Friday, 5 May 2017

Melbourne-Tasmania 2017 Part VII

DAY NINE

It was our second last day in Melbourne! :( But yes, a day for us to explore the city further & more cafes yes yes yes. Headed to The Hardware Societé cafe (totally random because there were too many options.) Purely gut feel and when we reached there was a queue, so I thought, ah the food must be nice! #sosingaporeanmentality 


We got our seats around a huge communal table and started enjoying the best hot chocolate in my life!!! 


Pretty swan latte art :)


I ordered this lobster benedict!! Acquired an atas taste overseas. heh heh.


& R ordered this rustic looking egg dip thingy with chorizo sausages and assorted items in it.


Then it was time to walk around the city! Omg I just realised we didn't even enter this H&M building. AIYAH. nvm, I'm sure I won't end up buying anything anyway. Ok next up are just some sights of the city:










So we walked along the Yarra River (i.e River River) all the way to DFO South Wharf 👍Managed to buy some cheap havaianas slippers so yay score! and that was about it for me. :B


After DFO, it was time for lunch! Went to a Korean restaurant and had a great meal with my beef bulgogi set :D cheap and delish!


Then we headed to the cannot-be-missed Victoria State Library!! It was indeed a charming place.


We actually sat down to have a good game of chess. Of course it was clear who the winner was (me). HAHAHA. 



Dropped off the heavy things back at the apartment before we set off for St Kilda in the evening!


St Kilda was beautiful!!! One of my favourite places in Melbourne.


Headed to Luna Park to sight-see for a bit first. It actually looks pretty scary if you imagine it as a desolated theme park...





Then off we go to the beach!! It was so beautiful walking along St Kilda Beach :') and watching sun slowly set.


One of the most solid and down-to-earth sun set I've seen. Literally an entire solid egg yolk going down to earth. 





Then here we are at St Kilda Pier! We're going to see some penguins tonight!!








We waited patiently for a good 45 minutes or so before we started seeing penguins coming home! 


Was difficult to capture pictures in the dark, but it was so cute watching them waddle around! After we felt satisfied with penguin-watching, we proceeded to satisfy our tummies! Dinner with R's sis heh.


Guess what! We finished this bottle of red wine. 


Feasted the night away



Cheers to everything good in our lives!!

& R being high after drinking half of that wine bottle. :o

Thankfully everyone sobered up after like 10 minutes of walk to the tram stop. hahahaha! 

DAY TEN

Last day syndrome!! BOOHOO. 


This was the view I saw when I woke up on our last morning at Melbourne.


I googled and (randomly, again) found this cafe. We were way too early that morning, but they were nice enough to have us wait inside until they were ready to serve us. 



Such pretty plating!!

After breakfast, we went around the city one last time to grab souvenirs before heading back to the apartment to pack and prepare for our departure. Then, we headed out again to run an errand and finally tried Mr Burger, as recommended by R's sis. Teehee the burger and fries in Australia are really good stuff. Fed our tummies well before we left for the airport in the afternoon.

Then it was goodbye to Australia, for now! 

P.s we were so lucky the entire trip - had lovely weather and beautiful skies everyday. It started to storm heavily when we reached Melbourne airport & we felt so fortunate that we had perfect weather for travelling throughout our 10 days. We will miss such travels, till next time!



Monday, 1 May 2017

Melbourne-Tasmania 2017 Part VI

DAY EIGHT


Activity on our first day back in Melbourne from Tassie: Great Ocean Road Tour!!! We booked a one-day reverse tour & meeting time was at 7.15am! Tour was expected to end at 9plus in the night, so yes another long day ahead!


Because it was a reverse tour, we travelled inland for the front parts of the trip, with several pit stops along the way. R really enjoyed the history lessons from our tour guide, while I mostly zoned out/dozed off here and there.


This is where we started our real trip along GOR - The London Bridge!






Then our midpoint stop was at Port Campbell town, where we had our sandwich lunch~






Next stop at Loch Ard Gorge! There were 3 walks in total and we went to all! First up, the beach!








Tom & Eva lookout!










& finally the Razorback.









The views were truly gorgeous. Just imaging how the waves shaped all these magnificent landscapes. 





& then the much famed twelve apostles!! How charming.











Next stop was Mait's Rest rainforest walk for a different type of view! Was super cooling in the rainforest. :)







keke & the tour guide made time for an ice cream stop along the way. We tried a chocolate and chestnut flavoured ice cream, I loved the chestnut one!!


Soon skies were darkening and we drove on full speed back towards the city, hoping to get more stopovers along the way. Caught this view at a random stopover along the roads! 



Quickly proceeded towards Kennett River area to visit some koalas! Lucky us, we got to see a wild koala up close having its meal!




And our final stop before skies darkened was at Teddy's Lookout, I really liked the view from this lookout :D




Then it was another 1 hour + drive back to Torquay for our pizza dinner! Then finally reached back Melbourne at about 9.30pm. 

Very tiring but I'm glad we managed to see a lot along the way and enjoyed ourselves :) A day well spent indeed!