This is the last travel post of my Australia trip. Fhewww finally finished writing it after 2 months plus (a total of 16 posts hehehe).
I felt much better on day 7. Nausea… gone 98%. YippeaiiOOOO
Our breakfast was at Cafe Andiamo in Degraves Street; a cool place which we found yesterday during our car parking adventure in Manchester Lane.
Degraves Street.
If you want to soak in the Melbourne lifestyle this is the place!
Note: This post has the least photos of all my travelogue posts!!! (kekeke) But it will have me babbling long winded. (hahaha)
The next morning, I woke up and drink some of the water I boiled yesterday night. Ate leftovers from yesterday’s dinner for first breakfast. Not long after I had stomachache and nausea. My sis had the same thing except the water so I knew something must be wrong with the water. More over the water tasted funny when I drank it but choose to just ignored it. Haha (so now kena!)
After checked out, we bought our second breakfast at the restaurant just outside Geelong Riverview Tourist Park; mine is toasted chicken & avocado sandwich AUD5.50. However I could only afford a bite. The wanna-vomit feeling is still there.
Still we proceed to Geelong post office. Sending postcards and letters are a must! Then we head back to Melbourne. Lost our way somehow near Lorimer Street. And I went into Kraft office to ask for direction. Hahaha The directions given were easy to understand but when we come face to face with the road, everything’s different. Having GPS at this stage didn’t help at all. So we just used our 6th sense to navigate the roads. And what do you know? We found our way back to Melbourne!!! Wohoooo
Here are my Victoria, Australia travelogue recap:
Melbourne Day 1: Federation Square, Hosier Lane & Flinders Street Station
Melbourne Day 2: Queen Victoria Market, Royal Arcade & Block Arcade
Melbourne Day 3: Victoria Hall & Queen Victoria Market Again (Part 1)
Melbourne Day 3: St. Kilda Beach, Luna Park & Acland Street (Part 2)
We woke up on day 4 feeling very happy. Adrenaline is pumping. Oh yes! This is the day we’re going on our Great Ocean Road journey. Wohoooooooo!!! Going to Great Ocean Road is one of my childhood dream (oh yes I have so many dreams). And driving along this great road is another point in my to-do dream list. Now I can tick both off. Weheeee π Now you know why I said yes to Victoria, Australia.
Our morning breakfast were the leftovers cakes bought from Acland Street and strawberries from QVM. Haha Checking out of Victoria Hall is simple and fast. We informed them that we wanted to check out, passed back the electronic key cards and got back our key card deposit. That’s it. Fastest check out ever! I think that was done in under 2 minutes. Hahaha Our room were fully paid for before coming to Australia. Yeah, they need full payment.
After that we drag our 3 bags (so many coz we did some shopping at QVM remember?) slowly to Franklin Street. If you remember on day 2, we detoured to Franklin Street during our walk to QVM. Well, that’s because we were checking the location of Hertz (car rental).
Hertz office open at 9am and we were there at 9.05am. We didn’t want to waste our time at all. π We have made reservation prior to our journey here, so everything were processed pretty fast. All they asked for is our confirmation number, driving license & credit card (forgotten they need to see the passport or not). Previously we had asked JPJ for a translation copy of our driving license in English (RM10) but it didn’t have any use at all. Looks like our Malaysia driving license is good to go in Australia.
Nice office eh?
Continuation from Melbourne Day 3: Victoria Hall & Queen Victoria Market Again (Part 1)
We dropped off our QVM’s shopping goods and had perhaps 2 hours of good sleep at the hostel before heading out. The beds at Victoria Hall were luring us again! Hehe
Remember we bought tram tickets at Flinders Street Station on the first day? We’re going to use it now for our trip to St Kilda. We learned that you just need to validate your metcard ticket one time once you get on the tram (for daily full fare zone 1 ticket).
St Kilda is a city suburb of Melbourne, located just 6km south of Melbourne. The main draws of St Kilda are the beach and food.
We waited to nearly 1/2 hour for the tram as we missed one just as we cross the road to the tram stop. The tram ride from La Trobe Street/Swanston Street tram stop to St Kilda took about 20 minutes. We reached St Kilda around 4pm. Initially we wanted to go to Brighton Beach (which is famous for its colorful beach houses) as well but looking at the time constraint, we have to choose either one. We go for St Kilda as Brighton Beach is further away and train is needed to get there.
The street beside St Kilda beach.
Here’s Day 1’s & Day 2’s recap:
Melbourne Day 1: Federation Square, Hoiser Lane & Flinders Street Station
Melbourne Day 2: Queen Victoria Market, Royal Arcade & Block Arcade
I’ve been talking about Victoria Hall (known as Space Hotel now), my 3 days accommodation in Melbourne several times. Now let me take you in and around Victoria Hall. In my opinion hostel in Melbourne is quite expensive. That kind of money would have paid for a comfy stay in say 4 star hotel in Malaysia. Thank God it’s not New South Wales or Queensland or the accommodation $$ would be even high up. Yes, yes I convert la.
I found Victoria Hall through TripAdvisor (ranking 17/91 in Specialty Lodging). This hostel had poor and terrible reviews in the past. Since undergoing major renovation works (until end of 2010), the reviews have been improving to ‘very good’.
Victoria Hall. As you can see the rooftop, top floors and ground area are under renovation. The shared kitchen is currently at its sorry state. Functional but a little sore.
Our room is on the first floor – left most of this picture.