Miss Capricious: Tour de Oz - Melbourne Highlights

MELBOURNE (1 - 6 June 2007)

This is the last installment of my Tour de Oz series ;-)

We finally arrived at Melbourne airport on Friday morning. No doubt the air was cooler than that in Adelaide, but the sun shone fiercely in the clear blue sky. I wrapped myself in a scarf and put on my sunglasses. The weather was a total opposite of what we experienced in Adelaide.

Melbourne. I heard about the casino, the weekend market, the shopping, the food, the Arts, the Great Ocean Road, etc. We would spend five and a half days exploring the place. Five and a half days seem like a long time, but it apparently isn’t. That’s because we used up 3 days on day tours. The remaining were spent eating out with Auntie Esther (mom’s friend) and meeting her relatives, who enjoyed going to the casino for entertainment.

I had never stepped into a casino in my life. Melbourne’s Crown Casino is the first. I am now even a member of the casino. Not that I like gambling; I don’t even know how to operate those complicated machines. But well, I had some interesting encounters at the casino.

I was stopped several times at the entrance and asked for my identity. They thought I was under-aged. I was quite a flattered because it meant I looked young - under 18. But for one time and only one time, to avoid the whole hassle of being asked again, I flashed my identity without being asked. The security officer stared at me and remarked, “You don’t have to show me that, you don’t look that young.” Wow, I was stunned by that! Okay, even if I didn’t look that young, that was still pretty rude, I thought. At that moment, I vowed that the casino was not going to make any money out of me, not even if they had machines that were as simple as ABC. (>_<)

The casino encounter did turn me off a bit for a little while. But the best things were that we had really nice hosts. AND I got to meet up with another friend, Grace, who took time off from work to tour around Melbourne with me throughout the 5 days.

Day Tour #1: Gold Mine @ Ballarat
This is a very touristy place with people dressed up in old-fashioned dresses and suits. This was where we began to descent to the underground mine to experience what it was like to be a miner.

So, did we find any gold in the mine? Of course not, but we saw some at the Gold Museum.

The bad thing about day tours is that sometimes, they can get boring. But luckily, killing time with Grace was easy ;-)

Day Tour #2: Phillip Island.
We were not allowed to take pictures of these almost endangered penguins. The flash might frighten them. But I secretly took one with my camera phone which didn’t have flash. So we curious people sat there at 6pm sharp waiting for the world’s smallest penguins to return back to shore after a day’s work at the sea.

Day Tour #3: Great Ocean Road Drive.
I had been anticipating the drive to the Great Ocean the most. We started the day very early for we had several destinations to cover.

I remember that day was a little rainy. But the journey and scenery were still great!

It felt as though I could easily reach for the clouds in the skies.

A little river next to the restaurant where we stopped for lunch. I like the layered bushes.

This tree is so huge! I bet you didn’t even realize that I was standing below it. Not until now :-p

One of my favourite shot of the Great Ocean. Can I retire here?

Next stop was the famous Twelve Apostles. The skies were getting darker and it was getting really cold. Grace and I were shivering for this photo..

And all the shivering was quite worth it, I think :-)

There are about 7 or 8 of the rocks left, not 12...

Big waves crashing and the wind was really strong here. My father and I were enjoying the wind immensely, leaving poor mom suffering in the cold...

We found a beach nearby. Only adventurous Grace went down to have a look ;-)

I forgot to ask why this was called London Bridge. Anyway, the middle portion had collapsed. Maybe that’s why it’s called London Bridge.

How could I forget to mention about the food? Like in Sydney/Adelaide, the food portions here are really bug too. These cakes look like nothing here in the picture, but they are ENORMOUS. The sight of them makes me so very full already.

Again, ENORMOUS nougats. I’m not sure if I will ever dare to eat them.

After a sumptious dinner with Auntie Esther one evening, I had supper at Max Brenner’s right after that. The hot chocolate was simply perfect for that chilly night in Melbourne! Grace’s treat :-)

On our second last day, we paid Auntie Esther’s relatives a visit at their homes in Springvale. We went house-visiting and all their houses were very pretty. We also went visiting a huge garden place where there were many strange looking plants. Here’s the brain cactus.

The Condom plant, um ahem, it’s an insect-eating plant actually :-P

I don’t know why, but Grace just loves taking pictures of my hands. She said I could be a "hand model", haha! This is a picture of me enjoying the café culture in Australia after a looong tiring day.