After spending 3 months on the road, without seeing any familiar faces it was so nice to be greeted and welcomed to Melbourne by Michaels sister, Alison and her boyfriend Dallys. We are so grateful by how they made us feel right at home in their humble abode and it was such a treat to have a comfy, warm bed to sleep in and a shower every night.

Our first day in Melbourne we spent visiting the Carlton Brewhouse in Abbotsdale.Having a buy one get one free voucher from the tourist booklet we both did the tour with a saving of $29. The Brewhouse was located only 5km from the CBD, which was once out in the sticks, operating now for over 100 years and brewing 150,000 litres of beer a day. On the tour, we were shown through the brewing process from the hops harvest, to fermentation and ending at the bottling/ packaging process. Finishing up by tasting 7 different beers of choice, fresh from the Brewhouse.

Conveniently we could stay with Ali and Dallys and being located close to the CBD many places were easily close by and accessible. A short train ride into the city we spent a day spent in the heart of Melbourne visiting the Queen Victoria Markets, Federation Square, Southbank and the main Malls.

The next day we did a day trip to Ballarat, 115km from the CBD

Autumn in

Ballarat

The CBD is very easy to get around with the use of public transport bus, train and tram facilities. We learnt this the hard way when we drove from one side of Melbourne to the other. Unintentionally driving on toll roads, getting stuck in traffic jams on weekends and paying excessive amounts in fees and parking we both decided we like the country towns better (that’s including Perth).

After 2 hours of driving around lost, we arrived in St Kilda. The sun had come out for the first time in a week, as we strolled the streets of St Kilda where we saw our first Victorian beach.

Our Parking ticket was up and not willing to pay another $5 an hour we drove up the road to the popular tourist spot Brighton Beach huts, of course another area of ticket parking but was worth every cent seeing the colourful beach boxes in real life rather than on a tourist brochure.

Since being over this side of Melbourne we had arranged to meet up with friends from Perth who had moved to Melbourne at the start of this year. A chilled night spent catching up, good yarns and few bevs. I had volunteered to be designated driver since Michael has done most of, pretty much all the driving since leaving Perth.

On Sunday morning we went out for a yummy breakfast in Kensington before getting on the train to Southern Cross to get to Etihad for the Eagles vs Bombers Sunday clash. Bombers defeated Eagles by 61 points, however was still an enjoyable day with great company.

Follow us next week as we venture from the Melbourne CBD to The Great Ocean Road.