Puffing Billy, and if you have small children... Diamond valley railway
this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Melbourne
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Thanks... I'd never heard of either of them :) Will keep them in mind for sure.
Instead of Werribee, you could go to healsville sanctuary. It's the Melbourne zoo for native animals.
Bit more of a serious answer:
It depends on when you are in Melbourne. Winter is miserable weather-wise by Perth standards. You can literally go a week without seeing the sun. Melbourne has adapted to this by gearing its infrastructure towards the indoors.
- Wander the alleys:
From Southbank, wander over the Yarra, check out Flinders St Station in passing, then cross to Degraves St. Have a coffee somewhere or find a nice treat to eat. Make your way up Centre Place, The Baguettes in here are amazing if it's lunch time. Keep going through to the arcades, you'll eventually get to Bourke St. - Trams in the city are free:
Hop on a tram up Bourke St to Spring Street. Up here, you can check out Princess Theatre, The top of Chinatown, Parliment House (Once you know that building, you'll recognise those steps in any new story about Melbourne). Go check out Treasury Gardens next door. There's a memorial to JFK there that even the average Melbourne local doesn't seem to know about. If you are not walked out, you can keep walking through Fitzroy Gardens, and jsut past that is the MCG. - MCG:
Even if you don't go inside the MCG, it's worth walking around and looking at all the sporting legend statues around the stadium. If you are free for a weekend though, I recommend checking out an AFL game in there. They do tours through the week also. - Street Art:
If Street Art is your thing, you've probably seen a lot by now in your wanderings. The center of it in Melbourne is Hosier Lane - on your way from the MCG back toward Flinders St/Southbank.
All that should keep you busy for half a day. Other things worth considering:
- Botanical Gardens.
- Melbourne Museum.
- State Library (Ned Kelly's armour is usually here).
- Queen Vic markets on market days. Some nice food in here.
- Not Docklands. No idea why the visitors centre keeps sending tourists to Docklands, honestly there is nothing that interesting there.
- Check out what's on. See whether there's a show you want to see. Maybe there's something cool at IMAX? There's usually something going on.
Cheers Nath. Yeah I'd like to check out an AFL game, but the walking through the CBD with highlights sounds good too. Definitely something improved with personal, local knowledge 🙂
The JFK memorial at Treasury Gardens has now been joined by a memorial to emergency services personnel.
The Birrarung Marr area along the Yarra next to Federation Square is a nice spot too. If you like gardens the Botanic Gardens and the Shrine are also worth a visit.
The only interesting thing in Docklands is ice-skating. Fun for an afternoon for the kids (if any).
Close to the city is the Melbourne cemetery up near the Uni. There's an Elvis monument, a Chinese section and it's close to the zoo and Royal Park. Lots of foxes in the cemetery and great birdlife. Including gang gangs in the winter. And maybe little parrots as well.
Royal Park is great for kids to run free and maybe picnic if the weather is kind. They've done a lot recently to re-vitalise the indigenous vegetation of the area, and it's well signposted. And huge. You can walk through Royal Park from the zoo to the cemetery but it's a fairish hike for very small kids. There is a tram from the back entrance of the zoo directly into the city. In the reverse direction, that tram goes out to Footscrazy, which has a fascinating main street with a lot of interesting shops and things. I'm not sure if they've finished building the new market yet.
I had some of the best fried chicken of my life up Degraves street, been too long so i couldn'tsay the name of the place. Definitely a good area to check out though.
I really enjoyed Scienceworks and the Melbourne Aquarium as a kid. Not sure I'd go far as to call them must-see, but worth checking out if your crew is keen on them!
Penguin Parade at Phillip Island might be a bit far (you'll need a car) but I think it's worth visiting. The Little Penguin subspecies is only found around southern Australia, Tassie and maybe New Zealand ☺
Here's an article on it.
Google tells me its close to 2 hours from Southbank to Phillip Island. Might be a bit further afield than we want to go, but if we head that direction for any other reason we'll see.
The penguin parade at Phillip Island is not significantly better than Perth's equivilant at Penguin Island. I wouldn't bother.
If you have a car and can do a daytrip, I would strongly suggest the other direction: Head through Geeling to Torquay and then drive the Great Ocean Road to the 12 Apostles. A lovely drive, and good odds of seeing wild koalas.
Melb museum is worth a look, and there are things for all ages
You can go to Docklands and see the Melbourne Star!! You can't ride in it, but you can see it!