Melbourne, Australia

Here's a peek into what we did in Melbourne.

 

 

 

The first thing we did was to hunt down our favourite eatery.  Mekong Vietnamese noodle! This was where we first fell in love with Vietnamese Beef noodle.

Mekong Vietnamese shop is located at Swanton Street.

 

 

 Darn, authentic & yummy! Oh, don't let me tell you about HUGE cockroach i saw crawling on the wall, yah? Just eat!

 

 

One of the places, we visited was Collingwood Children's farm. This is similar to our version of a pet farm.  

 

 

The Farm cafe is joint to the farm.

 

 

This is where we had our brunch. It was lovely eating under cool weather.

 

I love the varsity of the place, so much greenery!

 

My kids were not interested in the animals. We paid for our kids to enter the farm so that they can play with pebbles. Jeez.

 

 

Yup, more pebble playing!

 

Puffing Billy is THE highlight of our trip. One of the MUST go, especially if you have very young kids who loves trains. This is where you get to ride steam trains, like real STEAM trains running on burning coal. REALLY COOL! Like, where on earth do you get to ride on these?

 

 

Sonshine adores trains (thanks to Thomas!) and had a whale of a time here. We deliberately chose an hour ride long just to satisfy the boy. Doll, having been exposed to Thomas by her brother, was excited to see the steam trains- she actually thought they were Thomas!

 

We were greeted by a beautiful, beautiful sight at our last stop. The kids had some time to play with the fallen leaves and chasing the ducks waddling around the lake. We met some residents there who were extremely friendly and hospitable.

 

Part of the highlight of the train ride is you get to stick your legs out the bars and let the wind slap your feet as the train chugs along.

 

 

The train actually chugged through a wooden bridge- like, are you kidding me?!  

 

 

We drove to a nearby park to Puffing Billy railway where there were cockatoos, lots of them! Sonshine had loads of fun walking in between them and yup, chasing after them.

 

One of THE must places to go in Melbourne is the Great Ocean Road. The hubs and i have been there during our last trip. Since the kids are not into scenic tour either, we decided to drive along the coast and stop at the first town, Lorne.

 

Since we were on our own, we had the liberty to stop anywhere we fancy along the ride. We chanced upon a great site where we could walk down to the beach and get close to the ocean. Something we didn't get during our last trip.

 

At Lorne, we walked up to Teddy's lookout and were treated with a majestic view of the ocean. The great part about touring on our own is that we get to go places that are off beaten track.

 

 

We had lunch at River Tea House at Lorne town. 

 

 

On the menu, there were sandwiches and salads, right up my alley, But not so with the kids, :(.

 

 

But being the wise parents that we are, we brought along instant noodles to tide over the kids' lunch! :) Smart eh?

 

 

After lunch, we had time to explore the town and were delighted to see a huge playground stucture for the kids. The kids had a time of their life!

 

Time out to dust sand off shoes! 

 

 

We had some time to kill one day, so we made a last minute stop to St Kilda's beach. Was i SO glad we did! It was awesome!

 

We took many beautiful pictures despite our short 15 minutes there!

 

 

Here's a peek of ......our legs! No prize for guessing who was the photographer!

 

 

We made a stop at the Botanic Gardens. Another grand place for the kids to run wild and go bananas. But the weather started to threaten and we had to scurry off.

 

 

Green, green and more greens!

 

 I don't think i've listed down everything we did. But these were some of the highlights of our trip.

 

Honestly, during the begining of the trip i had wanted to come home. The city was boring, as  i said previously. If it wasn't for the nature and different adventure & off sites Melbourne has to offer, i would have been bored to tears.

 

I learnt that the Melbourne City is best for the singles and young couples. It doesn't have much to offer to family with young kids- the city i mean. So, if i could do it differrently, i would choose to stay in a farm or one of the towns along Great Ocean Road. Ah well, we did have a great family time there- that's all that matters!

 

Looking forward to our next trip, coming up real soon! WHOOP!