A family trip around the World – Melbourne

Having unexpectedly come into a bit of money, I decided to use it to involve my family in some of my travel adventures, offering to put it towards flights for myself, my parents, my brother and sister-in-law to visit Australia.

Having visited myself a few times already, I was eager to take them to some of my favourite places there but also wanted to include at least one city or area I hadn’t visited before. Sitting down with them, we managed to map out a 3 week itinerary starting with a stay in Melbourne where I could meet up with a friend that lives there and we could also see family, then flying up to Cairns from where we’d travel to Port Douglas – somewhere in tropical Queensland I’d not been before – for a few days and finally heading to Sydney. We decided to make it a round-the-World trip by adding in a stopover in Los Angeles on the way back.

The trip was to take place in the UK summer holidays meaning it would actually be winter in Australia. Melbourne was likely to be the coolest stop on our trip but even there, winter temperatures were akin to a good Spring or bad summer’s day in the UK so we weren’t too worried.

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Excitedly, we all met at Heathrow airport ready to check in for our flights with Qantas. The first leg of our flight was a long 13 hours to Singapore and we passed the time watching the in-flight movie and making good use of the self-serve snack bar in between the in-flight food and drink services.

Once at Singapore Changi Airport, we only had a couple of hours to spare before boarding our second flight so spent our time stretching our legs wandering around what is one of the largest airports in the World.

We finally arrived in Melbourne in the early hours of the morning and, after briefly losing our parents after they went the wrong way at security (my mother apparently being told off for fussing the security dogs!) we boarded a ‘maxi taxi’ to take us all and our luggage to the apartment we had booked in the CBD.

Despite arriving early morning, we had booked the previous night so we would be able to check in at 4am and sleep for a bit but we made sure to set our alarms for a reasonable hour so we didn’t waste the day.

Feeling groggy from the long flight and the jetlag, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed by noon and down to the nearby Coles supermarket to buy something for breakfast and other groceries for our stay. We’d decided staying in apartments rather than hotels for the majority of our trip would be the most cost-effective way of living for 3 weeks and we could take it in turns to cook and keep things simple meal-wise, occasionally eating out as a treat. Even when we got to LA, our Santa Monica motel had in-room fridges and microwaves should we need them.

Groceries bought and stored away, we ventured out again. We were staying not too far from Federation Square and Flinders Street station so took a walk down to the Yarra River, crossing it to Melbourne’s South Bank. From here, we jumped on to the free bus which took us out towards the Melbourne Cricket Ground and back to the South Bank then after a walk along the South Bank to the impressive Crown Casino, we caught the free city circle tram over to the up and coming Docklands area. Once there we did some early souvenir shopping at some of the outlet stores before catching the tram back to Federation Square.

It was a lazy evening in and early night once we were back to catch up on lost sleep and fully recover from the jetlag!

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The next morning, we were up early to meet up with relatives who had flown down from New South Wales to see us. After a nice morning catching up, we headed our to meet our lunchtime pick up for our trip out to Phillip Island to see the little penguins.

Once on board our minibus, we were driven south towards Mornington Peninsula and made our first stop of the day at Moonlit Sanctuary. For my family, this was their first chance to see Australian wildlife up close and it was amazing to see their faces as they got up close feeding kangaroos, emus, wallabies and seeing a host of other native creatures.

After our flying visit to the wildlife park, it was back on board the minibus to continue our journey to Phillip Island. After a quick pit stop at the island’s Amazing World of Chocolate attraction to use the conveniences and visit the gift store, we drove out to The Nobbies where we strolled along the headland’s board walks enjoying pretty coastal views.

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Then, as sunset approached, it was time to make our way to the beach for the main attraction – watching hundreds of little penguins make a dash from the sea, along the beach and up into the dunes! It’s an amazing experience watching the cute penguins escaping the waves and waddling along the sand, and again, having already visited Philip Island before myself, it was lovely to see my family enjoying themselves so much.

Walking back to meet our minibus, we kept our eyes peeled and spotted a few of the penguins hiding in the dunes just off the boardwalk and stopped to silently watch them from a distance before making our way back to the car park ready to return to Melbourne.

Day 3, we headed into the CBD for breakfast at one of the local cafes before going our separate ways for a few hours.

I was meeting up with a friend who lives in one of the suburbs of Melbourne and was travelling into the city for the afternoon, meanwhile, I was sending my family off on the infamous ‘Neighbours’ tour which I had been on twice before.

My parents are huge fans of the show and while my brother and sister-in-law aren’t avid viewers, they’d both watched the show at some point in their lives and were keen to see ‘Ramsey Street’.

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After a nice afternoon in the city shopping, catching up and eating lunch out, I waved goodbye to my friend and met back up with my family. They’d had a fantastic afternoon visiting the ‘Erinsburgh’ set then visiting ‘Ramsey Street’ and were keen to show off all their photos posing with the street sign.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking back to Melbourne’s South Bank and then into Victoria Park and the botanic gardens.

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That evening, after dinner back at our apartment, we walked back to the South Bank, this time to take a trip up the Eureka Tower to its Skydeck observation platform, looking down at the city lit up below us.

The next morning, we decided to use a coupon we had found in a tourist booklet to have breakfast at the Pancake Parlour. With nothing specific planned for the day, my brother and sister-in-law decided to spend it exploring Melbourne CBD and shopping while my parents and I took the tram out to St Kilda, a beachside suburb. Once there, we enjoyed the sunshine as we strolled along the front, past Luna Park’s closed amusement park and down to the pier from where there were great views of Melbourne CBD in the distance. Lunchtime approaching, we then took a walk along cafe-lined Acland Street choosing somewhere to stop for coffee and a light bite to eat.

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Catching the tram back towards Melbourne city, we hopped off a few stops early at the southern end of the Botanic Gardens and visited the Shrine of Remembrance, the national war memorial of the state of Victoria. Then took a leisurely walk back to the city to meet back up with everyone for dinner.

We were up at the crack of dawn the next morning for our last full day in Melbourne. Not that we’d actually be spending it in Melbourne itself. Instead, we had booked a one-day tour of Great Ocean Road.

I’d been along Great Ocean Road on a previous trip to Melbourne but that time my friend and I had done it completely using public transport. While we’d got to see the highlights, we found it a very long day and quite stressful at times making sure we were back at bus stops in time to catch our ride to the next point and make it to our finish point in time to catch the train we had booked back again!

This trip proved to be a very long day too but I found it a lot more enjoyable with lots of little stops along the way both on Great Ocean Road itself and at interesting places just off the road. It was also nice to have a commentary from our driver and to learn something as we went along.

Our first stop along the way was at Bells Beach where we had time to enjoy beautiful views over the bay from an overlook. It was then on to see Split Point Lighthouse, famously featured in cult Australian kids show ‘Round the Twist’.

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Other stops along the way included one at a Great Ocean Road marker, at various beach and seaside resorts, a walk through a rainforest and a lunch stop at Cape Otway where we climbed the lighthouse and spotted plenty of wild koalas sat high up in the eucalyptus trees lining the roads.

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Then it was on to the main event – The Twelve Apostles rock formations.

Unfortunately, the mainly sunny weather we’d had in the morning had given way to wind and rain at this point but it just made the scenery look more dramatic.

Whereas we’d gone on to see ‘London Bridge’ and the Bay of Islands rock formations on my do-it-yourself Great Ocean Road trip on my last visit, this time, the next stop at Loch Ard Gorge was our last stop before we returned towards Melbourne, not arriving back until almost 10pm.

Despite the long hours sat on the minibus on the way back, it had been a really enjoyable day and we were all glad we got to take the trip.

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Melbourne had made for a great place to have a few family adventures and we were now looking forward to heading north to tropical Queensland for what we hoped we be a relaxing few days in the warm sunshine!