Tag Archives: melbourne

City of Melbourne (Day 4)

Our last day in Melbourne was a free day to explore the city, so we planned it out and visited all our Melbourne bucket list items!

Hosier & Rutledge Lane

We ate breakfast at one of the many lovely little cafes throughout Melbourne, then walked along the parks and over the river into the city. Our first stop was Hosier and Rutledge Lane, a small section of alleyways decked out in graffiti art. This had been one of the places I wanted to visit since before I came to Australia, so it was definitely exciting! Some of the art is semi-permanent, while some of it changes more frequently, but it is all colorful and intriguing. Other locations throughout the city are known for similar graffiti artwork, but this is the most popular.

Rutledge Lane

Rutledge Lane

Obligatory dance picture at Rutledge Lane

Obligatory dance picture at Rutledge Lane

The City

The downtown area of Melbourne is lovely, very artsy and clean. We spent a little time looking at artwork in Federation Square, which is a cool building itself, but also had very interesting art inside. My favorite was a glass exhibit that was centered around the ocean and coral reefs, the work was absolutely stunning!

Federation Square

Federation Square

Brighton Beach

After becoming a master of the State of Victoria public transport (difficult to do in one day), we took the tram to Brighton Beach. At Dendy Beach, located at Brighton, there are 82 huts lined up along the beach. These iconic “bathing boxes,” were originally built for a place to sleep near the beach, but now the colorful huts are more of a novelty. These tiny vacation homes start at $25,000, and create an iconic beachscape. We checked out all the different designs painted on the huts walking along the beach, and looked at the beautiful Victorian-inspired homes built along the road on the way back.

Row of Brighton Beach huts

Row of Brighton Beach huts

Close up of Brighton Beach hut

Close up of Brighton Beach hut

The Arbory

Mid-afternoon, we visited the Arbory Bar & Eatery, the longest bar in Australia. With all outdoor seating on on old tram-station deck, the kitchen and two bars are located inside repurposed shipping containers along the deck. This restaurant was quite delightful, the food and drinks were great, and it was a lovely way to spend an afternoon sitting on the river’s edge.

The Arbory Bar & Eatery

The Arbory Bar & Eatery

St. Kilda

Our last adventure of the day was at St. Kilda Pier at dusk to see penguins! I know this is Australia, but it just shows how versatile the environments are here! A small colony of little penguins, Eudyptula minor, having been living in the breakwaters protecting St. Kilda harbour since the 1970’s, and have been studied since 1986. The best way to see them is at dawn or dusk, and you can find them popping out of the rocks of the breakwater where they raise chicks in the protection of the rock wall. They are completely adorable and well-worth visiting!

Penguins!

I am very happy that we got to check off all the major activities we were hoping to get to do in Melbourne, but am still sad to leave! Hopefully I’ll be back one day to explore the city more, but for now we’re off to Tasmania!

Expect the Unexpected (Melbourne Day 3)

This morning we enjoyed breakfast with the b&b owners, said thank you and farewell, then headed off for our third day on the Great Ocean Road.

On our first adventure was heading into a forest in our van, and soon after getting stuck in a ditch of mud! With the severe drought, the ground was not ready to handle this amount of rain, and our car was not able to handle the slippery ground trying to go uphill. Our tour guide called the b&b and shortly the husband came to save us with his tractor. It wasn’t the most ideal start to the day, but worse things could happen!

Port Campbell

This was the most WINDY place I have ever been to in my life! It was a beautiful lookout, but maybe more so when you can actually see it without wind-induced vision impairment. Port Campbell does have a very small boat pier, and is a very small town. With a population under 100, it’s main purpose is catering to the 12 Apostles tourism industry.

London Bridge

This was also one of my favorite stops of the trip, a gorgeous lookout that was also very windy. At the most northern point in Mornington Peninsula National Park, and bordering Point Nepean National Park, the structure is composed of sandstone. Although originally a double-span natural bridge, the structure weakened through weathering action, and in 1990 the first archway collapsed. Two tourists were stranded on the outer span, but no one was hurt and they were brought inland by helicopter. Originally called the London Bridge, it is now referred to as the London Arch, respective to the change in its structure.

London Bridge

London Bridge

Bay of Islands

Our last coastal stop of the trip was the Bay of Islands, where a short cliff walk leads down stairs to the beach. Here we spent a few minutes on the breathtaking beach, looking up at the sheer cliff faces and seeing the rock columns in the sea from ground level. It was an incredible view!

Bay of Islands lookout

Bay of Islands beach

Bay of Islands lookout

Bay of Islands lookout

Red Rock

After enjoying a light lunch at the Timboon Railway Shed Distillery (in the town of Timboon), we drove inland to Red Rock. This volcanic complex is part of the Otway National Park, where volcanic eruptions created craters. A few of these craters filled with water to create lakes, including Purdiguluc, Werowrap, and Coragulac. There are over 40 centers with various sizes, and we visited the top of the Coragulac Lookout. We could see for miles around the impressive landscape, and although it was still very cold and windy, it was a great way to wrap up the tour.

Craters of Red Rock

Craters of Red Rock

Lookout

Coragulac Lookout

Overall, I would HIGHLY recommend this tour (Echidna Walkabout – 3 Day Great Ocean Road). It was expensive, but considering two nights of great accommodation, all food, and three days of tours are included, it turned out to be rather reasonable. It was a fantastic experience, and probably one of my favorite adventures in Australia so far!

The Great Ocean Road (Melbourne Day 2)

Our second day started with breakfast at the b&b, followed by a drive to a national park. This is the only location of the trip that I failed to take note of the name, but it was a great stop! We took a walk through the forest, which our guide said reminded him of the Blaire Witch Projects due to its eerie look with the dry and twisted trees, and paused at a spectacular lookout of the beach below.

North side of lookout

East side of lookout

South side of lookout

West side of lookout

Teddy’s Lookout

We Here we took a short walk through the woods in the town of Lorne, where we saw a few different birds. Our guide then gave us directions to take a short hike down the mountain, while he drove the car around to meet at the bottom. We hiked down a very steep track to the base of the mountain, at the river lookout. It was neat to see the Saint George River from above, then hike down and along it as well. We ate lunch in the nearby town of Marengo, enjoying delicious food at the General Store café.

Teddy's Lookout

Teddy’s Lookout

Beachwalk

One of my favorite stops of the day was a short beach walk we took near this area. We walked out on rock platforms, and using binoculars you could see a few seals on nearby rocks! It was a stunning beach, and a beautiful change of scenery from all the bushwalking.

Rocks platforms on the beach

Rocks platforms on the beach

Panoramic view of the beach

Panoramic view of the beach

Maits Rest

The next stop, Maits Rest rainforest, was also a fantastic find. Part of the Great Otway National Park, this is a must-do. This national park was declared in 2004, and overall includes a variety of landscapes including beaches, forests, a significant koala population (obviously important) and the Cape Otway Lighthouse. We took a relatively short but awesome walk through through one of the only rainforests left standing in Southern Australia, on the wooden boardwalk track that carves through the ancient forest.

Tree in Maits Rest

Tree in Maits Rest Rainforest

The 12 Apostles

It’s easy to see why the 12 Apostles are a popular tourist attraction, but was strange to enter such a busy area after bushwalking with only a few people for a day and a half straight. Rock cliffs in the area are made of soft limestone, which the Southern Ocean (combined with harsh weather conditions) gradually eroded to form caves and steeper cliffs. Those cliffs became arches, which eventually collapsed leaving rock stack formations.

Until 1922, the formation was called the Sow and Piglets, with Muttonbird Island as the Sow and the smaller rock stacks as the Piglets. However, the name was changed a number of years ago to increase tourism to the area, and the 12 Apostles was selected simply because it sounded more appealing. There were never actually 12 rock stacks, only nine, and in 2005, the 9th stack collapsed leaving the currently standing 8 Apostles.

The 12 Apostles lookout (west)

The 12 Apostles lookout (west)

One downside is that the soft limestone landscape makes it susceptible to further erosion and collapse. Studies are currently being conducted to make predictions of changes, but currently the rate of cliff erosion is 2cm per year. Existing headlands to cliff faces are expected to become new rock stacks in the future, and sinkholes more inland are becoming more of a problem. Although sinkholes evolve over time and do not collapse suddenly (unlike cliffs could), they still present infrastructure problems.

Loch Ard Gorge

This lookout gets its name because the Loch Ard boat ran aground here years back, near Muttonbird Island, while traveling from England to Melbourne. Two out of 54 passengers survived, including Tom Peace (age 15) and emigrant Eva Carmichael. Tom saved Eva after hearing her cries for help, and they were taken in by a random passerby (although several versions of why these people where in the undeveloped area at the time exist). Later the arch of the nearby island collapsed, leaving two unconnected pillars which are now named Tom and Eva respectively.

Loch Ard Gorge

Loch Ard Gorge

Loch Ard B&B

For our evening accommodation, we stayed at an absolutely charming dairy farm bed and breakfast. The property was set just behind the Great Ocean Road, with the ranch-style house sitting atop of the hill. We could see kangaroos and cattle roaming through the hills, and were close enough to still see the sea spay coming up the cliff edges. The couple that owns the bed and breakfast are lovely, and estimated they’ve had over 4000 people stay there in the past 10 years. Overnight, we had massive thunderstorms come through, which made us feel quite in touch with nature (luckily from inside). They made us a homemade dinner and we had a fantastic night enjoying their (Australian) Southern hospitality!

On The Road Again (Melbourne Day 1)

Our first impression of Melbourne has been as expected, an art and food capital of Australia. After checking into our Airbnb, we went to Downstairs Bistro & Lounge for dinner, and enjoyed a lovely meal with great service. We spent the night repacking, and the next morning headed out with the Echidna Walkabout Tour to explore the Great Ocean Road!

The Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road is a roughly 250 kilometer road built right along the cliff edge of Southern Australia (map below). This area has a temperate Mediterranean climate, with very windy coastlines and inlands of dry and hot weather. Rainfall varies depending on location, and all sorts of environments exist here, including wetlands, rainforests, dry forests, beaches, and more. The road was built by returned soldiers between 1919-1932, and is considered the largest war memorial in Australia, dedicated to those soldiers killed during WWI. It has been extremely useful for the timber industry, and now is a huge tourist attraction.

Great Ocean Road map (http://www.atn.com.au/topdestinations/victoria/great-ocean-road.html)

Great Ocean Road map (http://www.atn.com.au/topdestinations/victoria/great-ocean-road.html)

You Yangs

Our first official stop was at the You Yangs Regional Park, a granite range Southwest of Melbourne that is part of Parks Victoria. We spent the morning exploring, and didn’t see much during our first walk, but throughout the day saw countless kanagroos and wallabies, several koalas, and various birds. One of my favorites was spotting two red and blue parrots! Their colors are so vibrant and beautiful, especially to see in the wild.

A “mob”of kangaroos

Koala in You Yangs Park

Koala in You Yangs Park

We spent a couple hours searching for wildlife and koala hunting (or more appropriately, blob hunting through the treetops. We enjoyed a picnic lunch at a cook-out area, next to a grassy field where a group of kangaroos were residing. They staying during the whole lunch, which our guide said was a first for him! Our guide also used water and leaves off a hand-picked branch of a Eucalyptus tree to make “Hillbilly tea.” By swinging the teapot around in a circle like a softball pitch, the leaves and particles are pushed to the bottom of the pot, giving the tea a clear pour. It was fun to watch and delicious to drink!

Lunch with the kangaroos

Lunch with the kangaroos

Serendip

After exploring a bit more, we headed to a neighboring park, Serendip. This park is used for wildlife research, captive management, and breeding of threatened species. Just as we entered, we came across three emu’s taking a stroll! We watched them for a while, then walked around the lake and through a dried-up lake. Southern Australia has been in severe drought, and the area we walked through used to have water up to shoulder-level just a year ago. In fact, the park system had resorted to putting some feed out for the emu’s earlier in the season since conditions were getting so harsh. However, luckily for the land, our arrival also brought rain, which made the community and animals in the area quite happy! We spotted wallabies, various birds, another koala, and even two possums at this park!

Little River

Our evening accommodation was in this tiny town, at a beautiful bed and breakfast called the Little River B&B. We had a fantastic suite-like room, and the property was uniquely decorated with old-fashioned trinkets. We took a walk down by the river that ran behind the property, and got a look at the old-fashioned homes that made up the small village. For dinner, the tour made reservations for us at the Little River Hotel, a restaurant right next to the b&b. Although it was a pretty basic pub-like restaurant, the staff was very accommodating and the food was fantastic.

After dinner, we settled in for the night and got ready for another full day ahead!

Greetings From Down Unda!

I’ll be starting this long overdue blogpost with two memes that capture what my 7 weeks in Melbourne, Australia have been like: soamazing.jpg amazingmeme.jpg Melbourne is Amazing! I’ve been struggling to find a word to describe what this city feels like, and the one word that constantly comes to mind is “home”. There’s an aura about Melbourne that just grabs you, and makes everything feel…easy. It’s unexplainable to be honest, but if you can think of that one happy place in your mind, Melbourne is the one…to me at least. You could blame it on bias, but all of the wonderful friends I have made here share the same sentiments. In Aussie time, it’s been exactly 7 weeks since I arrived here, and it’s terrifying to think how quickly time flies. I’m trying to grab as many memories as I can, and writing this blog helps keep them all in perspective. I don’t want to forget anything; this feeling of home, it’s something I haven’t felt in a long time. But before I get into that, I want to properly introduce myself. About Me: My name is Lynn Onyambu, I am 19 years old (20 next month!), and a senior in Penn State/University of Melbourne. I was born in Nairobi, Kenya, but i’ve lived in the US for 12 years of my life. My father is Kenyan, and my mother is Zambian. So even though i’m half blood (Harry Potter PUN-DEFINITELY-INTENDED), i’m still 100%, all around African. I speak Swahili fluently, and a bit of Spanish (barely, but definitely more than the casual “Hola, Yo Quiero -insert name of restaurant chain- “). I am majoring in Media Studies, International Communications, and minoring in International Studies. I’m not a Pennsylvanian native, but I’ve lived there longer than I have lived anywhere else, so I guess you could call me an adopted native. I bleed blue and white, but that’s a given cause PENN STATE, DUH! Why I Chose Melbourne: I honestly ask myself the same question. I always had dreams of doing an exchange program in London, but one day Australia just popped into my mind, and I ran with it (Chris Hemsworth may have been a slight motivation). I researched the best communication schools in the world, and the University of Melbourne was one of them (and also the top university in Australia!). I was hooked before I even clicked on the website, and my Google search became even better once I noticed their school colors were similar to Penn State’s. I found out that Penn State did in fact have an exchange program with Unimelb (gotta use the nickname to up my street cred), and it was all set from there. Months later, here I am, in the greatest city in Australia (sorry Sydney!), possibly even the world. I am studying in a university where I don’t feel overwhelmed, doubtful, or even scared. I’m in an environment where everything reminds me of home, and Penn State, and that’s more than I could have ever asked for. Goals: I only have two goals that I want to accomplish while I’m here.

  • To be the very best version of myself, morally and academically.
  • To live. I sometimes get stuck in keeping myself in a comfortable routine of complacency where I don’t challenge myself to see more than what’s beyond the surface. But i’ve got my night goggles, telescope, and binoculars this time around, so let’s do this!

Pic of Advice: cover1.jpg I have found my happiness here in Melbourne, and for those of you who will read this, I challenge you to do the same. It’s certainly not that easy, different trials and tribulations will factor in, but it’s also not impossible. Every journey begins with the first step. Ps. Here’s a picture of some of the friends i’ve made in Melbourne. No worries though, more pictures are coming soon. I have so much to share with you all! Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for blogpic1.jpg Stay lovely, Lynn


Location: Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne & The Great Ocean Road

Melbourne is a town 30 minutes north of my hometown in Florida. It’s also the coolest city in Australia. And pronounced funny: Mel-BIN not Mel-BORN. There are lots of airline deals in Australia and we were able to get $50 flights each way on Tiger Airlines. I have heard that Tiger Airlines is unreliable and some warned to avoid it completely. However, it was cheap and the flights were nonstop. In the three years I’ve been at Penn State (and the trips I took to visit my senior year of high school), I have experienced more cancelled and delayed flights thanks to the Philadelphia and State College airports than most people will experience in their life. Needless to say, Tiger didn’t scare me and all in all my flights went smoothly (minus a frightening landing on the runway in Sydney). I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my entire semester in Melbourne since it’s further south and therefore colder, but I’d highly recommend it for a visit… or the entire semester if you’d consider yourself a hipster.

Day 1: St. Kilda. We arrived in Melbourne at 1:30pm. By the time we were picked up by the shuttle bus to take us to our hostel and weaved in and out of the city traffic, it was already 3:30pm. We stayed at Hotel Discovery (though it’s a hostel, not hotel), which was clean, cheap, centrally located and not too rowdy. Once settled, we took the city tram ($4 each way) to St. Kilda where we saw a beautiful sunset. After walking along the boardwalk and finding some delicious fish and chips along the main road in St. Kilda, we down the pier to find a small penguin colony. The penguins were adorable and made the funniest noises. It’s very rare to have wild penguins in such a populated area, so they’re colony is closely monitored by a local organization. There is a day trip from Melbourne to Phillips Island, which advertises wild penguin sightings, but we were able to see penguins for free in St. Kilda… so neat!

penguins.jpg Day 2: Street Art and Carlton United Brewers. Melbourne is famous for it’s street art. Some of the “art” is just your everyday graffiti, but if you find the right alley, you can stumble upon real creativity! One of my friends found a map of street art locations online and we used this as our guide. The map led us through some cute alleys that were lined with shops and boutiques – so trendy! We also took a stroll through Fitzroy Gardens. The gardens are a step above most city parks and reminded me of a garden I visited in San Francisco. After the gardens, we took a tram to the Carlton United Brewers factory. With a 2-for-1 coupon and a student discount, the factory tour only cost $10 a person. I love factories tours (especially ones with free tastings) so I had a lot of fun here, even though the factory operations had already shut down for the weekend. Carlton is one of the most common beers in Australia, but the CUB also makes other brews, including Fosters. Though most Americans would think Foster’s is super popular over here (after all, “Fosters is Australian for beer”), it’s actually not. After the tour, each guests was allowed to sample four beers out of a selection of ten, including two ciders. Even better was the opportunity to play dress up in a giant beer costume while standing behind the bar. Later on, we found some more street art and ate dinner at Trippy Taco in Fitzroy near Brunswick St. The $9 burritos were a steal for Mexican food in Australia and they were real tasty.

streetart.jpg

carlton.jpgDay 3: Great Ocean Road. No trip to Melbourne is complete without a day trip along the Great Ocean Road. This is known as one of the most scenic drives in the world. The whole drive would take two days (to get to Adelaide), but the most popular route is from Melbourne to the Twelve Apostles. My friend Bone was feeling adventurous and decided that he wanted to drive the road himself. Since tours of the Great Ocean Road leave you stuck on a big bus with no control of your day and they cost about $100 a person, we obliged to let Bone drive. The drive is frightening and I felt like I might throw up a couple times, but when I did have my eyes open looking over the side of the windy cliff, it was beautiful. We set out about 8:30am from Melbourne and saw our last sight at about 4:45pm. greatoceanarch.jpg

Our stops included:

  • Bells Beach – One of the best surf beaches in Australia. The ways were HUGE!
  • Split Point Lighthouse – This is a good alternative to the Otway Lighthouse if you don’t mind not climbing. The Otway Lighthouse is a pretty far detour and costs money to climb, but most tour groups go there.
  • Great Ocean Road Arch and Diggers Statue
  • Kennett River – There’s a campground and a small mini mart here. Just off the road you can see koalas up in the trees. It was unfortunately raining when we were here, but I did get to see a koala chowing down on some eucalyptus and then go hopping through the tree!

koala.jpg

  • Apollo Bay – This is the last town before the 12 Apostles so stop here if you’re hungry!
  • Gibson Steps
  • 12 Apostles – The main attraction along the Great Ocean Road. There were a million people here and it was so windy everyone was blowing around, but the 12 Apostles really are an impressive sight!

12ap.jpg

  • Loch Arch and Gorge – Not a far walk from the car park so worth the stop. You can even walk down to the water here.
  • The Arch
  • London Bridge – It was so rainy I didn’t get out of the car here.
  • The Grotto – The Arch, London Bridge, and the Grotto are all very close to each other once you’ve past the 12 Apostles. Not all the tour groups stop at these places.
  • Timboon – This is a random small town on the road back east to Melbourne. We had some great pizza at the only open food shop there. From here it was an hour and 40-minute drive back to Melbourne along dark forest roads and highway.

Location: Melbourne, Australia

G’day

Hi everyone following my blog. My name is Lauralee Geci, and I am currently a senior at Penn State. During the spring semester I will be studying at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. I have always wanted to study abroad, and I am so thankful that I have the opportunity before I graduate. I can’t wait to begin my studies in “the land down under.” In less than two months I will be arriving in a new country, experiencing a new culture, and making new friends and memories. I am excited to share my experiences with all of you and look forward to the adventures that are to come!!. 

xo Lauralee 

Location: Melbourne, Australia