Melbourne #2: St. Kilda to Brighton Beach

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We headed back into the city today. We walked to the downtown area and since I had forgotten to eat breakfast I grabbed a samosa at a convenience store, delicious! As we were walking towards to the main station, we saw some intriguing looking alleyways. So, we took a detour to explore them. Hoiser Lane is a small street filled with graffiti art. I loved looking around all the little alleys that were connected admiring the different artworks, even the bins are covered with graffiti. It was pretty busy with other tourists and we saw some on a walking tour. I wish that if we'd had more time in Melbourne that we could have done a walking our of the city. I definitely need to get back to this city to explore more.

We took the tram down to St. Kilda, which wasn't too far from the city centre. It was a gloriously sunny day and since it was a Sunday there were a lot of people about. There was some kind of market going on near the beach, and food trucks, lots of food trucks. Since we were hungry and it was lunchtime, we decided to grab a bit to eat. We were going to go for Souvlaki until we spotted the burger truck. The pictures of the burgers looked so good, we couldn't resist. There was some kind of deal on where you get a burger, chips and a drink for a set price, so we opted for that. The food truck that we went to was called Ron's Handburger. The name just sounds so dirty. We took our food down to the grassy area, that was just beneath the road and next to the beach. We had a nice little picnic, although the seagulls were pretty bold. They kept trying to edge closer to us, I'm pretty sure we had a big circle of them around us. No way was I giving any of the seagulls my lunch, it was far too good to share. I hadn't had a decent burger since I been home in the summer and big, fat proper chips, nom nom!

Feeling full, it was now time to do what do we had come to St. Kilda for; to walk along the beach to Brighton Beach to see the colorful and fabulously decorated beach huts. My friend had found them in a blog or instagram post and they looked really cool, so we had decided to head there. It was a glorious day, so perfect for a walk along the beach. I think the walk was about 10-12 kilometres and would serve as a little warm up in preparation for our trip to Tasmania, where we would be doing lots of walking. St. Kilda was packed, there were loads of people on the beach. I have to say it isn't the prettiest beach in the world, but it is so close to the city, I can see why it is so popular.

As we walked along the beach, I kept looking back as you could see the Melbourne skyline in the distance. That was really pretty. There was also a small marina, so we could see some pretty sailing boats. Just by the beach there was a biggish restaurant complex, full of people eating drinking, eating and enjoying the sun. We headed up St. Kilda pier and had a bit of a walk along there. I think this is where the only public toilet on the beach was judging by the queues. The views from the pier were gorgeous, too. There were signs up to look for some animals sleeping in the crevasses of the rocks. Some other people had spotted them, but I couldn't see them. The walk was nice and alternated between beach and grass and pavement. I had put plenty of sunscreen on but it was little use against the fierce Australian sun.

Finally, we has arrived at Brighton Beach. We could see the beach huts up ahead. Their bright colours stood out in the sunshine. We walked along the busy beach eager to get some photos of the huts. If I were ever to return here to take some photos of the beach huts, I would definitely do it in winter like the blog/instagram post we had found. It was so much quieter. There were so many people on the beach, some using their beach huts and others just sprawled out in front of them, it was hard to get any decent photos of them. The scene would definitely benefited from a lack of people. I think we were both a bit disappointed that an awesome photo opportunity had been ruined. Still, we had seen the beach huts and had a nice walk along the coast. We walked to the end of the beach before turning inland, through a park, to get to the tram/train stop.

We took the tram up to the university area, where we were getting our ride from. I was a bit naughty as I thought that I had plenty of money on my transport card, but when I scanned it, it was empty. The good thing in Melbourne is that you can board the tram, sit down and then scan your transport card. I'm sure the driver noticed especially as I shouted over to my friend my card had no money on it. But we had to be somewhere so we weren't going to get off. Thanks for the free ride Melbourne! I did top my card up when we got off. Since it was the weekend and the holidays the university area was quiet. The late afternoon sky was gorgeous! The clouds were all small and fluffy, so pretty. Back at the place we were staying we had a nice chilled out evening. We had a barbecue for dinner, delicious steak, salad and potatoes, all washed down with some tasty wines. It was nice to relax in the pool too. It helped calm my sunburn down a bit. Later, we ate the cheeses that we had bought at the dairy at the Yarra Valley.

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