Road Trippin' in Melbourne

Hey all!

In Australia, there are two main cities: Sydney and Melbourne. Between the two there is often a debate about which city is better. In this post, I'll give you my consensus on the topic.

When we arrived in Melbourne, we rented a car to do the most talked about road trip in Australia; The Great Ocean Road. This is a road that stretches along the coast of Melbourne going past many famous rock formations such as the 13 Apostles, the London Bridge, and many more. We split this part of the trip into a day and a half. The first day we were very lucky with weather and views, the other day was quite rainy, but lucky for us we had the whole place to ourselves.

Some cool beach with a bunch of caves!

Just happened to stumble
upon this lighthouse!

The 13 Apostles (unfortunately there are only
8 because of weather and erosion)

After our adventures along The Great Ocean Road, which truly was great, we headed into the city of Melbourne.

In the city there was tons of shopping, some markets, a few museums and lots and lots of graffiti art. And the first day, we did it all. We started with exploring the stores, which were mostly department-type stores, so nothing super exciting, although we all bought some warmer clothes because highs were in the low 50's!

We also went to an art museum and pretended to know what we were talking about and finally ended up walking down some streets adorned with graffiti. 

Reppin the Drexel Dragon

The next day, we did the most instagramed thing in Melbourne...the Brighton Beach Boxes. (p.s. this beach was much nicer than Brighton Beach, NJ). The boxes go all along the beach and are painted in awesome colors so we of course had to strike a few poses, especially in front of the Australia Flag themed box!

The gang!

One of my many posed beach box photos (view more -->)

Later in the day found a cool town called Fitzroy where we did some shopping while Courtney finished a group project in a cafe. After that adventure, we tried to rent bikes to ride through the Botanical gardens but got very lost and had to go back. But this time there was no falling off the bike and I even conquered some city riding. Guess I need to blame my bad bike skills on the wine tasting that accompanied the bike ride in New Zealand. Later in the evening we went to see the Penguins that come out around Sunset on the pier!

Very familiar bridge walk into the city of Melbourne

Overall the trip went by really fast, and although I don't regret studying abroad in Sydney, I LOVED Melbourne. The town was full of things I loved, shopping, coffee, and art. The entire scene was different and chill, instead of the upbeat fast paced city of Sydney. In US terms I would compare Sydney to New York. But Melbourne on the other hand was a nice mix of London and Philly and it definitely reminded me of the City of Brotherly Love where I will be headed in 24 days. 

Signing off for now...

Christine