Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road, Australia
- Esther
- Sep 26, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 4, 2020
After a fun few days back in Sydney showing my friend Nidhi around, I was really excited to see Melbourne; the last stop of my East Coast travels and apparently the world’s most liveable city.
We stayed with my cousin Jake and his wife Alannah the whole time we were there, and it was so nice to stay in a home with family instead of a hostel - especially with their two adorable dogs Albert and Winston around. The first thing we did in Melbourne was walk them!
We managed to tick off a lot of the touristy things in the few days we were in Melbourne - like going all the way up to the Eureka Skydeck, having a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, seeing the National Gallery and walking around the Winter Night Market.
But you don’t have to plan your days out too much in Melbourne. We spent a lot of our time just wandering around the laneways and seeing what we found.
There’s a lot of really cool street art almost everywhere you go in the centre, and the city in general is famous for its great food, brunch and coffee shops (like Tulip Coffee, The Hardware Société, Little Cupcakes and an amazing dumpling place called ShanDong MaMa).
The croissants at Lune Croissanterie were also great and one of the coffee places we tried - Patricia’s - has apparently been rated the best in Australia. I’m not sure whether that’s true or not (because I’ve had so many good coffees here) but it was definitely delicious.
We also spent a bit of time around St Kilda beach (which was lovely but had nothing on Bondi and Coogee!) before accidentally finding a fun rooftop cinema bar called QT.
One night, we also met up with some friends we’d met in the Whitsundays, who took us to the best rooftop bar in Fitzroy (Naked for Satan) and an amazing Mexican placed called Sí Señorita.
Another evening, my cousin even managed to get us into a champagne tasting event he was working at in The Regent Theatre!
While I’ve been out here, I’ve heard a lot about the rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney. I feel like it’s true that Melbourne has a lot more character, history and energy - and because of that I could definitely have seen myself working and living there this year.
Like Brisbane, Melbourne actually reminded me quite a lot of London. But that means the one thing it’s missing is an amazing coastline! So, with Summer coming up my plan is to go back to Sydney for a while and enjoy the beaches (when I’m not working) until January when my visa is up.
The Great Ocean Road
After a few days of exploring the city, Ben and I decided to switch up the scenery and spend our weekend driving down the Great Ocean Road. It was such a good road trip!
There are so many beautiful stops along the famous drive, but my favourite by far was the Twelve Apostles; a group of limestone stacks in the sea which look their most stunning at sunset.
I also loved seeing the Loch Ard Gorge, the London Bridge and the Erskine Falls along the way.
Along the Grey River Road, we even spotted a sleepy wild koala in a tree!
All in all, our drive along the Great Ocean Road was amazing but sadly the end of it also marked the end of my East Coast travels (for now!)
The past six weeks have been the best of my whole year - and completely worth all the months of saving and budgeting we did for them!
My favourite East Coast stops have hands down been the Whitsunday Islands, Fraser Island and the Great Barrier Reef - but Noosa, Byron Bay and Magnetic Island came very close!
I’m hoping I’ll still get a chance to travel some more of Australia before I head back home. After I’ve spent a few more months saving up, I think it would be amazing to see Uluru and a little bit of the outback before travelling around New Zealand in January.
Until then, I’m looking forward to springtime in Sydney!
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