After departing the Lakes Entrance (which you can read from Part 1 of our road trip from Sydney), our road trip continued another 3.5 hours until we reached Melbourne. It was quite a bit of a scary adventure as Google Map led us to the off-road via the bushes. It was alright at first, but the deeper into the bushes we traveled, the more charred trees we saw and some were even emitting smokes! Eventually our adventure came to a halt when a pile of fallen trees block the driveway. So we turned back to the Princes Highway and this has set us back 1hour late. The scale and impact of the bush fire is really not joking matter.
• Melbourne CBD
Well. It’s mt birthday today! We picked up our aunt whom we last visited 8 years ago when E was slightly under 2yo, and we departed to Southbank for lunch. We yam char at the Red Emperor restraint, a riverside chinese restaurant serving some authentic 点心 ‘dim sum’. Their 虾饺 ‘har gao’ was really nice and the service was really prompt and friendly.
We then explored Melbourne CBD on foot - the famous Melbourne Train station, Flinster street, and the Swanson street for some shopping at the Myer, David Jones stores before taking a break at Carson street for tea time. New York cheesecake with a glass of Róse, hmm..
We had a warmth home cook meal at our aunt‘s cozy apartment overseeing the park. The duo helped making pavlova and the beef stagnoff pasta for our dinner.
When we returned to our friend’s home, i was surprised by a birthday cake. Spending birthday with loved ones is really what that matters to me.
Thanks everyone. Happy birthday to me.
• Hog’s Breath Steakhouse
Big guy’s friends brought us to the popular steakhouse for some juicy hickory sauce steak while I had the baron chili sauce and scallops on the side. They offered kids meals such as pasta and 150gm steak with curly fries.
After an awesome meal, we began our journey to meet the penguins, how exciting!
• Penguins Parade @ Philip Island
The Penguins Parade at the Philip Island Nature Park was such a great educational & fun trip. The duo learnt so much about the little fairy penguins on this island and danger of plastics & balloons to the ocean life.
There were fooling around while waiting for the penguins arrival time. It’s estimated to be 8:50pm in summer time where the papa & mama penguins will bring home food to their little chicks - regurgitated fish or squids.
What a wonderful experience to watch up close when those the penguins waddled home to their burrows... it’s amazing how they find their way home under such pitch dark condition.
We arrived late at around 4pm (it’s a 2hours drive from Melbourne city) and after visiting the Panny’s Chocolate Factory we ran out of time to visit the Koala Conservation Center and the Heritage Village which are included in our Klook tickets (We have prebooked our tickets via Klook and preselected our arrival date) Well, passed on to our friends in Melbourne hopefully it benefits the next visitors since the tickets valid for 6 months once claimed.
• Puffing Billy Train ride
This attraction is located at Dandenong, just some 30min away from Melbourne city. We have prebooked our tickets via Klook and preselected our arrival date & time.
🚂 Puffing Billy 🚂 ride was such an interesting outing.. we have cyclist, men on foot and family on truck trying to race with the train all the way from Belgrave to Lakeside - mind you, it’s an 60min ride on the locomotive that travels between 10-20miles/hour
We took a short walk around the Emerald lake at the Lakeside station, apparently that’s a favorite family picnic site. We just had pies, chips and coffees that we bought from the lakeside cafe; and a cockatoo decided to join us.
Ripe Cafe @ Sassafras
Sassafras is a small town located just about 10’min away from Belgrave, it has many petite cafes and boutique shops to entice you. We patronage’s Ripe Cafe, which is located right next to the Tealover shop selling many interesting handmade teapots.
The lunch was satisfying and enjoyable, I enjoyed my toasted avocado sandwich (after too many beef) and big guy had an Aussie beef burger which was served with some roasted baby potatoes.
The Mrs Maple tearoom next door was really popular with the tourists.
Then, we return to town to attend to the Christmas Carols in the City Life church. Angelica voices and meaningful sharing by the pastor..
• Sunday Farmer’s Market
• Christmas Decoration Hunting
After sundown at around 9pm, we drove around town to hunt for Christmas demo hunting in the neighborhoods
• Dandenong Ranges
Today is the Cherry picking day! Chapters U-Pick Cherries and Berries farm is located at the Dandenong range, about 30min drive from the Melbourne town. It charges an entrance fee of AUD$12/adult and AUD$6/child (and additional AUD$12 for every 1kg of takeaway), and offers variety of choices at the farm, from merchant cherries, Stella cherries, raspberries, bayson berries, blackberries etc... Basically it’s an berries overload day!
• Dinner?
We were planning to have dinner cum shopping at Chadstone, the biggest mall in the Southern Hemisphere which operates until 10pm on Tuesday (and apparently 24h during Boxing Day). Unfortunately, C was having fever and headache so I stayed back to take care of her. Luckily we always bring along some medicines when traveling, eg tea tree oil (for small cuts), paracetamol / children paracetamol and also vitamins and probiotic drinks, she had a good rest and woke up feeling much better. At least I made good use of that time to do some packing.
Day 5
On the last day of our stay in Melbourne, we had to decide whether to visit Melbourne Zoo, St Kilda or Brighton Beach (we suppose to cover the beaches on Sunday as there’s usually a Sunday market, but we spent a long time at the relatives gathering so well..) at the end I leave it to the duo to decide and they’ve chosen Melbourne Zoo.
So Melbourne zoo it is!
• Melbourne Zoo
We arrived at the zoo early - by 9am and I got the tickets through Klook while queuing - despite no ongoing sales now, the price is still cheaper compare to buying over counter (I paid RM28x for 2 adults and 2 child)
The zoo is very well maintained and child friendly. We visited the all the Aussie animals that we had not covered in the previous visits - platypus, wallaby, wombat, koraburo bird etc. the duo had a really educational visit thanks to the helpful rangers and information display available everywhere throughout the zoo.
The next day, we went to the Philips Island for little penguine watching, but that will b another story for another day…. ;)
