The Family Trip - Down Under

I went on a 8D/6N self-drive trip to Melbourne with Laetitia and Mr Hubby, while Leonitus who is too young to travel with us, stayed with home with our helper and my mom.

We flew at night and reached Melbourne's airport on the morning of the second day. After checking into Swanston Grand Mercure, we collapsed and slept for 3 hours straight before going out for a bite and a walk around the city.

We drove to Philip Island on the third day and visited the Koala Conservation Centre. We spotted some koalas but they were all sleeping; they sleep like 20 hours a day. What lazy bones!

There was a koala on the tree behind us. Try spotting it.

Then we went to The Nobbies, which offer a spectacular sea view from the boardwalk. But unfortunately, all the seals seem MIA, we didn't manage to catch any sight of them.

It was so windy and cold, Laetitia kept shouting, "Wind, stop blowing! STOP!"

Later that evening, we went to the Penguin Parade, where we watched cute lots of cute little penguins emerged from the water and made their way back to their homes. But we weren't allow to take pictures for the fear of scaring the timid creatures.

We then spent the night at The Waves Apartment which I absolutely love because it was one of the most spacious accommodation throughout our stay. Next day, we visited this mini science centre place called Amaze N' Thing and Churchill Island Heritage Farm, which I feel was way over-rated.

The only thing I found attractive on Churchill Island was the sea of lavenders.

We bid Philip Island goodbye and drove to Mornington Peninsula and stayed a night at a motel.

The morning of our fourth day in Australia, we had our breakfast at The Rocks, a restaurant facing a beautiful pier.

I love my bacon and eggs on toast. It was unbelievably yummy!

After our lovely breakfast, we drove to Moonlit Sanctuary where we saw many Australian animals and we also got to feed and pat the wallabies.

After leaving the wild life conservation park, we drove to Ashcombe Maze and Lavender Garden which is like a botanic garden with some very large hedge mazes for us to get ourselves lost.

After our lunch at the garden, we made a stop at Cape Shanck Lighthouse before catching the Sorrento-Queenscliff ferry to make our way to Geelong. Oh, btw, we spotted some dolphins which swarm close to our ferry.

After 45-min of ferry and another hour drive, we reached our hotel at Geelong. We headed out to Geelong Waterfront and had the most sumptuous dinner at LeParisien Restaurant. I think it was the most expensive meal throughout this trip, costing around AUD$250!

On our fifth day, we drove along the Great Ocean Road. The view was truly breath-taking. We drove from Torquay to somewhere close to Lorne and we decided to do a U-turn because we had to proceed to our next destination - Ballarat, our farm-stay.

The farm-stay was an enjoyable experience for all of us. We got to have a taste of living in the suburban and being a 'farmer' for a day. And our host, Peter and Glenn were the most wonderful people, they made us felt really at home.

After spending a night at the farmstead, we had to leave and drive ourselves to the city again. We stay at a hotel near Yarra River for our last night in Melbourne and we visited the Melbourne Zoo before catching our flight back to Singapore in the late afternoon.

Overall, the trip was tiring because we practically were on the move, staying at different hotel in different city every night but seeing the smiles on Laetitia's face was just too priceless. I hope to bring Leonitus along in the next couple of years and then we would be travelling together as ONE family.