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!! =)
