Melbourne - 4 Days in Melbourne Travel Guide, including Great Ocean Road /Phillip Island (Penguins!)

Did you know that 90% of Australians live on the coast? In order to find out why we kicked off a two-month trip in Australia with a short stop in the very popular city of Melbourne. Located in the southeast of Australia, this big city is a perfect mix of cosmopolitan vibes, a laid-back atmosphere and some great nature to explore. So let's get that out of office on and check it out. Since we live in London, as you may have seen in our last video, we stopped in Singapore for a couple of The flight time from Singapore is approximately seven and a half hours to Melbourne. After arriving on a late flight and still feeling some of the jet lag effect, I woke up early to head to Victoria Market. This is one of the city's famous markets selling fresh produce, but it's also a good starting point for breakfast. It was also quite handy as it was a five-minute walk from my hotel and opens early at 6am. I grabbed a coffee and egg and bacon roll to start off the day in style. I just happened to be here when the grand final for the Australian Football League, or AFL, was being played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground Stadium. You can see it in the distance, but more on the MCG later. If you're like me and don't know that much about the Australian Football League, it's kind of like a mixture of rugby and football, or similar to Gaelic football. It was a huge deal in Melbourne. Because the weather was great, the best public space to watch it was at the Federation Square, which had a large screen and a whole bunch of fans ready to soak up the atmosphere. While Melbourne didn't make the grand final, the neighbouring town of Geelong were playing arch-rival Sydney and won convincingly. This was a great way to do something around the locals as well. My activities surrounding the game basically took up the whole first day, so after some celebratory drinks with some people I had met at the hotel, it was time to walk back in the sunshine and get ready to explore the city the next day. The next morning, I woke up early to explore the city, and decided to start by walking around the Yarra River, which cuts through the city. As you can see, it was pretty cloudy. People always picture Australia as hot and sunny, but in Melbourne the temps are often a bit cooler. The weather is commonly described as often having four seasons in one day, and in this video you'll start to see why. A short walk from the city centre, you find yourself at Alexandra Gardens. This part of the river is much more relaxed with rowing clubs along the riverfront. Because Australia is a Commonwealth nation, another section of the park is dedicated to the late Queen Victoria. Because I mentioned the AFL game earlier, alongside the river are Melbourne's main stadiums. Sport is huge in Australia, and Melbourne is home to the Australian Formula One Grand Prix, and tennis's Australian Open, alongside cricket, AFL, and a lot of other sports as well. Even within close proximity to the parks, there are sporting monuments scattered all around the nearby parks, so make sure you check out the sporting schedule as part of your visit. Next, we head back towards the city centre. Next up was the Royal Arcade to check out this Edwardian building in the centre of Melbourne. Interestingly, the arcade houses only local boutique Australian businesses, so it's a good place to explore and discover some unique finds. And then, of course, there's coffee. Melbourne is proud and well known for its coffee, and so do check out one of the local cafes. There are some cute spots at the arcade, but I took a short walk to the highly reviewed Brother Bubba, and I can confirm that it makes really, really good coffee. Next, I highly recommend checking out Hosier Street and the surrounding streets. There's not only a lot of cool street art here, but this area is known for having a number of bars around, including rooftop bars. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to check these out this day, but if you've got a recommendation here, please let us know in the comments below. I felt like this was a place where locals were hanging out, and I didn't see as many other tourists. Another recommendation here quite popular is to get food at Centre Place Lane, the famous Melbourne street with more art, boutiques, and cafes. The National State Library should also definitely be on your to-do list. It's a stunning building that has this Harry Potter looking feel to it inside, and it's free to enter. I recommend getting the lift to the top floor and getting a look down, as well as checking off the rooftop area. There are also a few other places worth checking out around this area, including the 888 Monument celebrating Melbourne's protest to create an 8-hour working day, Carlton Gardens, the UNESCO site and house of the Royal Exhibition Centre, Parliament House, and the area of Chinatown. The next day, I booked a day tour to the famous Phillip Island. I used a company called West Tours, who picks you up from your accommodation and organizes the day-long tour, with stops at a few other places. The first stop are the bathing boxes in Brighton. This is an expensive neighbourhood in the suburbs of Melbourne, with over 80 of these bathing boxes on the beach. They are all multi-coloured with different designs. Now, it's more of a status symbol to own one, with the most expensive bathing box reaching up to 1 million Australian dollars. This is a great spot to take a picture, and also have a dip if the weather allows. The next stop was the Moonlit Sanctuary, which is a conservation park that houses a range of Australian animals, such as wombats, dingoes, kangaroos, wallabies, and Tasmanian devils. This was a bit unexpected as part of the tour, but as a first stop in Australia, it was amazing to check out so many of these Australian animals. You can also feed the kangaroos and the wallabies here. They're super friendly. Moonlit Sanctuary is an award-winning wildlife park in Melbourne, and you can also visit it not as part of a tour. In fact, they even have evening lanternlit tours that you can go on to see the animals at night, as so many Australian animals are nocturnal. They also have special wildlife encounters here, where you can get up close and personal with the animals, especially the koalas. After this stop, we were well on our way to Phillip Island. The main reason to go to Phillip Island is a naturally occurring phenomenon called the penguin parade. Essentially, the penguins walk across the beach, coming in from the ocean from a long day of fishing every night to get back to their burrows. A couple of things which I admit I didn't know. Number one, Melbourne gets cold, so make sure that you take something warm for this experience. And number two, the conservation is quite strict on taking pictures and videos as it hurts the penguins. I'm using some content from a friend from when pictures used to be allowed. Another tip is to get a seat on the edges of the viewing platform, and make sure to look when you're walking back to the car park, as you can get real close-up views of the penguins. This is a highly recommended activity. Definitely don't miss this one. The next day was yet another day tour, and this time it was the famous Great Ocean Road. I did a reverse tour, which means you start at arguably the most famous stop of the tour, which is the Twelve Apostles. It took two and a half hours to get there from Melbourne, with a coffee stop at the town of Winchelsea. The Twelve Apostles are a collection of limestone stacks just off the shore of Port Campbell National Park. So there aren't twelve apostle columns, as you can probably see from the shots that we took. Nature seems to have taken four and left us with eight, although now you can actually only see seven, as one of them collapsed in 2005. Most shots you see of this area are on beautiful sunny days, where you can really see the turquoise water. So we did have a bit of an Instagram versus reality a moment here, but nevertheless it is a beautiful spot, despite the rain and the wind that we had. Just a reminder that Melbourne and Victoria weather can be chilly and unpredictable. This was in September. A bit like in Europe, make sure you have a rain jacket or umbrella with you. Then it was back in the bus to continue the journey along the Great Ocean Road. We stopped along the way a few times, the next stop being Gibson Steps Beach, which is an amazing beach where you have to take 86 steps down to sea level. The beach is lined by the high stunning cliffs. Another cool thing about the trip, and I guess it depends on your guide and of course the whims of nature, is that there's a ton of wildlife that you can just spot along the side of the road. We saw a few, including these amazing spots where we could watch this koala sitting in a tree and eating its lunch. Traveling back, we also made a stop at a town on the way back to the start of the Great Ocean Road and stopped at this local brewery where one of the IPAs on tap just had to be consumed. Then it was back on the road again with very scenic views from the bus. The next stop was in Lorne to walk around the pier. This was a nice stop to break up the drive back. This area used to be primarily used for the logging industry and the original pier has been here since 1879, although the pier that you see today has just been recently renovated. From the pier you can spot more wildlife. Check out the stingray just swimming by. Then it was a further drive up to see the memorial sign, which is the official Great Ocean Road sign. This is also a great spot to take that picture to remember the whole experience by before having some countryside views to round out the experience on the way back to Melbourne. The reality is that many people do the Great Ocean Road drive over a few days or wait to have days with better weather to get the full experience or to fit in some swimming. However, like us, if you have limited time it is possible to do a day trip to see some of the highlights of the Great Ocean Road. After a long day on the road we got back to Melbourne around 9 30 p.m. I told you that the day trip was a long one. That quickly closed almost four days in Melbourne exploring this relaxed cosmopolitan city and its surrounding areas in Victoria. We wish we had longer to explore here but we were off on a few adventures around Australia and how to make it to Perth for our Western Australia road trip. We have quite a few more Aussie adventures coming up so please stay tuned. Thanks everyone for watching and we'll see you next time!