One day before our trip to Melbourne, just when we thought every thing, hotels, rental car etc, have all been settled, we realised one most important thing. We need to apply for a visa! Yes! A visa is required for Singaporeans travelling to Australia.
Google visa for Australia and you will find many websites offering this service and different websites charge different price. The safest is of course apply via Australian immigration website but that costs $20 per visa! I continued looking and the cheapest I found was $7 per visa and I booked through www.australia-eta.com.au. $7 is for regular processing which will process within 24 hours during working days. $15 for express processing within 5 to 6 hours but exclude sat and Sun. For super express processing including sat and Sun and take only 1 to 2 hrs, the cost is $20.
After this small hiccup, we are good to go!
We picked up our rental car at Melbourne Airport and drove to our accommodation to check in. The cost to travel from the airport to Melbourne City is not cheap. After doing some calculations, and since we are there during off peak, car rental was quite cheap, we decided to drive ourselves from the airport to the city. But having a car is also quite a headache in Melbourne City, the parking charges are exorbitant! Nonetheless, we still love our big blue! It's a Mitsubishi Eclipse, It's stable, quiet and spacious. Only thing hubby said the fuel consumption is not very good at 12+km per litre of petrol even when hubby on the eco mode most of the time and most of the days, we were on highways.
When we were travelling around Melbourne City, we stayed outskirts and find places near to the city center to park. Like we parked at DFO south wharf as they offer 50% discount on the parking charges if u purchase anything from the DFO. Do remember to take the discount ticket when making the purchase at the store. Still it cost us A$24 for 1 full day of parking. That's the maximum charge of the parking at the DFO South Wharf.
From DFO south wharf, we'll be able to walk across the river to the free tram zone of Melbourne center. You can take the tram without tapping the Myki card nor paying any thing as long as u board and alight within the free tram zone.
Outside the free team zone, even if u just wanted to take one trip, u will need to purchase a Myki card. There is no single trip ticket for public transport in Melbourne. The Myki card cost A$6 and its non refundable. On top of that, you will need to top up the card to pay for the transport fares. We are quite puzzled why are there no single journey ticket and the Myki card is so expensive if I am just gonna take 1 or 2 trips. Dur..
Here goes our itinerary!
Day 1
We took red eye flight and arrived Melbourne in the morning. But we were exhausted from the red eye flight and hence, we rested at our accommodation till about 1pm before heading out. Our first stop is shopping at DFO South Wharf. It's like a premium outlet with great discounts if you are buying branded stuff.
Met up with my friend who stays in Melbourne and we had a great dinner at Merrywell Bar and Dining at Crown Melbourne. The steak was really nice, it's charred and crispy on the outside while tender inside. Love the guacamole too. One thing about dining in Australia is, the food is yummy but it's expensive.
Day 2
Shopped at Chadstone, the biggest shopping mall in the Southern hemisphere! This is a normal shopping centre so there's not much discounted stuff for branded stuff like the DFO. But it's really big with all the big department stores in it like Target, Kmart, Woolsworth, Myers, David Jones. Its so big that you can really lost your way there, and you need to make effort to remember where u parked the car, otherwise, you will have a hard time finding it later. The best thing? Parking is free here!
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| Chadstone has a really nice rooftop |
After done shopping at Chadstone, we drove 1.5 hours to Phillip Island. Main activities in Phillip Island are penguin parade, koala conservation centre, Churchill farm, Antarctica centre and eco boat to see seals. Our main objective is to see the penguin parade so we only bought tickets for that at A$52.50 per person for penguin plus. Klook website actually sold bundle tickets at a cheaper price, can take a look at that.
There are 3 ticket prices for penguin parade. The cheapest is general viewing, the most expensive is underground viewing, penguin plus is in the middle. For Penguin Plus, u get to see the penguins closer than general viewing and got limited seating of 200. Underground viewing also got limited seating and it was sold out for the next 7 days. I guessed now is winter so its much warmer to be in the enclosed area. For penguin plus and general viewing, will have to wait for the penguins in the cold.
Photo taking is not allowed when the penguins are out. So I didn't take any photo of the penguins. I only took a photo of the beach before sunset.
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| Waiting for Penguins in the cold |
As the night falls, some penguins started appearing on the shore. They look so hum ji when trying to come out of the sea. A little bit of things will scare them and they will scurry back to the sea hahaha. They were really cute and it's a nice experience watching them waddle pass us. They looked so cute walking around!
Oh, if you are buying the penguin plus tickets, u will get to walk the boardwalk alongside with the penguins. So dun stay too long at the viewing area. When u see a huge crowd of penguin walking along the trail, just follow them via the boardwalk. Its a lot more interesting to follow them along the boardwalk than watching them from the viewing deck! We made the mistake of staying too long at the viewing deck, we only manage to follow 4 penguins along the boardwalk. We missed it when there was a big crowd of penguins walking down the trail.
After the penguin parade, it was dark. We stayed at a town called Frankston at Frankston motel. It's somewhere between Phillip Island and Melbourne. We drove for 1 hour in the dark from Phillip Island to the motel to shorten the traveling time next day. The motel was nice, spacious, clean and it has heated bed! We love our stay there.
Day 3
We drove 45mins towards Melbourne and stopped at Brighton colourful beach houses, the instagrammable tourist attraction. The parking here was like A$4 an hour and u need to purchase the ticket at the parking machine and display the ticket on your car.
The weather was great when I was there. It was a nice walk along the beach, but there were many people visiting the area. I would prefer if it is more of a peaceful beach walk.
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| Yeah! Life's a beach! |
Next, we drove another half an hour to South Melbourne Market. Parking at South Melbourne Market is free for the first 2 hours on Market days (Wed, Fri, Sat and Sun).
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| From southmelbournemarket.com.au website |
We spent 1 hour plus here trying the the seafood, raw oysters and sea urchin.
My verdict? The oysters look big and succulent but when I slurped it into my mouth, it tasted a tad salty and lacked the fresh ocean seafood sweetness. I am a tad disappointed. I have tasted better ones. As for the sea urchin, it's big but hmmm.. I prefer uni in Japan.
After filling out tummy at South Melbourne Market, we are going to start the highlight of our trip! The Great Ocean Road! Let's go!
Torquay is the first town of the GOR from Melbourne direction. Following the road, we come to the next destination, Bells Beach. It has a beautiful coastline. It was so therapeutic watching surfers ride the waves and hear the waves crashing on to the shore. I could stay here whole day!
Further down from Bells Beach, the next stop was Anglesea Beach. When we reach Anglesea, its sunset. That day's weather was great, totally clear skies! Look at the pink sunset, it's mesmerising! We did some funny slow Mo video in front of the pink sunset too hahaha.
Following the road, next up is Aireys Inlet. Here there is a short walk about 15 mins one way to see a light house and the views around there is beautiful. This is a good chance for us to test Samsung S9 night mode. It was quite dark when we reach the lighthouse but the photos turned out great!
After rushing to see the lighthouse, the sky is dark. So we immediately drove to Lorne, where we spent our night. Our accommodation for the night is Mantra Lorne. Near the hotel, there is a Tripadvisor number 1 in Lorne, Ipsos. The food is truly delicious and we were blown away!
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| Grilled octupus. The octopus was so tender. It was nice but the portion was too small for it's price at A$22. We were not happy about this because of it's price. |
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| Crispy pork belly. This was heavenly!!! THE BEST CRISPY PORK BELLY I HAVE EVER EATEN! I can totally hear the "crack crack" sound when I bite on it! while the meat inside melts in your mouth, and i don't feel the greasy fatty feeling at all! Coupled with the tangerine sauce, it give the meat a refreshing taste so that you dun feel greasy when eating. I can dream about this dish!! |
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| Filo pastry and vanilla custard with ice cream and quince sauce. What is Quince? We dunno. But it tasted yummy! and the pastry is flaky on the outside and soft on the inside. Superb too! |
After a satisfying dinner, we had a swim at our accommodation's hot pool before heading to bed. Zzzz.
Day 4
The breakfast was great at mantra lorne! We really love our stay here!
Our whole day will be along the great ocean Road! After checking out from the hotel, we visited teddy's lookout first. The view was beautiful.
After teddy's look out, we drive to Erskine falls. There is a upper lookout and a lower lookout. The upper lookout is quite easy to reach with only some steps to climb. But the view of the falls is not great from here. The view is better at the lower lookout but there are a lot of stairs. The tough part is climbing back up after viewing the falls. Nonetheless, we made good use of our time there and took lots of photos and testing out the Samsung slow mo function.
When Slow-Mo fails....
Continuing on the journey, we just stopped for a while to take pictures when there are scenic lookout points indicated. This whole stretch of great ocean road is a scenic drive and the coasts is beautiful. But do drive carefully as the road is very bendy with strong winds.
We next stopped at Apollo Bay to have our lunch. Fish and chips is really yummy in Australia. But it's not my type of food, I can't eat too much fried stuff. So we decided to skip fish and chips here and order something else. We had our lunch at Apollo Bay seafood cafe, it's crowded when we were there. We ordered the mussels cooked with white wine sauce in a pot and a grilled barramundi. Both were fresh and yummy though I find the barramundi fillet too thin. I guess fresh ingredients wins hands down. I seldom taste such fresh fish in Singapore. But here, almost all the fish I had were so fresh.
After our lunch, we continued our journey to Cape Otway, thinking of seeing the famous lighthouse. But.. Entrance fee is required here and it cost A$20 per person to go in. It was designed like a small theme park,with cafes and some other stuff in there. But the main attraction is of course the lighthouse. At the carpark, we can't see anything at all, not even a glimpse of the light house. A sign at the side road caught our attention, "free trail to view lighthouse". But errr.. after walking along the trail for 10 mins we come to a tiny lookout spot which we can't see much. So dun ever waste your time walking this trail. Haha. We didn't pay to go in in the end as our giam giam mode turned on. Didnt feel like wasting A$40 to go in for half an hour as we were also rushing to the 12 apostles before sunset. So we actually wasted half an hour to purposely drive in and out of Cape Otway and the drive in was somewhat scary as the road was surrounded by forests with no scenic stuff to see. So u decide whether u wanna come to Cape Otway.
From Cape Otway to the highlight of Great Ocean Road took about 1.5 hours drive. We first arrive at Gibson steps. There is a staircase all the way down to the beach. We didn't stay long here and proceed to 12 apostles to catch the sunset.
From the 12 Apostles car park, u need to walk about 5 to 10mins along the board walk to see 12 apostles. It's really pretty. A pity that its cloudy that day and we couldn't have a nice orangy sunset :( Ehh.. But i counted, there's only 7 apostles instead of 12.Guess the rest was eroded by the strong waves.
After 12 Apostles, the sky is turning dark and we head to our accommodation at Port Campbell to rest for the night.
Day 5
We continued driving down the Great Ocean Road to sight see the rest of the landmarks, we were rushing for time to sight see all of the landmarks before the dark clouds arrived.The Razorback
Loch Ard Gorge
There is a staircase where u can walk down to see the Gorge closer. It's really therapeutic to be standing there hearing the waves and watching the waves crashed to the shore. But beware that some waves can be so strong that it washed really far up to the shore!
You can walk to the other end to see other views of the cliffs around the area.
The Arch
London Arch
The Grotto
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| Staircase to walk down to see the Grotto |
Bay of Martyrs
Bay of Islands
We did a few stupid jumping shots here where mine's a failed one and hubby kept laughing at me.
After all the sightseeing, the rain caught up with us! We were so lucky to finish all that we wanted to see. It's time for lunch and a cuppa hot chocolate while the rain is pouring. We went back to Port Campbell for our lunch and found Port Campbell No1 on Trip Advisor - Forage on the Foreshore! The food's really GREAT! Love it!
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| Grilled Barramundi and potatoes. The fish was so fresh and tender and the potatoes were great! |
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| Gnocchi with cheese, spinach and mushroom. Best Gnocchi ever! |
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| Outside the cafe, lots of seagulls! |
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| Our dinner at Geelong - King George Fish and Grill Waterfront. Yums! |
Day 6
It's a shopping day for us. So we made use of the free tram in the free tram zone to move around Melbourne centre area and Chinatown area. We were wowed by the Victorian Library interior design, it's all symmetrical and it looks so grand!
Our main activity in the city was just shopping. So yep, for day 6, nothing much except walking around the city area and buying things.
Day 7
We had some time before heading to the airport, so we went to the famous Queen Victoria Market in the morning. Do take note of the opening hours of Queen Victoria Market as they don't open every day. It seems to us as a big market with stalls selling many things. It's a good experience, but i find South Melbourne Market better. However, my friend did tell me that if you are here on Wednesday, Queen Victoria night market is great! But we missed it this time. There is always future ya.
After that, it's time to say bye to Melbourne and proceed to the Airport.
We will be back!
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