Browsing Tag

Victoria


Oversea, Travel

Great Ocean Road Self-Drive Day 4: Stunning Great Ocean Views, Apollo Bay, Almost Cape Otway Lightstation & Wild Animals!

My Victoria, Australia travelogue (so far):
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)
Great Ocean Road Self-Drive Day 4: Car Rental, West Gate Freeway & Point Addis
Great Ocean Road Self-Drive Day 4: Anglesea, Aireys Inletโ€™s Split Point Lighthouse & Lorne

After leaving Lorne (2.15pm), we came to the part of Great Ocean Road where the views were absolutely stunning. The BLUE sea, greenery, crazy rocks formations, cool wind… this part was the best drive of all. My sis drove from Lorne to Apollo Bay (the next town) and poor her, I kept disturbing her with exclamation after exclamation like Look! Wow! Ohmygod! See see! (hahaha)

You will notice some shadows (reflections) in the pictures as they were taken inside the car. Please bear with it. Nope I cannot wind the window all the way down as the loud wind noise will be too much to handle.


St. George River (not far from Lorne) @ Great Ocean Road.
I would like to have this view from my house. ๐Ÿ™‚

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Oversea, Travel

Great Ocean Road Self-Drive Day 4: Anglesea, Aireys Inletโ€™s Split Point Lighthouse & Lorne

My Victoria, Australia travelogue (so far):
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)
Great Ocean Road Self-Drive Day 4: Car Rental, West Gate Freeway & Point Addis


At 10 minutes before noon we left Point Addis Lookout (spent about 20 minutes there). By then our stomach were grumbling for food.

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Oversea, Travel

Great Ocean Road Self-Drive Day 4: Car Rental, West Gate Freeway & Point Addis

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 ๐Ÿ™‚ 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. ๐Ÿ™‚ 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?

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Oversea, Travel

Melbourne Day 3: St. Kilda Beach, Luna Park & Acland Street (Part 2)

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.

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Oversea, Travel

Melbourne Day 3: Victoria Hall & Queen Victoria Market Again (Part 1)

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.

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