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We went, we saw and we were conquered … by the land down under. An Aussie vacation in winters may not be quite as advisable as one in the summers but the land was too inviting, the people too nice and the nature too beautiful for the weather to be any serious botheration. There is no wonder at all why several Australian cities rank extremely high on the list of the most ‘livable’ cities in the world.
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Melbourne, I believe fluctuates between numbers one and two on this list and there are enough of reasons why. The City Center or CBD (Central Business District) as they call it is a mini Manhattan. A breathtaking skyline topped off by the Rialto Towers (the tallest building in the southern hemisphere) with a 360-degree view of the city that makes you realize how well planned and laid out it is. It almost seems like they have a park created for every bunch of skyscrapers. Victoria Gardens, Carlton Gardens, Fitzroy gardens – each one is wonderful to just stroll through. Lush green landscaped gardens and a riverfront bustling with life on the weekends are part of the many attractions of the city.
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Melbourne as such is really a lot like Europe – Germany maybe in look and feel with huge bungalows (made only out of wood I might add – no concrete) and trams running through the city. A central business district surrounded by several residential suburbs where people prefer the quiet slower pace of life (shops close at 5 pm!!).
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The CBD itself has broadly a few main streets that must be walked along. Bourke Street mall for fashionable shopping, Victoria Market for more affordable shopping, Collins Street for all the happening pubs and discotheques and Lygon street for such a wide variety of international food that you could spend days exploring it all.
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During the day walk down the Southbank along the Yarra river towards the Southgate mall and to the quaint little arts and crafts market just below the bridge that leads towards St. Kilda. At night have dinner at one of the classy restaurants in the docklands offering you a variety of cuisine right from Indian, Chinese and Thai to Greek, Italian and Moroccan. We tried Moroccan and all I can really say about it is – Its different!
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A day at St. Kilda beach and pier is a must. There people not only enjoying the beach but bikers, skateboarders, couples walking their dogs and kids running helter skelter. Contrary to what many people think you do manage to see enough of the human species at least in the big cities of the country. It’s really only central Australia which is a dry arid land – the outback. Though we couldn’t do it in this vacation there’s said to be a three-day train journey between Perth and Sydney that takes you through hundreds of miles of this outback where you don’t see a soul…
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But stick to the city in case you want to be around humans. And sea creatures too. The Melbourne aquarium is a four-floor building which houses everything from sharks to clown fish (as in Nemo in Finding Nemo). It’s a highly educational experience and you can watch divers do live shark feeds, touch the jellyfish and even take a simulated adventure ride into a sunken ship.
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Melbourne zoo is great to see kangaroos, koalas, the tasmanian devil and wombats - all marsupials uniquely found in Australia. Williamstown is another beautiful waterfront with an exceptional view of the Melbourne CBD from its shores. Even in winters we saw joggers as well as walkers enjoying the surroundings. And of course there's Phillip island about an hour's drive away from Melbourne this place is famous for the penguin parade where the little creatures come onto the shore at dusk and all walk quietly into their own respective houses little caves of sand in between the rocks. It is a spectacular event and its a must that everyone maintain complete silence until the penguin's are in.
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The IMAX and Melbourne museum are also worth a visit. We saw Space Station narrated by Tom cruise in 3D and it was an unforgettable experience in the largest 3D screen in the southern hemisphere.
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Then there’s Chadstone – the biggest mall in the southern hemisphere (they like using that a lot in Australia by the way and you feel odd because you know that all they really have to compete with in the southern hemisphere is Indonesia, parts of Africa and South America) so you end up thinking well ya, it ought to be the biggest, tallest whateverest in the southern hemisphere.
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A trip to Melbourne however wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Crown Casino. Oh yes that’s one place you want to only get into and not at all out of. Now I am basically a roulette player so I got in and started laying my bets with an initial capital of only a hundred dollars to keep myself entertained for about an hour. After I had made about eighty dollars, I slipped the initial amount to my husband and began to play till the eighty finished. When I was on my last two counters I was approached by a casino official and asked a number of questions – show me your left hand please, have you been playing on this table long, did you happen to put some money on the last 12 some rounds back when the winning number was 35? I began to get a bit nervous as I just never usually remember my bets and tend to play just for the fun of it. When the man seated next to me exclaimed confidently – yes she did – I was asked back to view a recording of my hand placing a bet on one of the numerous screens being continuously monitored by the officials. “Is that your hand?” he asked me and I gulped slowly and replied in the affirmative wondering what I had done to get into this kind trouble. Now the story that unfolded after that was that I had put ten dollars on the last twelve and 35 came up but I forgot where I had placed my bet and didn’t pick up the additional twenty that was placed next to my ten as winnings. Since no one picked up that money they let it run at the same spot for another round and the next winning number was 32 so my money tripled now from thirty to ninety. And this guy finally smiles and says “It seems we owe you some money.” Honesty in a casino! Would you believe it? I came away a winner not only in dollars but convinced that Aussies are the nicest people I have ever met!
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And that is truly a fact that needs to be elaborated. The number of people who held the door open while I pushed my baby stroller through, the number of people who came up and said – would you like me to take a picture of you together when they saw my husband and I clicking each other’s solo snap, the number of people who saw us struggling with a map and offered to give directions and the number of people who smiled and said “No worries’ ……. it was just overwhelming.
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Beyond Melbourne also, there’s a lot to see and do.
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A drive along the Great Ocean Road should be listed somewhere as one of the best traveling vacations anyone can make. Picture this – you’re at the southern-most tip of the flattest continent in the world, and you’re driving in an SUV with the Pacific Ocean lashing at the side of the cliff just next to your road. It is spectacular. Our great ocean road vacation was spread over three days. Day one we drove out from Melbourne and after a brief lunch stop at Tourquay stopped at Lorne for the night. This small town is littered with apartments with complete glass windows on the side facing the ocean for people to enjoy the serenity of the view. Many are private holiday homes and many are apartments rented out to travelers such as ourselves. A walk along Lorne beach at night was like walking onto a movie set – the sun was setting, a man was playing with his dog and three kids were attempting to ride the waves on the surfboards. Now the water and the wind were both too chilly for us to even attempt to touch the water but watching those three kids in their black body glove body suits was enough to make us realize what an amazing time they were having. Day two we drove further along the great ocean road till we reached the Twelve Apostles. |
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Now the Twleve Apostles are basically twelve pieces of rock that have been left broken away from the rest of the land due to constant contact with the ocean which ate away the land around it. They are different shapes and sizes and absolutely beautiful even though we were walking along the cliffside walkway with not only cold wind but rain to contend with. The second night was spent at Port Campbell, a little seaside town where we enjoyed a fabulous Italian meal at one of the few restaurants. Day three we returned via the inland highway rather than back across the great ocean road. This allowed us to stop at Cape Otway lighthouse for another breathtaking view of the blue ocean and also a radio lookout station that was used during World War II. A cheese farm right in the middle of meadows dotted with cows, sheep and horses in separate areas was also an interesting stop. Cheese tasting is the expected activity, as is having tea with scones, cream and jam. Finally a stop at Geelong, where we sat along the waterfront in a warf side café that specialized in yet again – Italian food. The lawns, the river and the white boats docked on the marina. Yes, the picture was complete.
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There were also two other drive outs that we made – one to Yarra valley where we joined in the wine tasting at the famous Yerring vineyard and one to Belgrave where we took the Puffing Billy train upto the emerald lake where we could’ve gone boat riding or enjoyed a quiet barbeque picnic had the weather allowed it. |
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The Puffing Billy actually allows passengers to sit along the ledge of the window of the train in order to get a better view and that is excellent fun if you can move your head away to prevent the smoke from the engine from bothering you and of course if are not too fat to find the ledge uncomfortable.
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A one hour flight from Melbourne brings you into Sydney – the unofficial capital of Australia. I say that for two reasons – first the Prime Minister John Howard had chosen to reside there rather than at the official capital – Canberra – and second because 15% of Australia’s population lives in Sydney – it’s the most populated city in Australia (or maybe the Southern hemisphere, but I’m not sure on that one). In any case Sydney means Opera House and what a place that is. The first thing that struck me when I saw the Harbour Bridge on my left and the Opera house on my right as I stood at Circular Quay was that I had seen this hundreds of times before and it was all that I had expected it to be. The Harbour Bridge climb is a three-hour walk to the top of the bridge where the Australian flag flies proudly. You climb in groups each person connected to the other by means of a rope around their waist and then reach a point where the view simply makes it all worthwhile.
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The Opera House is not quite what you expect it to be. What struck me first off was that its not as white as I had expected. In fact its made up of millions of cream and brown tiles imported from Spain and took more than a decade to construct. Its also actually three buildings constructed in each other’s shadow in such a way that from some angles it looks like one giant building – like shells lying at the corner of the sea on the Sydney Harbour.
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A river cruise to Manly beach takes you into a different looking district - an area that seems home to artists, writers and the like. Bondi beach is where most of the action is in summers. Complete with umbrellas under which to anchor one’s party, eateries and clean soft sand leading into the waves of the ocean.
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The Sydney CBD is on lines very similar to Melbourne. The river runs through the city, with the Darling Harbour being on the other side of the CBD. The cuisine and restaurants here are more than five star. Very classy, very happening. There’s an IMAX an an Aquarium at Darling Harbour as well and it is crowded with tourists and locals on weekends. In the CBD there’s the Pitt Street Mall, which apparently has one of the highest retail rentals in the world.
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What I enjoyed most in Sydney is the monorail. It has a rather small route servicing only a portion of the city center but it meanders through the buildings and heart of the city with such elegance that you cannot help admire the smooth flowing white tube that allows you to literally peer into people’s offices.
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A hundred km from Sydney are the blue mountains. On a day tour trip that we had taken we not only learnt to throw the boomerang in the technique that allows it to be returned into the hands of the thrower (the other technique is to kill a duck as its flying in a group) but also visited the Featherdale wildlife sanctuary. Kangaroos in hoardes and Koalas hanging onto the tree branch all curled up and sleeping is truly a lovely sight. I even touched the back of a koala and was amazed at the soft fur that wraps its body. At the Blue Mountains itself you can view the Three Sisters – Rock formations similar to the twelve apostles but with a different origin and a weird folktale that accompanies it.
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But the true beauty of the Blue Mountains for us was the cable car that took us from the cliff’s edge into the depth of the rain forest below. No rain falls anymore in this rainforest but there is hardly any sunlight down there. Dense, as green as you can imagine and disturbingly calm, a walk through the rain forest is a pacifying experience away from the hustle and bustle of Sydney life. Coal mining was done down there in the rain forest many years ago and there is a small rail track with inclined seats on a caged train that are make you feel like you are lying down. This track is at a 52 degree incline - the steepest not just in the southern hemisphere but in the whole world. And it pulls you up with such speed alongside the side of the cliff on your way back up that its almost like a roller coaster ride.
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Having familiarized ourselves with the two main cities of Australia it was now left for us to discover Brisbane and the Gold Coast. A one day stopover in Brisbane allowed us to see their Southbank where the river front was packed with people celebrating ‘River Fest’ with a seafood festival a live band and a makeshift street market. The Queen Street mall is the main shopping area adjacent to King George’s Square where we were staying. Modern sculptures and landscaped gardens embellished this city as well.
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But the crown jewel is really Sufer’s Paradise. A small area on the Gold Coast between Brisbane and Coolangatta, this is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The green water and the golden sand give this area its name – Gold Coast and sure enough people were surfing, getting surfing lessons, buying surfboards and other surfing gear and enjoying the beach to its fullest. Impromptu beach volleyball games, innumerable sand castles and sunbathers were all over this beach.
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Paradise Center apartments allowed us to be extremely close to the action. The malls below and around us, the clubs and restaurants and the palm trees all lighted up with little golden lights playfully switching on and off in different patterns made each night out eventful.
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And then there are the theme parks. To ensure full family entertainment for all there are four theme parks located on the outskirts of Surfer’s Paradise. Go to Seaworld to watch the dolphins, the sharks and the water skiing events. Go to Wet n' Wild for water rides, go to Dreamworld for even more rides – different types for different age groups
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and go to Warner Bros Movieworld to see all your favorite Looney Tunes characters dances to different beats, to see Batman fight off Mr. Freeze on the street in front of you and to ride some of the most amazing roller coasters ever. The Spooky Scooby Doo ride sees you in a four seater roller coaster car in a huge hall with laser lighting and scary sound effects as you go at break neck speed over twists and turns, drops and climbs with nothing but the ground far down below to add to your scare. The wild west falls is another coaster taking you through Australia’s outback onto a cliff from where the coaster drops onto the river of water below. Whew! And if you still haven’t had enough go on all the rides over and over again.
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And that's not all folks. There's also Alice Springs to see the Ayer's Rock and the outback, there's Perth, Aucland, Hobart if you can make it on an overnight cruise to Tasmania and of course there's Cairns - the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef which is undoubtedly one of the natural wonders of the world. |
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I have to say it folks, Australia is definitely the best place to visit .... in all of .... the southern hemisphere.
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