Took an early flight from Newark to St. Louis (3 hours) .
Connection flight to St. Louis delayed by an hour and reached L.A. at 10:30pm (local time)
Boarded Qantas 150 to Sydney 11:55pm(local time) . I am very glad that I reserved a double seater, thanks to seatguru.com and my collegue, Chandra. Rarely do you get a window seat and the aisle seat when traveling on International flight.We finished our customs in Sydney at a record pace.
Landed at 10:10am and got out of the flight at 10:30am because we were at the end of the plane. Hey... you got to pay somewhere for your comforts.Our connection flight to Melbourne is scheduled to leave at 11:00am and we reached the domestic check-in counter by 11:00am, ergo we missed the flight.
We took the next connection flight, which has 2 seats, that is 1:00pm and landed at Melbourne airport 3:00pm.
We realized later, that this modern sculpture is an 'opening zipper', inviting people to visit. On the way back the same sculpture gives an impression of 'closing zipper'Melbourne Day1
Got into shared cab, checked into the hotel and we were in the hotel room by 4:15pm. Television showed that Australia is down by 6 wickets (I saw the sixth wicket).
We freshened-up and got ready quick. I printed our MCG tickets at the hotel and on our way to MCG by 5:00pm
We walked into the stadium and the Australian innings was just ended.
We could't find any empty seats at the first level (ground), our tickets allowed us to get onto 4th level. There were plenty of seats available on the 4th level and views were much better as well. We got direct sunlight until 07:30pm (8:30pm is sunset) and which made it difficult to take good pictures. As sun went down, views were much eye pleasing.
Indian fans on the feet celebrating the victory around the stadium.Melbourne Day 2
Got out of the hotel around 10:00am to explore the city. We bought ourselves a days pass for the Trams. Got on old and new Trams to get around.
Trams are very convininient and easy to use.
We got out of the hotel around 10:00am to explore the city. We bought ourselves a day pass for the Trams. We got on old and new Trams to get around. Trams are very convenient and easy to use.
City is very easy to get around, because of the grid layout, just like NYC. We had subway sandwich as brunch to get us going. Instead of veggie patty as we get in USA, they have a choice of potato based patty (same as in India). We walked through China-town and didn’t find anything extraordinary. The previous day they had huge New Year day celebrations, I think this Year animal is mouse. We walked in and out of several stores, and all of them seem to be very nice and expensive.
We stopped at café Dopio (illy branch) where we tasted local favorite coffees, Macchiato and Latte. There were couple of Indian restaurants and we had our snacks at one of them and headed to Federation Square. Federation Square is a hub for various activities, such as screening shows, showing live television events and providing tourist information. The information center is quite useful and provided us maps and relative information. We realized that if we have to go to Port Campbell the next day, we have to make changes to our travel plans. We strolled around near by Yerra River and went back to hotel to make plans for next few days.
We were able to find accommodation at Apollo Bay for next day night. Since we were heading to ‘Great Ocean Drive’ we wanted to rent a convertible car, and a convertible is only available at the airport location. I have made this reservation earlier, and all we had to do is to go to the airport and get the car. We used public transportation to get to airport and rented a car with a GPS. Road signs, highway system is very similar to US, and only different in two aspects. Australians drive on the left side of the road, and use Kilometers instead of miles as in US. Without much difficulty I was able to drive to hotel and parked the car. We went back to CBD again to catch fireballs near the casino by the Yerra river.
Melbourne Day 3
We got up early and headed to Queen’s Victoria Market, which is open only every other weekday. We found lot of bargains (at least thought so). I came across very good original oil paintings, however sadly I don’t have budget for them in this trip.
We headed to Great Ocean Road at 11:30pm, and the plan was to drive to ‘Geelong’, ‘Lorne’, ‘Apollo Bay’, and Port Campbell. It should take us 4 hours to get to Port Campbell. ‘Great Ocean Road’ drive is more than what hopped it would be, we stopped by a lighthouse and stopped at various places to enjoy the views and take pictures. We reached Apollo Bay by 4:00pm, we checked into the hotel and took few minutes of rest before we hitting the road again towards Port Campbell. It soon started to rain, soon after we abandoned our plans to visit Port Campbell.
Melbourne Day 4
We got up early in the morning and headed for 12 Apostles. In an hour we reached 12 Apostles, and views were fantastic, even though it was a cloudy day. We took a shorter route to get back to Melbourne, and by 1:00pm we arrived. We stopped at Geelong on the way to Melbourne, where we took pictures with ‘Bollards’. We used GPS to find a restaurant we saw couple of days ago, called ‘Gopal’s Vegetarian Restaurant’, which turned out to be managed by ISCON. It’s a well maintained restaurant, and offers unique experience. We enquired and found out that they have similar restaurant in Sydney called ‘Govindas’, we plan to visit that as well.
We returned the car at city location instead of returning at the airport saving $30. We booked a cab to give us ride to airport, same airport shuttle service which dropped us from the airport; it is $20 cheaper than the regular cab. We need to be ready at the hotel by 6:30am to catch 8:30am flight to Hobart, Tasmania.
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