Back To Aussie Land

We were sad to leave New Zealand, but excited for the next portion of our trip - back to Australia we went. We flew into Melbourne early on Tuesday, March 11. A friend, Mike Thorburn, from Queen's lives there and was kind enough to pick us up from the airport. We hadn't seen him in years, so it was so nice to see him again and catch up. He drove us to St Kilda in Melbourne, where we spent most of the day. It wasn't the most fun day ever - most of it was spent reactivating our phone, mailing stuff home to Canada and getting organized for our time in Australia.

We were staying at a place we found on Airbnb. The place was in North Melbourne, so once all of our errands were done and we had explored St Kilda, we made our way to our accommodation. We ended up staying in a room of a cute little house owned by a young couple with their dog. We stayed with Nat, Ben and Phyllis for the next 4 nights and had a great time! We both fell in love with Phyllis and it was nice to have a solid home base for a few days while we explored Melbourne.

Phyllis is a suck

Once we were settled in at our place Mike came to pick us up and we went out for dinner and drinks. He took us to a few cool places - there are so many restaurants and bars in Melbourne, it's insane!!!

The next day Dave and I went off on our own to explore downtown Melbourne. We walked around a lot of the city and really fell in love with it. There are so many neat little arcades and laneways that you can walk through, with tons of little shops, coffee shops and restaurants. That night we went to the night market with Mike. There was so much delicious food and cute little stalls selling vintage and current clothes and trinkets. The most hilarious part of the entire market was the "Silent Disco". So, what happens is everyone in the disco is wearing headphones and they are all listening to the same song at the same time. It is hilarious to watch people dancing and singing along from outside. Everyone looked like they were having the best time - doing the YMCA dance and just bopping along to all the music.

 

On Thursday we went to the gym with Mike and then he was kind enough to take us out to the Mornington Peninsula for the rest of the day. It is about an hours drive from Melbourne and there is so much to do there. We did some wine tasting, followed by some cheese tasting (my favourite!) and then finished it off at the hot springs. It is sort of like Le Nordique in Ottawa, but the view is amazing. They have one hot pool on the top of this hill and you can almost see all the way back to Melbourne on a clear day! We were all pretty much starving by then and went out for some Vietnamese food and ate our faces off. It was such an awesome day!

On our last day in Melbourne we had made plans to see an old friend, Marci. I worked with her at the Wigamog Inn, the summer I spent there after first year of university. I haven't seen her in years, but I feel like I have because we have a mutual friend (Paige) who updates us on each other often. But it was so nice to see her face to face and catch up. She has been living in Melbourne for almost 8 years and was about to marry her Australian boyfriend. They were actually heading back to Canada for their wedding at the end of April, so we were lucky we got to meet up with her in Oz.

On our way home from lunch we walked through a little more of the city, including Chinatown and then went to the Queen Victoria Market to pick up some food for dinner. After dinner Mike was able to get us some amazing tickets to the op


ening game of the Aussie Rules Football season at Etihad Stadium, so off we went to the game. One of his friends goes to the same gym as some people who work in the AFL head office so we ended up with front row seats, near midfield for the game. I have never sat (and probably will never sit) in better seats again! The game was a bit of a blow out - Freemantle kicked Collingwood's butt. Dave actually even bet on the game, and unlike his horse-racing bets, he actually won on this one. He won a whole $2.75.

Best seats in the house

Sadly, that was all the time we had in Melbourne. On Saturday morning we had a car rented so we could drive the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide for the next 3 days.
Thanks for reading

xoxox