Artsy Melbourne, Australia Part 4

Links to Parts One, Two and Three.

Melbourne in a word is vibrant. There's a huge art scene and every building is either designed with an artistic element or has amazing street art. It's trendy with excellent food found hidden in tiny restaurants down narrow alleyways.

We'd finally completed all the craziness and plans in the trip and had a few days just to chill in Melbourne. I found an AirBnb in the CBD and it was the perfect home base. We checked in and found dinner at a little Italian place with live music in an alleyway. Note on the alleys, the city made rent super cheap for shops and restaurants to open in the alleys between buildings. They've turned into places people want to be, while simultaneously avoiding the garbage and dangerous spaces people generally think of. Way cool.

The next morning Mike and I went for a running tour through the city, along the river and around the tan track that circles the botanical gardens. It was beautiful. Mike decided that he needed to finally cut off the crazy curly mop he was growing. So we found a little barber shop and twenty mins later, we were out the door and he was looking like his handsome self again.


That afternoon we went for a guided walking tour of Melbourne by the same company that did the one in Sydney. The guides are college kids who are Melbourne (in this case) natives and work for tips. It's pretty cool because they can make a few hundred dollars in three hours walking and talking. On this tour I learned that the Aboriginals were classified as fauna until 1967. Their children were taken from them to be raised by white people and assimilated into their culture. People are the worst. Anyway, we saw all the cool things.

The next day we hopped a bus for Healsville about an hour outside of Melbourne. The tour took us to the Healsville Sanctuary, a vineyard for wine and lunch, and a chocolate shop. The Healsville Sanctuary is a zoo of sorts. They rescue native animals and release the ones that can be back into the wild. The ones that remain are used for education. Way cool! It was a record day of 111 degress (Fahrenheit, I know this isn't the US which is somehow proud of being archaic) and HOT HOT HOT! Most of the animals were really lazy and any encounters were canceled for the day, but it did mean we had the place to ourselves and a guide, which was amazing! My favorites were the echidnas and the platypus. Mike loved the tree kangaroos.



We met the rest of the group (who spent all morning wine tasting and were happy happy folks) at Tokar Estates. The vineyard was beautiful. We had a tasting, but I really wasn't into their wine. Sad, I usually love reds. Lunch was very good, but slow. Last we stopped at a chocolate factory and shop. We tasted a whole bunch of their chocolate bars and bought ice cream, because we're obviously little pigs. By the time we made it back to Melbourne, a storm system had moved in and the temperature dropped to 73 degrees. In one hour. Totally nuts. By evening, it was in the low 60s.


I woke up feeling off, like way off. We were supposed to do a long run and I had a sore throat. We had an easy breakfast and tea while waiting for the rain to stop. Then we did some wandering around the city to check out some of the lanes and arcades (alleys). We found an awesome Japanese restaurant called Chocolate Buddha for lunch and had soup, veggies, a bit of meat. Clean food. Eventually I needed a nap so we could catch a boat later.

I found tickets for a burlesque show on a showboat out in the harbor. It was fabulous! They fed us appetizers until we were stuffed. Me with sushi, Mike with everything else. We also had champagne and some syrupy blue thing that looked pretty but lasted like pure sugar. The boat took us around the harbor and into the sunset with beautiful city views over the harbor. The show was fabulous, cheeky, sassy. I loved it!



On the way back a possum was hanging out of a tree and it was not remotely afraid of me, but it was ridiculously cute. Why are American possums so terrifying?

The last morning I was downright sick. Whatever nasty cold had been going around hit both of us really hard. We packed up our stuff and headed up to Fitzroy neighborhood to see the street art and find breakfast. Breakfast was at a bomb little hipster café. I found more GF avo toast. It was just my thing on that trip. Ok, always, but I think I ate it every day in both Sydney and Melbourne. We wandered through a pretty little park before catching the bus to the airport a little early so we could rest with our pockets full of tissues.

We boarded the plane and immediately went to sleep. A few hours later I woke up and started looking for entertainment. The map showed us soon landing in Melbourne from Sydney. Whaaaaaaat?! Then the pilot came on the intercom and informed us that we would be landing in Melbourne in 15 minutes. Basically we found out that the plane had a de-icing issue that the pilot wasn't comfortable with flying over the pacific for eight hours with. Um, totally understandable in my book. The plane wasn't fixable so they rescheduled our flight for the following morning at 10 am and put everyone in hotels for the night. By the time we went back through customs, caught the bus to the hotel and checked in, we were tanked. We got a wakeup call at 245 AM, not meant for us. So hopefully the other person didn't miss his flight. Finally we got up and used our food vouchers for the fantastic breakfast buffet at the hotel. A bus picked us up and took us back to the airport. The woman at the check in counter gave us an additional $50 in vouchers to use in the airport, so I stocked up on lunches and snacks for later and still had $10 to give to a stranger. She was thrilled! We ended up on a different plane and arrived safely at our house about 17 hours after we had planned. The sickness lingered for another week and a half.

On a high note, Australia was fabulous! Good food, nice people, beautiful cities, gorgeous reefs, what more could a girl ask for?