Aussieland Day Three: Melbourne

On day three we woke up fairly early and decided to check out of our hostel early. We headed to the airport and were off to Melbourne! Melbourne (pronounced Mel-bin) was on my list of cities to see for two reasons: Phillip Island and the 12 Apostles.

When we landed we found ourselves instantly surrounded with a sea of people of China. What I didn't realize was that we had decided to travel on Chinese New Year and Australia is an extremely popular vacation destination from people in China! We found a payphone in baggage claim and called our hotel to let them know we were coming in early (to which they replied "no worries" because Australians are awesome like that). In all of our last minute scrambling and planning I did not secure us a car rental in Melbourne which turned out to be a bit of a hassle. We were able to finally secure a car rental from an off-site rental place. Truthfully, we lucked out. Big time!

Once we secured our rental car we headed off to our hotel! We stayed in the Dandenong suburbs of Melbourne. I was hesitant about driving in Australia so I didn't want to stay too close to downtown and I wanted easy access to the freeways to get to our major destinations. Driving a right hand drive vehicle on the left side of the road was terrifying for the first 10 minutes, stressful for the first half hour and an absolute blast after that!

Once we made it to our hotel we were starving for lunch! We did a quick search for local places to eat and ended up at Dandenong Pavilion. What we didn't realize was we stumbled upon the best little burger joint we've ever been to. Seriously. They were voted best burgers in Australia and they even have a secret burger menu. We loved this place so much we ate here twice in the two days we were in Melbourne! We had an awesome chat with the waitress who told us about all the local events going on and she said she loved our American accents (but I think we loved your Aussie accent more)!

After lunch we headed out to Phillip Island for the Penguin Parade. The penguin parade is a nightly occurrence that happens year round in Melbourne. Every night at dusk dozens of penguins come out of the ocean and make their way up the beach and into their burrows. They have grandstands that sell out often and fill up early! We chose to pay a little more and do the Aboriginese Heritage Tour. It gave us reserved front row seats, a little bit of background information on the area and access to another reserved area for an extended up close viewing of the penguins. We weren't allowed to take photos so you'll just have to trust me when I say it was a once in a lifetime opportunity!

Picture courtesy of visitphillipisland.com