back to the hostel to shower up and get ready for the activities I had signed up for at my hostel. They were hosting a free Texas Hold'em Tourney and I had been the first person to sign up! I took my place at the table and I am proud to announce that I made it to the final table after 2 rounds of play! Unfortunately my victory run stopped there, but I still had a great time and I think I would have made my dad proud with my bluffing skills! After the poker game, I had a few drinks and some cheap pizza in the bar attached to my hostel. Then some of the locals guys who ran the poker tourney took a group of us out to a local hangout called the Dog Bar. There we had a really interesting conversation about the stereotypes of Australians, their feelings on Steve Irwin, and they gave me some advice to survive in Australia....Don't ever put your hands where you can't see them, don't talk to anyone and don't go anywhere! That's the type of advice I think would keep you out of trouble no matter where you go, but it doesn't sound like a lot of fun! I headed to bed a bit later than I meant to, considering I had an early tour the next morning.

Poker Night!
see all photos »

I woke up at 7:15am, which may sound early to some of you, but I assure you it's not that early considering thats the exact time that my tour bus was supposed to pick me up down the street! I got ready faster than anyone ever has, and luckily, my bus was still waiting outside the hostel when I got downstairs! I boarded the bus and promptly took a little cat nap!

The tour I signed up for was a one day trip down the Great Ocean Road. This was one of the best tours I have been on in my whole trip! Everything seemed to work out exactly as it should! The first stop was Bell's Beach in the city of Torquay. This is a world famous surfing beach and the guys who discovered it are also the founders of Rip Curl, the surfing brand. I'll briefly describe the other stops on the way, because the photos really do them more justice than words could anyway. We hit up Fairhaven Beach for a swim, took photos at the Great Ocean Road sign, visited the 12 Apostles (large rock formations on the coast), stopped at Apollo Bay for some shopping, saw wild Koalas at an RV park, did a rainforest walk at Mait's Rest, and took photos and went for another swin in Loch Ard Gourge. It was a beautiful day of sun and sights, and I would recommend this tour to anyone, both young and old! I'm definately going to have to go back and spend a few days on the road someday. Of course, the best part about the trip was the view as the road hugs the coastline for the majority of the way! I was exhausted after a long day of excitement, so I crashed fairly hard that night. Of course I did wake up once during the night just long enough to see that the English guy (Dave) staying next to me had brought home a little guest from his night's adventures. I pulled an Academy Award winning performance of the famous "pretend I'm still sleeping while I roll the other way and cover my eyes and ears". Ah, life in a hostel!

Me striking a pose at the beautiful Bell's Beach
see all photos »

The next day was blistering hot and I decided it was a perfect day to spend my time inside the air conditioned travel agent's office, booking the rest of my tours. 5 hours ad $1500 later, I had booked basically everything that I'm going to be doing on the East Coast leg of my trip. Just to get the jealousy started, a few of the activities include 4x4 island tour, learning to surf, sailing in the Whitsunday islands, and .....SKYDIVING! I tell you, travelling makes you brave! Either that or I booked the trips and now can't back out because I paid alot of money for them...either way I'm doing it all!

Me striking a pose at the Great Ocean Road Sign
see all photos »

That night I headed out with the people in my hostel room to the Prince of WAles Hotel, a fairly nice club where I once again got to pay (gulp) $20 cover charge! I don't think I'll ever get used to that! We had a few drinks, OK quite a few drinks, but me and one other girl were responsible and headed home to bed at 1am. I woke up at 10am not feeling well at all so I drank a bottle of water, took some advil and prayed I would feel better by 11am. I had booked another day tour and really didn't want to miss it! I woke up an hour later and felt great so I headed out to my day tour of Phillip Island (also known as Penguin Island).

The view from the Great Ocean Road
see all photos »

In an unparralleld example of irony, the first stop on our tour happened to be at a winery. Although I was feeling much better at this time, a couple sips of wine went to my head too quickly so I promptly put my wine glass down. In doing so, I overheard a young girl say she was from Edmonton, AB, and when I turned around to tell her I was to, I recognized her as a girl from Lister (my University residence)! It sure is a small world after all!

As with the Great Ocean Road tour, the pictures do the trip more justice than a paragraph so I'll summarize the tour stops. After the winery, we headed to a wildlife park where I fed kangaroos and petted wallabees, we went to a beautiful beach for a swim, had some great food, visited Seal Rocks (though the weather was bad and we didn't actually see any seals), and the headed to SUmmerland beach for the highlight of the tour, the Penguin Parade! The Parade was an amazing experience! On Phillip island there is a colony of little Penguins (that is actually their name) and they all head into the ocean during the day to keep cool and avoid predators. At night, just as the sun sets, hundreds of penguins march in little groups back to their burrows. We were there just in time to see groups of penguins all over the beach marching back up to head to bed! It was an awesome experience but you are not allowed to take photos for the safety of the penguins. Instead I'll share with you one of the photos that you can buy at the gift shops. The tour didn't end until midnight so I once again crashed pretty hard!

Wild Koalas (they were everywhere!)
see all photos »

The next day I checked out of the hostel and took my bags into Melbourne city. My bus to Adelaide didn't leave until 8:30pm so I had a whole day to explore! I tried to go to the world renowned Queen Victoria Market, but it was closed that day! No problem, I had no room in my backpack for new things anyways! Then I headed to Federation Square and saw some of the beautiful architecture on the city streets. I got tired pretty quick so I settled down in the train station for the last few hours, then boarded my bus at 8:30pm. I know you're dying to know what happens next, but that is another story, for another day in another entry!