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Published: December 11th 2009
Old Melbourne Gaol
Looks like a happy place to be incarcerated, no?Well, it finally happened… the Big Trip! 18 days, four cities, one Great Barrier Reef. We were practically jumping out of our skin with excitement. Please know that this is a long entry, so it’s divided into cities in case you want to skip around. If it’s too much to read at once, come back another time to finish it. And don’t forget to look at the pictures at the end!
Melbourne Our adventure began in Melbourne. Melbourne is the second-largest city in Australia, and it oozes personality. From the beautiful and modern Federation Square, to the graffitied alleyways, to the ornate arcades, to the beach in St. Kilda, it really has lots of character.
Never ones to sit still, we hit the ground running the day we arrived. We visited the Old Melbourne Gaol (pronounced “jail”). Many of the cells contained the death masks of, and stories about, the prison’s most notorious criminals. We got to learn a bit about Ned Kelly and see the gallows where he was hanged. After touring the prison, we went next door to the City Watch House to get arrested. This place was open until 1994, so we got a modern-day
Cell Block
As you can tell, the cells were quite large. idea of what the experience would have been like.
The next morning, we had a walking tour of the city with a volunteer who has spent most of his life in Melbourne. He showed us some of the changes the city has been through, and some things that are purportedly planned for the future. Interesting fact: There’s a ferris wheel you could see from our hotel room that was intended to be like the London Eye - except it stopped working after only a couple of weeks! Years later, it has yet to be demolished.
After our walking tour, we did a bit of wandering around Federation Square. The square contains a branch of the National Gallery of Victoria, as well as the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, as well as so we explored both of those. The NGV had an outstanding selection of aboriginal art. ACMI had a Dennis Hopper exhibit featuring photos, drawings, paintings, and sculptures created by the actor/director, in addition to showing his films. It was a very cool exhibit that we were lucky to get to see.
That evening, we saw Jersey Boys. If you have the opportunity to see it
Prison Display
Masks, tools, and other creepy stuff - do. It was wonderful. We had no idea the story of the Four Seasons was so dramatic. It was really well done, and the music and choreography were fantastic.
Saturday morning we got up early for the Queen Victoria Market Foodie’s Dream Tour. QVM is the world’s largest outdoor market, and one of the most famous. While it offers almost anything you could possibly want, we were focused on the food. Our group of eight toured the entire food area saw an incomprehensible amount of meat, fish, and vegetables. And we had delicious samples: pates and dips, olives, prosciutto, fresh pastas, chili port, Turkish delight… YUM. Though we were pretty well fed by the end of the tour, we couldn’t resist buying a dozen oysters for $11.00. They were delicious and worth far more than we paid.
On to the Melbourne Museum. This sleek, modern structure contains all sorts of curiosities inside. We saw a growing forest; an exhibit on the human mind which featured real brains; an exhibit of insects, some of which were alive; and the most taxidermy either of us have ever seen in one room.
Before we knew it, it was down
Mug Shot!
You would be bummed too if you were arrested. to our last day in the city. It had been pouring rain all Saturday night and Sunday morning, but luckily it cleared by mid-afternoon. We went to an outlet mall for a bit, and then took the free tram around the city to see some areas we’d missed. Then we walked up to the suburb of Fitzroy. Fitzroy is a very cool area with lots of boutiques and unique restaurants. I suppose it could be considered the “alternative” area of town. We wandered around and just as we were deciding to have a snack, we stumbled upon a street fair with tons of Spanish and Mexican food. Score!
Aaron had a special surprise for our last night in Melbourne. He’d gotten us tickets to Dracula’s Redrum Cabaret, and what fun that was. The evening began with us being taken into the dining room/theatre via a ghost train. Dinner was served by “draculettes” who were dressed the part; we were served shooters of bloody gazpacho, “thumbs” of hummous, and dark chocolate coffins, among other things. The variety show was excellent - funny and timely material, with great short skits and songs. My favorite was when one of the girls began
doing a striptease - she got down to a fringed bikini before disappearing behind a wall. You could see her shadow as she began removing her “skin” and throwing it over the front. She then came out and finished the song as a skeleton.
Thus concluded our time in Melbourne. It was difficult to leave, but we still had lots of things to look forward to. Next stop: Sydney!
Sydney As far as any rivalry with Melbourne, people seem to have a clear-cut favorite between the two cities. I still don’t know which I prefer - which is a wonderful problem to have. Sydney’s charm is completely different from Melbourne’s. It’s a more generic, traditional big city, with businesses comprising the core of downtown. But don’t let me make you think it’s boring - there’s much that’s wonderful about it, including lots of the smaller, more residential neighborhoods.
Our time there started very nicely with a visit to our hotel. The Establishment is, well, the nicest establishment I’ve ever stayed in. Think dark, quiet, gilded hallways… key access to get anywhere… a huge suite… marble bathroom… Bulgari bath products… twice-daily turndown service, always with fresh towels…
giant cookies… yes, it didn’t take me long to fall in love. (And now, back in Rotorua, this is what I like to picture when I go to sleep.)
Anyway, we tore ourselves away from our lovely room to walk to Circular Quay, which is where the famous Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House are located. Next to the quay is The Rocks, Sydney’s oldest neighborhood. It’s very pretty, with old European-style buildings, statues, and walkways. We wandered around a bit and ended up meeting an Israeli photographer and gallery owner.
We had dinner that night at Quay and were seated at the best table, squarely facing the opera house. Quay is ultra-fancy and was recently featured on Master Chef, Australia’s version of Top Chef. Oh, I must mention the bats we saw on the way to dinner. Apparently they roost during the day in the botanic gardens near the opera house; at night, they fly over the harbour and around the bridge. This was not the only time we saw bats either - I’ve never seen so many as in Australia.
Fast forward to the next day and our harbour boat tour and lunch. This was
Lots of impressive graffiti
This stuff is hidden (not really) in alleyways all over Melbourne. marginal - the food was fine, but not great, and we found the canned commentary to be offensive. We did get a few good photos though. After that we went to check out the Museum of Contemporary Art. We were bummed that they were between exhibits, so we only got to see one floor. There were some neat works, though.
Ultimately, our minor disappointments of the day disappeared when we saw Wicked. What a wonderful story. The Wicked Witch of the West is not truly evil, she was just misunderstood and mistreated! Another musical to see, if you haven’t already. Or to see again.
We were raring to go Wednesday morning, as we had a scheduled tour of the opera house. It was strange being on a tour that required the use of headsets, but it really helped us hear better. It was neat to get to learn the story of this amazing structure (it was completed much later than was intended, and waaaay over budget) and see it from the inside. The biggest surprises, to me, were the carpets in luscious shades of purple and saffron.
After the tour we took the bus up to Bronte
Federation Square
Surprisingly, this stone, glass, and steel structure wasn't cold-looking. Beach so we could do the well-regarded Bronte-to-Bondi walk. This cliffside walk really highlights all the different blues of the ocean. So we walked and it wasn’t very long until we saw it: the world famous Bondi Beach. We stopped at the Bondi Icebergs - a winter swim club situated just off the south side of the beach - for lunch before heading down to the main beach.
That evening we went back to the Opera House to see the ballet. There were three separate stories: one modern, one traditional, and one that was a combination of the two. The dancers were really something to see in action. We ended the night with dessert at Aria looking at the opera house.
Thursday brought a 6am (ouch!) start as we had a tour of the Sydney Fish Market. While it’s quite a bit smaller than Tokyo’s fish market, it still is the second largest in the world. It was interesting to watch the auction; I now have a much better understanding of how fish in restaurants is served at “market price.” We walked around and saw all different kinds of fish (did you know that even fish can get
Queen Victoria Market
The market is visited by 10 million people a year. the bends when pulled from deep water?) and learned a bit about the family of fisherman that more or less runs the market. After a delicious octopus breakfast (my favorite!) we were done.
A little later that day, we met up with Anthe and her husband Peter. Anthe is an old friend who I’ve known since age three but hadn’t seen since high school. We got back in touch via Facebook, and I was thrilled to find out that she’s living in Sydney. So we took the bus over to her area, Paddington, and proceeded to spend the afternoon walking around. We went all over the place - King’s Cross, Rushcutter’s Bay (had lunch at the yacht club here), Woolloomooloo Wharf (weirdly, Russell Crowe has a home right at the end of the wharf), up to the botanic gardens, where we saw the bats sleeping, and then back to the hotel. My feet were falling off but it was great to catch up, and also see parts of the city I never would have gotten to otherwise.
Our last day in Sydney came all too quickly, and we resolved to make the most of it. We made a
Getting hungry
Some of the offerings at QVM. beeline for the zoo, which lived up to its reputation for excellence. We saw a seal show - who knew they could be so smart? - and all sorts of other animals: red pandas, wombats, kangaroos, and more. The zoo is across the harbour, so it required a ferry ride - and wouldn’t you know it, the $7 ferry was a much cooler experience than our lunch boat excursion earlier in the week. Ah, well.
From the zoo we made our way down to Chinatown for some dim sum in one of the strangest malls ever - markets on the ground floor, outlets on one, regular shops on two, etc. Then we went to the Powerhouse Museum, which may be the coolest museum ever. We saw a great exhibit on design through the ages, the oldest running steam engine and some mind-blowing pictures from outer space. We also got to have a zero-gravity experience in a spaceship. Wow - it was all so cool.
We said farewell to Sydney by having dinner with Anthe and Peter at the Ivy. The Ivy is a South-Beach style bar and restaurant complex. I’ve never seen such a happening bathroom scene. Really,
Pork Hands
Did you know that pork even had hands? tons of people hanging out near the bathrooms… videos playing… no real lines for the stalls, people just sitting around… such a trip.
Tick, tock! Time to say a sad goodbye to Sydney, and a warm (literally!) hello to Cairns.
Cairns Cairns is HOT - like south-Florida-in-the-middle-of-summer hot, but more humid - and it’s not even quite that time of year yet.
We arrived to find that our B&B was situated right in the middle of the tropics. There were all sorts of bird chirping and bugs buzzing and little lizards running around. We mapped out our day and quickly took off. First we went to the Kuranda Koala Gardens, where I got to hold one of the little cuties. We also stopped into the venom and poison museum down the street. From there we embarked on a little self-guided food and wine tour. First we went to a winery that specialized in fruits other than grapes. Then we went to a coffee plantation; unfortunately they were finished giving tours for the day, but we had fun perusing their shop. Next was a stop to a dairy to sample some delicious cheeses, including some lactose free
Taxidermy galore
Really cool, and really gross. versions. Finally, we went to check out the famous (at least in travel books and in that area) Curtain and Cathedral Fig Trees. These trees are just huge cascades of branches in straight lines down to the ground. They are hundreds of years old, and started as a seed implanted in another tree. Eventually these trees strangled their host trees, after which they still continued to put down roots. Amazing.
Downtown Cairns is like a bigger version of Tauranga, a town that’s an hour north of Rotorua. It’s nice, with lots of shops, restaurants, and hostels, plus lots of waterfront and a beautiful public pool. And, there are TONS of bats. They were blanketing the sky as we had dinner.
Day two in Cairns saw us getting up bright and early again, this time for a rafting excursion. It was an all-day affair - we were bussed to and from the river, which was an hour-and-a-half away. We rafted for probably a good 4+ hours, with lunch mid-day, and also did some rock-jumping (Aaron) and river swimming (both of us). The river had probably a good 20 rapids, grades 3-4, and it was a good time (disregarding some
Dinner at Dracula's
We took one photo before being asked not to take any more :( bangs and bruises).
The following day, we left for our dive trip. We were on the Spirit of Freedom from Monday to Thursday. There is a separate travel blog entry about the dive trip.
The day we got back, we went up to Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures. We saw a couple of croc feedings - they like to eat raw chicken heads - and a show. These animals can’t be tamed, so the handler was understandably nervous! From there we drove up to Port Douglas, which is a more exclusive, resort-type of town. We wandered around downtown and had dinner there.
Brisbane The next morning saw us heading to Brisbane, for our last stop in Australia. Brisbane is cool - it’s not at the level of Sydney or Melbourne, but it still has a lot going on. It has a beautiful river, great museums and performance spaces, nice bars and restaurants, and pedestrian malls - anything you could want for a city. As Australia’s third-largest city, it is still a bit bigger than Auckland, and has twice as many people.
We didn’t have much time that day, so we walked around a bit near our hotel,
Sydney skyline
The view from Circular Quay at twilight the Emporium. The Emporium is the second-nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed at. Our suite was done in shades of black, brown, and grey, and different textures kept it interesting. It had a washer/dryer, microwave, and nicer dishwasher than we have in our house here. Right outside the hotel was a whole Emporium area with a bunch of shops and restaurants. We meandered through the area, and then after a little exploring it was time to go climb the Story Bridge. There are only three bridges that can be legally climbed, and this is one of them (the others are in Sydney and Auckland). We were suited up and kitted out and started climbing. It wasn’t difficult - mainly walking up steps. It was very fun, though, and the sunset was beautiful.
Our last day in Australia was spent checking out different areas of Brisbane. We went to the renowned Gallery of Modern Art and got to see the opening day of the 6th Asia and Pacific Triennial. There were some amazing works of art there. We then wandered around our neighborhood of Fortitude Valley, which had some outdoor markets, lots of shops, and is a great nightlife spot. Late
Sydney Opera House
Just as beautiful at night as during the day in the afternoon we stopped for drinks at Cloudland, one of the best bars in the area. We had VERY fresh seafood for dinner at Jellyfish before calling it a trip. It was off to the airport the next morning.
Ah, Australia. What a magical country. I have so many other places yet to visit, but I am certain: I will be back.
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Julie Sexton
non-member comment
So much fun!
Loved the update on your holiday Down Under! The Dracula’s Redrum Cabaret sounded so much fun - loved the description of the striptease. I loved the pictures...except for the one with the spider. No thanks. Missing you tons! Julie xoxo