Melbourne Trip–Day 6

Our minibus came by to pick us up at Quest at 9.20am, allowing us to reach the airport 2.5 hours before departure at 12noon. Clearing customs was pretty slow. The Melbourne Tullamarine airport was dull and no where near being star class. What makes it worse was that our flight was delayed for an hour due to airport technical issues with the loading of baggage. B and I occupied ourselves with Kettle chips from vending machines and games on our iPhones.

We heaved a sigh of relief when the plane finally took off. Meals served on board were as good as before. I polished off everything in no time. There was even ice-cream for dessert. The flight attendants were friendly and jovial. My mindset of flying on low cost carriers has definitely changed for the better. I’m pleasantly surprised at how professional the flight attendants were and at how comfortable the whole journey was. I’m never a fan of flying but Jetstar’s StarClass seats played such a huge role in making the total of 14 hours in the air enjoyable. I cant even think of a downside of flying on StarClass. So save those hundreds of dollars and fly StarClass now on Jetstar’s Airbus A330! Next up would be to Auckland, New Zealand and I seriously can’t wait for that!

Melbourne Trip–Day 5

The second last day in Melbourne was spent sleeping in, eating at our favourite cafés, visiting the Melbourne Zoo, window shopping, frantically searching for souvenirs and gifts for family, my favourite bubble teas and spending most of our money on expensive but scrumptious food in Chinese restaurants. It pretty much meant spending most of our remaining cash.

Brunch was at a fancy patisserie. Do check out Laurent Boulangerie Patisserie along 306 Little Collins Street. It’s a gem! Typically, breakfast in cafés would set us back around AUD30 which was rather cheap considering the fact that everything we ordered was mouth-wateringly good! We didn’t have time to try out everything there as the Melbourne Zoo was beckoning us.

Melbourne Zoo was mediocre. It didn’t have the petting zoo which I had hoped it did. Perth Zoo was so much better. I had managed to feed kangaroos, carried a FAT wombat and caressed a sleeping koala. It was so much fun. Hence I was majorly disappointed B didn’t get to experience these in the Melbourne Zoo.

By the way, to side-track a little, be sure to get hold of all sorts of discount cards at the reception area at Quest on Bourke or Federation Square. Different cards offer different discounts at various places of interests. They’ll definitely come in handy and save you some moolah which could easily amount up to a hundred Aussie dollars. With the exchange rate that high now (SGD1.34=AUD1.3), these tens of dollars do matter.

Dinner at Crystal Jade along Chinatown was extremely costly—AUD100 for 2 small bowls of soup, a plate of asparagus stir-fried with succulent scallops, clay pot chicken simmered in Chinese wine and a serving of 2 pieces of Peking duck meat rolled in crepes each. The Peking duck was somewhat different from what we ate back home. It wasn’t as crispy and fragrant. The chicken was a letdown as do most chicken dishes in Melbourne. No marination whatsoever. Either way, the finger-licking good dinner left both of us beaming.

The night was spent roaming the streets of Melbourne, not forgetting to pop by Myer to enjoy a canoli and macaroon at a cafe, and enjoying the icy cold breeze before it was back to our sunny island tomorrow.

Melbourne Trip–Day 4

It’s the second time B and I are spending our monthniversaries in a foreign country and it always lends a special feeling to the day.  We coincidentally booked the day tour to The Great Ocean Road with Grayline at the airport on this day. You can check out other tour packages with Grayline. Their service is impeccable!

We had to do a mass meet up at 7.40am at Federation Square East, which was a mere 10 minutes walk from our apartment. Can I rave more about Quest on Bourke?! Everywhere is just a stone throw away from there! AUD115 per night (for Jetstar staff) is so downright cheap for a service apartment. Previously, I had to fork out AUD105 for a night stay in a motel at Perth. Note the difference.

We were running earlier so we decided to treat ourselves to a lovely breakfast at Starbucks. Mind you, the selection of pastries and sandwiches available at all Starbucks in Melbourne city is far more extensive that what you see in Singapore! No joke!! No pictures because photo-snapping wasn’t allowed. The only down side was that you had to pay for use its wifi. If there is one other thing, besides food, which I miss about Singapore, it had to be the very accomplished 3G network back home. My iPhone was basically useless when in Aussieland. The only 2 applications that I could use were the alarm clock and the camera. That’s all! I had learnt the painful lesson of oversea texting and calls the last time when I was in Hong Kong and Guangzhou for the week. All those texting and calls chalked up a SGD350 phone bill and I wasn’t about to repeat history.

Anyway, I side-tracked. The day tour set us back at AUD323 with lunch included. You could easily choose the package without lunch and picnic by the beach during its pit-stop at Apollo Bay.

 The highlights of the day tour include:

• Views of Melbourne and Port Phillip Bay from West Gate Bridge
• City of Geelong and Corio Bay
• Torquay and the Surf Coast
• Visit famous Bells Beach
• Spectacular coastal views along the Great Ocean Road
• Surf beach resort if Lorne
• Precipitous coastal cliffs, long sandy beaches and rolling surf
• River inlets and fern gullies
• Stop at picturesque Apollo Bay—a popular holiday destination
• Enjoy a delicious premium 2 course lunch at Apollo Bay Hotel
• Otway National Park
• Port Campbell National Park’s rugged coastline, “The Shipwreck Coast” with many stops included
• Gibson’s Steps
• Huge stone monoliths of the Twelve Apostles
• Optional helicopter flight over the shipwreck coast
• Island Arch and Razorback
• Loch Ard Gorge
• Port Campbell
• Evening lights of Melbourne from West Gate Bridge

The day tours ended approximately 8pm (AEST). As mentioned, the service from the Grayline coach driver cum tour guide was impeccable. I’ve never came across such a talented tour guide. He made every story, every legend and every sightseeing opportunity unforgettable! The Great Ocean Road tour was my favourite of the 5 nights in Melbourne! You should never miss out on this! I’ll let the pictures to the rest of the talking.

We opted for the drop-off after the tour at Crown Hotel with the intention to catch a movie at the GV movie theatre nearby but flipped when we learnt that a pair of movie tickets would set us back at AUD36! With that amount, we could go for Gold Class movie tickets back in Singapore! Nonsense! Dinner was finally marvellous when we had Indian food at the eating place in Crown Hotel. The tandoori chicken and butter chicken with yellow rice was yum!! Ice-cream was really cheap at AUD6 for 2 huge scoops of different flavours on a cone! We proceeded to the casino to spend some “kaching”!

My favourite day in Melbourne!! =)