Melbourne, Australia - The Second City

View from hotel window (Grand Hyatt)

When discussing our trip with friends who have traveled that way, there was one city that kept getting brought up as a must visit. This cemented in the need to make it down to Victoria to visit the state capital.

Hosier Lane - Great Graffiti

Melbourne had more hustle and bustle than Sydney and also has a developing foodie culture that does not disappoint. It was impossible to pick from the large range of restaurants and not be pleased with the outcome (A couple near by our hotel which were great: Chin Chin, Yak, Lucy Liu's, Jin Dumpling and Noodle House). While touring the city, wandering the Yarra River, and enjoying the food, we also made sure to make it into a few of the old cathedrals (St. Patrick's/St. Paul's) along with an epic visit to the Old Melbourne Gaol (former prison). We not only got to see inner workings of the prison and hear about some chilling stories (that happened all the way up to 1997) but we also got to go through the activity of being detained, questioned, and locked into dark holding cells with fifteen other confused tourists (not sure I'd sign up to do that again!).

Old Melbourne Gaol

As usual, we also used our free time to journey outside of the city to see the wildlife and countryside.

One day we took a trip out with Christian and Yarra Valley Wine Tours (Yering Station, Domaine Chandon, Rochford, and Yileena Park) to taste an incredible variety of wines centered around Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and sparkling wines. We also did a cheese and chocolate tasting while in the valley. At the final stop, at a very small vineyard run by a private couple, we were tasting in their upstairs tasting room and could spot a mob of 50+ wild kangaroos hopping quickly across the hillsides (can't beat that).

Domaine Chandon - Yarra Valley

Our other day trip which was completely planned by Jolene (and I believe was on the top of her list) was heading down to Phillip Island for the Penguin Parade. This is getting a chance to sit on the coast and watch a colony of Little Penguins (no longer to be referred to as Fairies) storm the beach as they return from fishing in the open waters. They come up onto the beach and group before doing a hurried waddle through the few annoying gulls and right past us up the hill into their rookery for the night. This was truly an amazing natural process that is not to be missed. With good advice from our guide we got great views. We also had the chance to wander the island ourselves to catch some of the other wildlife and great views of some of the rocky coastline. This is also the trip we met Yung and Jeremy from Canada out on their month long honeymoon. We accidentally ran into them a few more times during our travels by coincidence and it was always nice to hear some of the things they saw or heard that we may have missed out on.