Last Day in Melbourne, Melbourne Trip (Day 15)

29th March 2016, Tuesday


Woke up @ 7 plus today and prepared to check out of the hotel. I pulled my luggage down to the lobby and left my luggage in the hotel storage room. Then i walked towards the nearby post office but it was not open yet. So i walked to Queen Victoria Market. This time round, the stall owners are getting ready to sell their stuffs. There were a lot of things that you can buy to give as souvenirs and they were selling quite cheap, as compared to the shops outside. There was a section selling fresh veggies and a section selling all kinds of meat and seafood. All the meats looks soo red and fresh and the seafood also big in size and fresh too. They even sell kangaroo and rabbit meats there.

Fresh fruits

Meats for Sale

Red Meat

I spent my morning walking around the market and saw a van selling US doughnuts (small small ones). It was nice and very sweet...hohoho....the inside was added with jam too. There was a small corner where kids can sit there and play and there was even a story telling session. Bought a few more items to bring home, then i walked back to the post office and finally posted my 2 leftover postcards. After which, i walked slowly to find a nice place for my last lunch there. I came upon a restaurant named Errols, which i ordered a seafood risotto and a hot chocolate. I still prefer the hot chocolate drinks that i had in Tasmania and Hot Poppy.

Seafood Risotto

Anyway i just sat there until it is time to go back to the hotel to pick up my luggage. I packed the items in the luggage and waited there for the skybus transfer bus to come pick me up. I was thinking what am i going to do with my can of coke. In the end, i put inside the hotel's fridge and leave it there..hohoho....Then the bus arrived and it was time to go to the airport. I arrived in Southern Cross Station first before transferring to the bigger bus to the airport. I reached the airport @ around 2 plus, which was still early for my check-in. There were only a few shops (maybe 3) to walk around while passing the time.  The check-in counters were opened at around 4 plus, so i finally did my check-in and proceeded to the gate.

Fried Calamari

Luckily there were more shops inside and places to sit to watch tv. So i just sat at one of the sitting areas and watched TV to pass time. Bought a plate of calamari to eat too, to kill time and had my last snack in Melbourne...hohohooo....Then i walked to the gate to get ready for boarding which flew off back to Singapore...I got the whole row to myself on the plane, chiong to watch 4 movies again before touched down. I reached Singapore Changi Airport @ 11.50 pm, where my dad and sister came to pick me up. Can feel the heat once i touched down..... :(

And this ended my Australia trip.

Melbourne City Walk, Melbourne Trip (Day 13)

27th March 2016, Sunday

Coffee beans from Merlo

Woke up around 7 plus today and it is Easter.  It is still holiday mood in Melbourne, wanted to go visit the yearly Easter event but the hotel staff told me that the place is quite far away from Melbourne. So i just headed out to the nearest free tram bus stop, which is located at Queen Victoria Market. When i reached there, the market was not fully opened. Went in a coffee shop as it was having a nice coffee smell and bought 2 cans of special coffee beans there (my friend said they were nice after i gave her....).  Later, walked back to the tram bus stop and was trying to figure which side i should take to Flinders' Railway...hohoho...so I just missed the first tram.

Flinders' Railway

Breakfast

St Paul's Cathedral Church

I managed to get on the correct tram and travelled down to Flinders' Railway station. I just walked on the outside to view the exterior as it will require a valid ticket to go inside. Noticed there were a lot of people sleeping outside the stations too. Then i walked towards McDonald's (Macca) to have breakfast and ordered a sausage muffin's meal but i find the beef taste is too strong. They are having all day breakfast service too. After breakfast, i went opposite the street to St Paul's Cathedral church. It was quite small and it requires a photography pass (which costs $5) for visitors if you want to take photographs of the church's interior. After walking for some time, i went off to take the tram to Harbour Esplanade. The tram took a quite a while to arrive and it's free as long as it is within zone 1.

I arrived in harbour town and walked around the place. There were many branded shops there and it also had a big Ferris wheel. Quite a good place for shopping lovers, then i walked out to the dockside and there was a Sunday market. Not many stalls around, saw an Easter bunny giving sweets to the kids running around. I also noticed many people wearing football jerseys walking towards to Etihad Stadium too. All of them were soooo excited to their coming match for the day. After lunch there, i took the free tram back to Crown Melbourne. The casino was very big and grand, there were a lot of tables and jackpot machines. Spent at least 2 hours exploring the casino and got $10 free of credit to try my luck on the tables and jackpot machines. Saw many groups of china or hong kongers playing at the tables too. There was one table playing banker and player, it was crowded and everyone was so excited on the table too. In the end, i only won $0.10 out of it. The redeem machine also rejected my wining voucher....hahaha...It got jammed inside the machine and i had to get one of the staffs to help to remove the voucher.

After playing in the casino, i walked out to the streets and i realized there were many people walking. I just walked back to Flinders Street and onto Swatons Street, peeking at the souvenirs shops along the way. There was also some performances on the streets for Melbourne International Comedy Festival along the streets i walked past. I even walked to Chinatown and tried to look for a famous Vietnam restaurant named Mekong Vietnam (highly recommended by my colleagues).  As it was still early for dinner, i went exploring in the Chinatown but didn't find interesting things. However, there were a lot of Chinese restaurants. I went back to Mekong Vietnam and ordered a prawn pop piah and a bowl of chicken pho. The food was nice, having the authentic taste of Vietnam. After dinner, i just walked to Woolworths supermarket to buy more tim tam biscuits and took the tram back to the hotel. Ended up reaching back the hotel around 5 plus to rest....super early...hohohoho.....

Hotel Stayed:
Miami Hotel Melbourne

Last Day in Tasmania, Tasmania Trip (Day 12)

26th March 2016, Saturday

Raining again when we woke up. My friend helped to prepare breakfast for us, then we all packed our luggage and loaded them up to the car. Then we drove out to buy some breads as it was a long long way back to Hobart Airport (about 4 hours plus ride). Quite sad, it was the last day in Tasmania. We passed by a few smaller towns and many mountains and fields along the way. We also passed by many creeks and each of them has a name to it. We also saw a wild wormbat along the roadside when we passed by burney lake. After 2 hours plus, we stopped by a power station at nive river for toilet break. My friend's husband was "chasing" her to get off the car quickly as he wanted to go to the toilet urgently...kekkekee....After 5 mins break, we continued on the road again until we reached  Bascilla Bay Oysters for lunch.

Fish & Chips

Seafood Platter

This time, we ordered a big seafood platter and a fish & chips to share (our last Tasmania lunch)..hohoho....After the nice lunch, we drove to the petrol station near the airport to fill up the oil tank and headed to the rental car park near the airport. We reached the airport at around 1 plus, which was still early for our check-in. So we just find some seats to sit around the airport, the airport was very small too. I noticed that the luggage trolley requires to pay for it too. We were thinking whether to check-in through Qantas counters or Jetstar counters for our flights as we booked through Qantas website, however, the flight stated was Jetstar plane. By 2.30 pm, there was no flight number displayed for check-in whereas Jetstar counters were opened for check-in. However, there were a couple of passengers who went to Qantas counters and were successfully checked in. So we walked towards Qantas counter and checked with the staff where we should do the check-in. She told us to go over to check-in with Jetstar counters as it was a Jetstar plane.

So we went over to Jetstar counters and we decided to check-in separately as i will be stopping for another 3 days in Melbourne whereas my friends will be flying back to Singapore. My friends went ahead to check in first and my friends were asking them if Jetstar can help them to transfer their luggage to the flight to Singapore when they land in Melbourne for stopover as they only have a 50 minutes stopover grace period. (It's a bit troublesome to do a transfer in Melbourne as it requires passengers to check out, including passing the customs from the domestic terminal and cross over to the international terminal and check in again, including passing the customs). The staff took a look at their fight route and told them the 2nd flight was Qantas flight, therefore will require to check with Qantas staff whether it is possible. He came back and told my friend that he will need to direct them to his colleague on this. So while waiting, he did my check-in. I was able to get mine done quickly as mine was just flying to Melbourne.

Later, the other Jetstar staff told my friends that they cannot help them as the 2nd flight was under Qantas. Then we went over to Qantas counter to see whether the staff can help them. The staff also told them she cannot do anything and asked them to call their customer hotline instead. (Quite frustrating when they tell you to call their hotline instead of helping passengers to resolve the problem on ground). Oh well, so we tried to call Qantas hotline (Australia) but it was on hold for long long time. Meanwhile, my friend tried to call the customer hotline (Singapore) using her own phone. Luckily, someone picked up her call in Singapore and tried to help her out. However, the call was also put on hold for more than 15 minutes while she did the check. And the check-in counters for Jetstar were closing in another 20 minutes and I had to go in to the gate soon too. We gave up waiting for the Australia side to pick up our call.

Flight to Melbourne

In the end, I went ahead to proceed to the gate and they had to wait outside still as the customer service staff (SG) told them not to check in first. I managed to meet them again at the gate when it was boarding time. Then I was told that the customer service staff (SG) had helped them to book an accommodation in Melbourne for the night as the first flight out to Singapore will be the next day. And so we boarded the plane but were seated separately. I was seated with another young lady who was alone. There was a couple with a baby seated on the next row beside us and the baby screamed from volume level 1 to 8 to show his displease. The dad had to use his ipad to keep the baby entertained. Wondered why the flight back to Melbourne was not Qantas Link, at least we will have free snacks on plane... -_-?

I moved to the back seat after the plane was on the air and i got the whole row to myself. But there was nothing to do except to sleep or watch the clouds. We landed in Melbourne airport @ 6.30 pm and we went through the customs and waited for our luggage. And I also missed the 6.30 city bus out to the city too. After everything settled, I bid bye bye to my friends and went to take the city bus to Southern Cross station. It took 20 to 25 minutest to the station and I bought dinner to eat in the hotel too. It was rainy heavily too, so i took a cab to the hotel. But the driver didn't know the hotel's location, so i gave him the address which he keyed into his GPS.

Double bed

Single Bed

When we passed the hotel on the opposite side, i told him that that's the hotel i was going to. However, he just said ya and he turned to the left side which he stopped to let me off. I told him it was not the hotel is located. He said this is where his GPS's end point is. I still told him we just passed the hotel on the other street. He still insisted it is the correct place... -_-"... Pek chey!
Anyway he still drove out to the street that we passed earlier and finally, he saw the hotel and said "ooo..it's here.." I paid him the fare ($10) and took my luggage to check-in the hotel. I was thrilled when the staff told me i got a free room upgrade. After settling all the check-in stuffs, i carried my luggage up to my room, which was on the 2nd level. So happy....my day finally ended!!! Seems like a long day today. My friends also checked in to their hotel safely and had a very nice dinner from the hotel room service. I only had Hungry Jack meal as my dinner...hohohoo....

Hotel Stayed:
Miami Hotel Melbourne

Great Ocean Road, Melbourne Trip (Day 14)

28th March 2016, Monday

Sandwich

Nice Hot Chocolate

Woke up @ 7.30 am today and took my time to prepare as the tour to Great Ocean Road is 11.00 am. Still left hotel early, thinking to go Queen Victoria Market for breakfast. However, it is not opened for the day...Then i walked back to somewhere near the hotel area, saw 2 cafes side by side. One was having more customers than the other, so i settled for the one having more customers. The cafe name is Hot Poppy. I ordered a hot chocolate and a sandwich for breakfast. The food was nice but the portion was big for me. Anyway i just asked to pack up my other half of the sandwich and went back to the hotel for the tour bus to come pick-up. The bus came @ around 10.50 am and went off picking up the rest of the people at the tour office, which we waited for about 15 minutes or so.

Then we drove off and started our road trip. Our driver is our tour guide too, and he gave us a list of 5 items to choose for our lunch. In the group, there is 2 ladies from US and a guy together, a family of 4, a china couple, a old couple and one Spanish guy and 3 Japanese guys. The mum from the family of 4 was quite nagging, nagging on everything and on the son too. As it was a long long ride, we stopped by Angelsea for a short toilet break before we continued the route.

The Great Ocean Road is a 244km road built by the returned soldiers from WWI as a permanent memorial to those who died in the war and it goes along the coast of the ocean. The soldiers had built it by using just simple tools like shovels and dynamites and with their bare hands. After 3 hours or so, we reached the start of Great Ocean Road which had a memorial arch built. The driver let us off to take some photos there too. After that, we drove off again. The bus driver told us there was a big fire on Christmas Day in 2015 when we passed by a town named Lorne. The fire caused so much damage (many homes were lost) until that the Great Ocean Road had to be closed down for the town to repair. This cost the Australian Tourism Board to lose millions of dollars (as reported in the news).

Chicken Burger

Parrot

Sleeping Koala

The bus driver let us off somewhere along the road for photo-taking on the ocean. Then we set off to have our lunch in Kennett River, in a small cafe called Kafe Koala. We all sat down on separate tables and waited for our lunch (giant burgers....hohoho). After lunch, we were free to roam to the nearby to look for koala bears in the trees. Managed to see 2 sleeping koala bears on the trees and there were many wild parrots too. Everyone was trying to get a nice photo with the parrots and koala bears. There was a outdoor camp located there too. Later, we drove off and continued on the ocean road, which we passed by Apollo Bay and stopped at Maits Rest Rainforest. The bus driver was telling us to go ahead and tried the 30 minutes circuit walk as there were many nature to see inside.
So some of us went ahead to walk while some stayed near the bus. Of course, i went ahead on the trail.

After the trail, we continued on the road again and we finally reached the 12 Apostles (it was like around 4 plus). Once we alighted, there were a lot of people there and a long queue was formed for the toilets too. There was helicopter service too, to see the 12 Apostles from above the sky. I just went ahead to walk to the Apostles lookout and take photos (So many people...-_-"). However, the location did not show the total 12 Apostles, only can see 4 or 5 of them. Then I walked towards the bench area using a long walk trail which leads to Gibsons Steps. When i reached there, the bus driver had stopped by to drop the old couple there. He informed that he will come back and pick us up at a later time and said need to go down to beach to have a look. So i went ahead, climbing down the Gibsons Steps....very tiring to climb up and down on it.

Few of 12 Apostles

Path to Gibons Steps

Gibons Steps

The wind were very strong and can even feel the sea water "flying" in the air. So i just stood there to feel the wind for some time. Not able to see the sunset too as it was too cloudy!! Then i took my time to climb up the steps and waited at the car park for the bus to come. While waiting, i saw the china couple trying to take a jump shot. The gal was fussing about the jump shot was not taken good enough and going to cry out. Then the guy told her to jump another time to take for a 2nd shot. And they really did to take 2nd shot...hahaa). The bus came at around 7.30 pm and the sky was getting dark. Then we were on the road back to Melbourne, at one point, the driver told us there was a bunch of kangaroos behind the bushes. So he stopped the bus and went down, think he whispered to get the kangaroos' attention. I didn't went down as i was getting tired, heard from the rest of them, they did saw the kangaroos.

Red Roaster as dinner

Then the bus driver continued on the road back and it was a long journey too. The bus driver was driving very fast too. He stopped by a town which was having some fast food restaurants to let us go for a half an hour dinner. I went for Red Rooster for dinner (think i had it during my Perth trip too). After dinner, it was a continuous ride back to the individual hotels, with mine the last 2nd in the list.
I reached back the hotel @ almost 11 plus and i packed my stuffs for return flight to Singapore tomorrow...(Holidays ending...)

Hotel Stayed:
Miami Hotel Melbourne

Strahan, Tasmania Trip (Day 11)

25th March 2016, Friday

Woke up @ 7.00 am and it was rainy again. My friend prepared breakfast for us and we all loaded our stuffs to the car after breakfast. We drove to the village office and did the check-out. Then we drove down to Strahan, another small town. It was a 2 hour long journey, we passed by Roseberry town and Zeehan town which were labelled as historic towns. It was very quiet too, maybe it was because of Good Friday. We reached the apartment early and we don't see any check-in office around too. So i got off the car and asked the cleaner in one of the apartments. She told me that we just see the name written in front of the parking lot to know which apartment is our and the key will be placed on the table.

Lunch

Engine 1

So we drove down to the town first, many shops were closed as it was Good Friday. Even the post office won't be open until next Tuesday. We went in to the booking centre to book for the wildness railway tour and we got some gifts too. We went in a bakery shop for lunch before we hit down to the starting station for our steam train. Once we arrived at the station, we could see the steam train engine and the carriages. There was a drinks & snacks carriage in the middle and the carriages in front were those with high tea included. We saw how the train engine changed the direction to get connected to the carriages too. Then the train started moving once it was ready.

The guide told us that he is not going to tell us to look out on our left or right for the sights we passed, instead he is telling us a story. So along the way, he used stories to tell us how the railway tracks were built by the people from the older times by pure hands and axes. There was a spot where the workers had slept and ate in that area and they did not have any warm clothes or shoes when it rained. It was still rainy too and the train cut through the rainforest and along King's River. The 2nd station we stopped was called Lower Landing Station. The guide went down and let us try the local honeys, which there was a small shop for selling the honeys. At the same time, the train engineers were filling the stream engine with water using a water tank at the station.

And we were off again. On the train, the guide told us that the train engine that we were on was a 120 years old and it was the very first engine. It was assembled with no instructions and it was still running well till this day. We arrived at the last station, Dobbil Barril station. The guide told us that there were 3 version on how the station got its name. And he left it to us to believe in which of the stories. At this station, the engineers manually turned the train engine in the opposite direction using the rotation table. Then the guide allowed us to go walk a short rainforest trail, and the rain started to pour again. On our way back, the guide continued the story, he told us that the west coast pioneers had built a bridge to get across King's river as there was always flooding. He told us that there were some workers who would tie themselves to the bridge during the construction . And if they were to fall off, they can swing themselves back up. The guide said they were called the swayers. The parts of the bridge were brought back from UK, each part weighed 110 tonnes.

Then the guide told us that there were actually 5 stream engines, however, only 3 were running now. The engines were just namely 1 to 5, engine 4, he told us it was the most problematic engine. It was always giving troubles to the engineers, so it was kept in the storage now. He also said engine 2 was currently exhibited in Hobart Museum. The maximum speed for the trains is at 30km/hr. He told us that the engine 3 was once used to help fight a very big fire in one of the mining caves. He said witnesses from that fateful day told that the engine was boiling red. But many people still died in that fire as there was not enough manpower to keep the fire under control. We were also very lucky that we can go for the railway, as the guide told us the railway was just opened again in 2002. It was closed 39 years ago and it ended with engine number 1 as the last train running on the tracks. Then the guide told us that the people from west coast fought to get their railway back online. And they made it. We reached back to the starting station and the story ended. We gave applause and thanked the guide before we alighted.

View from the living room

Dinner

Then we went back to the town to buy dinner and drove back to our apartment with super nice sea view. The apartment was really amazing, wide view on the sea and a open room concept on the upper deck. Then we all showered and got ready to have our dinner with the sea view in front of us. But there were too much thick clouds, can't see the sunset. Then we just watched tv and my friend tried to re-arranged their luggage as they were going back to Singapore the next day. It continued to rain heavily through the night again.


Hotel Stayed:
Wheelhouse Apartment

Places Visited:
Wildness Railway Tour