Melbourne & Surroundings

After we skipped Adelaide at the very beginning, Melbourne is now our first major city in Australia.

With many small restaurants, street art, and a Free Tram Zone in the city center, Melbourne definitely impressed us. On the first day, we strolled through the Queen Victoria Market and made the most of the Indonesian Street Food Festival, also buying a few little treats.

We also checked out AC/DC Lane, a street renamed due to the graffiti dedicated to the band, and walked along Swanston Street in the evening, which offers a huge selection of Asian restaurants. Some edible treats stuck with us as well.

On the second day, we took a Free Walking Tour in the afternoon and learned a few things about the city. Among other things, that the nine clocks at the main entrance of Flinders Station (the main train station) show the departure times for the next nine trains. These clocks were (or are being?) adjusted manually, which means that in an 8-hour shift, the poor soul who had to do this job had to adjust the time an average of 900 times. Crazy! There was an attempt to introduce a modern system (display board like at the airport), but there was so much opposition from the residents that the clocks were reinstalled and put back into operation just one day after the introduction of the display board and removal of the clocks.

There is also a suspicion that the building of Flinders Street Station was actually intended to be the train station in Mumbai and that the train station built in Mumbai was planned for Melbourne... but this has never been confirmed. However, when looking at the two buildings, it's within the realm of possibility 😉

After the walking tour, we headed to Phillip Island - we wanted to see the penguins!

After one night on a parking lot by the beach in Newhaven, we had a relaxing day at the campsite, allowing Baby M to have some playtime on the picnic blanket and jumped into the heated pool until it was time to head to the Visitor Center of the Penguin Parade at 6:45 PM. Since the penguins are currently expected to arrive only after 8:00 PM (shortly after sunset), we were way too early and could look around the Visitor Center.

This stretch of beach welcomes the penguins every evening as they waddle back to their burrows in the dunes for the night. However, it is currently 'Moulting Season' - a molt is happening, which means that some of the penguins don’t even go into the water, and thus relatively few penguins are observed waddling up the dune. Nevertheless, we were able to watch a few penguins and even saw some waddling from one burrow to another. Taking photos after sunset is not allowed, but there are publicly accessible images from the organization: https://www.penguins.org.au/attractions/penguin-parade/photo-gallery/)

More penguins would likely be seen in one of the other seasons (currently it's autumn in Australia).

It was truly adorable watching the little penguins (just over 30cm tall) waddling about, and also, many kangaroos could be seen before sunset, and later in the dark, the Milky Way was beautifully visible. Even a shooting star made an appearance. It was thus an all-around successful experience for us.

Since Baby M was tired and had no wish to continue, only having slept briefly in between, we went back to the campsite and to bed, so we could head to Agnes Falls the next day.

Agnes Falls is another pretty waterfall. However, with a 350m distance from the parking lot, there is no hiking involved. But the area was beautiful, and there was a chance to see platypuses, so we decided to simply stay overnight in the parking lot. Unfortunately, we had no luck with the platypuses this time either. 😞

The next day, we then headed to Tarra Valley and the associated Tarra Bulga National Park. The drive through Tarra Valley was already very impressive! We felt like we were in a real jungle. The narrow road wound its way between ferns and dense trees up the mountain. Eucalyptus bark hung everywhere, looking like vines. Absolutely beautiful! Since the road was mostly single lane, we were very glad we didn’t have any oncoming traffic.

From the Visitor Center, we were able to take a short hike, which led us through a small part of the national park and over a suspension bridge. After a short picnic lunch (great when you have your kitchen with you everywhere), we continued on to Lake Tyres Beach, where we spent the night.