Melbourne - Torquay

My long overdue post of the last post of my Melbourne trip... so fast... it's been 6 weeks since we came back and I'm still thinking about the 2 weeks that were spend there... :)

I find Torquay a sleepy little town; it is off the Great Ocean Road and I guess most pp may not specifically drive into Torquay. Unlike the the other towns we passed along the way, there weren't so many roadside cafes/parks or as many people. They had something like a town centre and a lot of the houses we saw there were on sale. We actually planned for a day trip to Torquay; leaving early in the morning and coming back to Melbourne @ nite, but decided on an overnite stay instead so that we dun hafta rush and also so that we can have sometime to ourselves hee :) Dar's uncle actually stopped us by Bells Beach on our way to Great Ocean Road as the surf competition was on and Dar wanted to take a look, but we had to pay to get in and as we didn't wana hold everyone up, we just kinda watched from the side. A pic of us @ Bells Beach... nice! Maybe we can go back to try surfing one day heh!

Dar booked the car to be picked up @ about 1pm so we had some time in the morning, so Dar suggested we go cycling. Gosh, I haven't cycled in like a million years & the last time I was on a bike in Uni, I was screaming and everyone was like looking @ me!!! But I fig I needed some excercise after having eaten sooo much so after getting our gear and pumping air into the bicycles we set off. Jaz told Dar the route we could take to a little creek near the house. She also told us that we should cycle on the roads instead of the pavements as some pedestrains may not like us cycling on the pavement. Imagine having to cycle on the road & having to cycle upslope/downslope... scary man!!! Dar found took some shots of me...

The helmet's v ugly hor... but no choice gota wear it!! It was actually q warm & I got kinda tired and kept complaining to Dar and he found it rather amusing coz he has never seen me cycled before and I was wobbling intially! (Dar used to cycle a lot when he was in his teens... he told me how they will always gather over the wkends n cycle from places to places till they "graduated" to motocycles).

After the "morning exercise", it was off to Torquay in our nice big car! Reached there around 2pm, and it was immediately to the surf shops. It was q disappointing intially coz firstly, there weren't much sales and those stuff that I did like didn't have my sizes; they were like 2 sizes too big for me, how disappointing :( But then we spotted this factory outlet of sorts and went in, but didn't find anything but the Rip Curl factory outlet beside it awaited us! Bought lotsa stuff fr there; me bought 2 bikinis (cheap @ $20 each!), a pair of yellow board shorts & some stuff for my kids, whilst Dar bought like 5-6 shirts, a bag and dunno what else. We also bought some slippers from Reef @ $10 each. Actually I don't really need slippers but cldn't resist a pink one to match my new pink bikini haha!! By the time we finished, we were q hungry and decided to grab a quick bite @ Mc's nearby before driving to town to seek for accomodation. Who knows, by the time we filled out stomach and drove to town, it was already dark and we couldn't find the B&Bs! We were like driving around and there were no signs (we were expecting to see brite colourful signs like hotels/motels but these B&Bs only had a small tag outside the house and being dark we cldn't see it @ all!!!) and we were getting worried about having to sleep in the car! When we finally found the B&B we were looking for, we were told that they were fully booked for the nite!! Alamak!!! Luckily we managed to find another one which was slightly a bit more expensive. Whew!!! Then it was dinner @ Growlers, can I say again that the food there was fantastic??? :P Pic of sleepy @ Growlers:The next am, we decided to go for a drive. The wind was sooo sooo strong!!! Almost got blown away by the wind!!! U can imagine how strong the wind can be just looking at this pic:

check out the trees!!! The trees were all slanted in that whole area!!!

The side trip to Torquay was definitely the hilight of the trip, not only coz we bought many many stuff, we both liked the town v much, we gota spend time just the 2 of us and most importantly coz something special happened there. :)) n although Dar doesnt read my blog just wana say:

"Thanks Dar for the arrangement to Torquay & for taking such good care of me be it in Melbourne & all other times as well. We muz go back to Torquay another time ok? Wuv yew lotsa... *muaks*"

Melbourne - Nature

Due to space constraint & the ever-increasing pace of life, Singapore seemed to have lost a lot of her greenery over the years; the farms have gone, the lands are increasingly being reclaimed. Added to that, we just do not have natural sights; we do not have the Nigeria Falls or Grand Canyon in the States & Canada, the Grand Canyon, the Great Wall of China & Forbidden City in China (though manmade but very 壮观), nor the Great Barrier Reef or 12 Apostles in Aussie. Thus I'm always awed by these structures/sights when I see them. Not only that, the vast blue sky, the green pastures & the sea that seems to go on forever... wish we had more of that here...

We almost didn't make it to the 12 Apostles; the parked closed @ 530pm & we were there around 515-520pm! Glad we didn't miss it as the view was magnificent!!! Look:














& I love this pic that Dar took... it's post-card perfect isn't it? :)


Dar was commenting on the numerous parks that can be found in Aussieland; envious was he that the citizens could just lie in the park in the summer soaking in the sun or just take a leisure walk around there. Most of the parks also had BBQ pits which were electric operated & free!!! @ some parks/beaches, they also had playgrounds for the kids, how thoughtful.

Look @ the trees!!! Almost engulfing us heh

This tree behind us have the carvings of the native animals on the trunks & it is supposed to be really really old!


That's Milo before me & the hills behind me! :)

& pics of the blue blue sea & white white clouds!!! The way the sea & the sky blends... lovely lovely!

Surfer Dudes @ Bells Beach (Torquay) & a boat (dar loves taking pics of boats) we saw @ St. Kilda's on e rite...







Took this pic w my handy SE hp... see that little fig @ the bottom corner,
dat's my Dar :)



I especially like this pic which we took whilst on the way to 12 Apostles... look @ the white washes!!!

If only we had places like that... isn't it? *wistful*

Melbourne - Vehicle Showcase?

Tis was what greeted us when we arrived in Melbourne:

Unfortunately it was NOT our ride... thnk e interior will b super comfy... *wistful*

& @ St. Kilda Beach, we saw this:

Funky or Gaudy... U decide! But I don't think the owner actually drives it on the road... do u?

Over @ Philip Island, there was some car display show or something & the whole street was lined up w cars!!! (This is only a small stretch) There were also cars which have undergone modifications;

Of coz sleepy didnt recognise any of the car (but we saw some old versions of Nissan something when it was still Nissan's old name) but the car on e rite is q kewl rites? Reminds me of Knight Rider haha.

Dar also saw some other fancy cars that he liked...

Hmm... those were the cars we DIDN'T get to sit on... how about some cars that our butts actually touched?!! Coz we had such a huge group going to the 12 Apostles, Uncle thought of renting a big van to seat everyone. We were q lucky as the van was only booked a couple of days before the long Easter Wkend (in Aussie, they get Mon off 2!!! Lucky peeps!) & the guy said it was the last one left

That's the 12-seater Van Uncle rented from Budget... & dat's us on the rite!!! Uncle was in the driver's seat & Jaz was the one taking the pic which is why both of them are not in the pic. Van looks q big rites, but the seats are actually q small 4 my big butt haha.

4 our own "getaway" to Torquay, we intially booked for a small 1.3l manual Hyundai Getz which would have costs us about AUD50+ per day. Look what we got instead:

Tis Humongous 8-seater MPV for the same price!!! How good is that!!! Dar thinks it may be coz they don't have a Getz @ the branch we went to rent, so rather then drive the car down from another branch, they gave us whatever that had not been rented out. Which was kewl coz Dar intended to buy a surfboard & had actually requested for a car with the racks on top. The car (dun ask me what model, juz know it is a Kia & Dar sez it is not out in Singapore yet) was v nice 2 drive but drank a lot of petrol but the comfort was worth it :) More on Torquay in another posting...

Melbourne - Native Animals... NOT

Despite not getting to see the native animals of Aussieland... we did manage to get a welcome from some other not so native animals :P

there were the sheep who were hopefully not going to slaughterland...

...the seagulls of Southbank...

...the cows on the pastures near 12 Apostles...

...the greedy black swans & its relatives @ Albert Park...

...the cocky Kookabaru @ Mt Dandenong...

n last but definitely not least... MILO!!! He's so smart & cute... & loves playing ball!!! Reminds me of my Nikkie!!! Miss u Milo!!!

Melbourne - Story of the Scones

This little incident took place on the 3rd Day when I was in Melbourne. As u all have probably heard, Dar's aunties/uncles were there as well and they injected much laughter during the 10 days we were there. This has gota be 1 of the funniest incident :)

On the 3rd day of our trip, as we were leaving Mt Dandenong (which wasn't really anything much plus it was a foggy day so we cldn't really see v far!!!) Dar's cousin, Jaz suggested that we eat scones on our way home as there was a place that sold really nice scones. So we told the aunties that we were goin to eat Scones, piled up in the car and drove to the quaint little shop. However, after parking the cars, the aunties didn't really wana eat the scones (i thnk they were more interested to go home to cook dinner!!! haha) but asked us to go ahead whilst they shopped around the shops. Of course we didn't wana do that!!! Jaz was then telling them that the scones were really v nice and then she asked:

Jaz: 你们知道"scones"是什么吗？
Aunty: 知道... JA GONG (corn) 啦!!!

@ this, Jaz, Dar & myself bursted out laughing!!! heh... they r v cute rites??? After Jaz explained to them that "scones" r like cake, they also started laughing & decided to try the "JA GONG" :P





sleepy showing off her yummylicious scones w berries jam & whipped cream...





whilst Dar's mum eyes his scones longingly...



Apparantly, Dar's cousin, Chin makes v delicious scones as well... pity we missed it... maybe next time... Hee...

sLeePy's Back!!!

M back from Melbourne!!! Did anyone miss me? :P Wanted to blogged online but somehow couldn't log in so gave up. Really enjoyed this holiday coz it is 1 of the longer holidays I have taken & THE longest taken w Dar :) Weather was nice & kewl though it was pretty cold @ nite/early mornings & in the 1st few days we were there. Luckily we stayed @ Dar's aunt's place and his cousin was soooo nice & lent me some warm clothings!!! We wanted to go Tasmania but coz it was the Easter holidays, the flights were pretty expensive & we were afraid that there will be no accomodation so we gave up the idea... another time perhaps! :)

It was also a pretty relaxing holiday coz we stayed in Melbourne through out the 10 days... goin to list dwn the places we went to b4 sleepy's memory fails her :P

Day 1 - Arrival in Melbourne @ 9am
- Lunch @ Fed Sq in the pm & a walk down South Bank followed by a quick visit to Crown Casino

Day 2 - Queen Victoria Market in the am
- Stroll around Docklands in the pm

Day 3 - Caribbean Market (opens only on Wed & Sun)
- Picnic @ foot of Mount Dandenong
- Up Mount Dandenong where we saw a Kookabara bird real close
- Scones & Tea @ "Miss Marples Tea room" --> YUMMYLICIOUS!!!
- Dinner w Bunnee @ Bimbos --> pizza was Yummz too!

Day 4 - Shopping @ Bridge Road & some Factory Outlet
--> we wasted soooo much time tryin to get to the places coz we were rather confused by the train lines

Day 5 - Great Ocean Road to the 12 Apostles with short stops @ Geelong, Torquay/Bells Beach & Lorne

Day 6 - Sorrento Pier where we wanted to go dophin-watching but operator was doing maintenance & other timings were not suitable
- St. Kilda Beach

Day 7 - Port Phillip but we didn't see the penquin parade hee
- Albert Park which is the venue for the yearly F1 race

Day 8 - Shopping @ DFO (Chesltan dunno how 2 spell & Bridge Road)
--> Dar's cousins were sooooo nice to bring us there... Thanks Jaz & Geraldine!

Day 9 - Cycling in the am
- Off to Torquay in the pm!!! Whoppeee!!! Best part of the trip 4 both Dar & myself
- Dinner @ Growlers... food was F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C!!! Really liked dat place *grinz*
- Stay over in Torquay where we almost had to spend the nite in the humongous MPV rented hee

Day 10 - Stroll on beaches in the am, followed by surfboard shopping!
- Back to Melbourne in the late pm
- Dinner Treat from Chin & her bf @ Vietnamese Rest... food was q tasty :)

Day 11 - Wanted to go Melbourne Zoo but it was 2 ex & since we only wanted to see the native animals we decided not to go in :(
- Back to Vic Market for Dar's sheepskin & some last min shopping (rather Dar shopped whilst poor sleepy waited in the HOT HOT car as we didn't want 2 pay 4 parking haha!)
- Spent rest of the pm packing & helping to wrap dumplings... q nice leh those I wrapped haha!

Day 12 - More packing in the am
- Home Sweet Home

As always, time seemed to pass too quickly & I kept telling Dar I didn't wana come back hee. Super relaxed holiday and we saved q a bit of $ as we stayed @ Dar's aunt's place. Writing all these down brought back the memories of the 10 days gone by... *wistful*... will post up the pics soon!