Melb Day 7 - Back in Melb City!

So sorry for the long absence! My blogger ran out of space to host all my pictures, and I had to rehost them back to my good old trusty Photobucket, but that gave me problems as well! For some reason some of my photos just simply won't upload successfully :( I gave up, went for my holiday to Bangkok, came back and forgot all about blogging. Or rather I lost the motivation to. Sigh, why so little space blogspot! 

Anyway, on our 7th day we checked out of Morningstar and drove down to the main street for breakfast at The Boyz 4 Breakie (don't understand the twit language). I don't know why I don't have a picture of this! Hmmm... 

We shopped around for a while and bought some souvenirs which I am happy with :) Then we made our way back to the city. Didn't take very long, only about 1 very sunny hour with the sun in our direction most of the way! >.<

When we arrived in the city we went straight to visit Monk Bodhi Coffee that Chubs missed when we made our first trip there. 

Got my mocha as usual, but it wasn't great. Left me feeling lethargic even! Love hate relationship with coffees :( The place was packed but we thankfully got a seat at a very very tight corner of a table.

He had to do some work stuff around Richmond area, and Em said that she could go over after her work so he dropped me there and had some nice quality bestie time in Ikea! Heh. Then she had to leave me and I was stranded along the shops by the road which I was getting bored of when it started to drizzle! Good thing Chubs managed to find me and rescued me after he was done. Thank God for Google maps, really!

Our dinner plans for the day was visiting this really friendly and helpful guy whom he met during his last trip to Melbourne (which was just 2 months back or so). At that point, he was so friendly I thought he knew Chubs for a long time!

While we were on our way there, 

We came across our names - BeeDee Bags!!! How cool! Haha

They couldn't cook for us in the end because their son was sick so mum had to bring him to see the doctor. The men ta bao-ed pizza from somewhere nearby and I got to entertain the little kid for a while! He's really lovely :) Dad's malaysian and mum's swedish (lots of Ikea stuff around the house, I love!)

Reading a bed time story :)

And I read him one too!!! Hehe

We left after lots of talking, and then this crazy boy here said the pizza didn't make him full so we went to have thai..... At Lygon Street!! I think we went there 5 times that trip.

My tummy wasn't good again and I'm not sure why I ordered tom yam soup.....

I can't even take spiciness! Didn't finish this :(

Oh this was at Ying Thai, apparently a very famous thai place at Lygon!

And so finally back home to our warm room and saw that Burpple is #1 in iTunes!

Praise God! :)

I also surfed the web with a cat.

Haha! Goodnight! :)

Melb Day 6 - Mornington Peninsula

Morning of our 6th day! We walked around the shops near where we stayed. Pretty interesting stuff, but I didn't get anything. It was very near the coastel area so the atmosphere was nice :)

 

Settled for brunch somewhere, I forgot the name of this place!

 

My tummy doesn't wake up very early, so I can't eat a lot in the morning. 

I had a very simple meal of fruits haha. Super healthy!

The seagull was enjoying Chub's leftovers.

Walked over by the beach to enjoy the scenery.

 

Who takes better photos?! Me right?

We went to my next awaited attraction: The Koala Conservation Centre!

http://www.penguins.org.au/attractions/koala-conservation-centre/

We paid only A$11.00 for the entrance.

It was a very big forested area, and once we went in, we spotted one koala!!! 

It was right above us! Hee.

Then we walked and walked and couldn't find any koalas..... We thought we just spent $11 just to see 1.

But we came to this particular area, and suddenly we saw SO many of them!

This is the 2nd one we saw.

Awwwww :) :)

We read that koalas sleep a lot, and they only eat... some digestive food because their digestive system is not that good.....??? Okay Chubs just told me they eat low energy food. No wonder they're sleeping all the time. They need Red Bull man!

The next few photos are very similar, try spotting each koala in each picture! They're all different ones. The only similarity is that they're all sleeping. Zzz!! WAKE UP!! *shakes trees*

We saw a very special bird too! Not sure what this is, humming bird?

So so so beautiful :)

This concludes our stay at Philip's Island, and we made our way to probably one of the better places of our road trip: Mornington Peninsula! 

This place is along the coastel area down south of Melbourne. Along the beaches, there are small towns such as: Frankson, Mornington, Dromana, Rosebud West, Rye and Sorrento. From Sorrento, you can take a car ship to the other part of Port Philip Bay towards Geelong!

And here we are, at Mornington Town Centre!

We checked into our host for the night - Morningstar Estate at Mount Eliza. http://www.morningstarestate.com.au/

It's a very pretty place, that is famous for hosting weddings! I don't know why I didn't take any photos, but please Google it. It's a worthwhile stay if you get to explore the other parts of the estate. This place is the cheapest of all the 3 we stayed - A$98.00, S$121! 

And as usual at the end of every road trip, is to find food to eat!!!

We settled for The Rocks Fish & Chips, right at the end of the town area.

The fish & chips was soo good and salty! Heh. We were sheltered from the light rain, with the sea as our view. So so precious :)

 

It was freeezzzing up there!

After that we took a very scenic drive all the way down to Sorrento! By the time we reached Sorrento, the town shops were closed for the day so there wasn't much to see :( 

In the end we just explored the small towns on the way back to our estate. I saw the famous colourful houses by the beach!! So pretty! :)

Back to the town area to have dinner at this place called Grand Hotel.

Not that grand, haha. It was a casino place and we were the ONLY Asians, it was quite intimidating >.<!!

  

Why does our drive home always seem so dark? I get scared when it's too dark :( 

The bad thing about our hotel is that there was no TV!!!! Noooooo..... It got pretty boring at night but thankfully Chubs had some movies loaded into his iPad, so we watched The Vow. And I cried, as usual. haha!

Melb Day 5 - Philip's Island

In the morning, we had our quick breakfast of instant soup (which it was so good for the cold morning) and sliced apples which we bought from the supermarket the night before. We took our breakfast outside and had the company of the owner's cows who came to notice the noises coming from the cottage! So cute hehe.

The back of our cottage

The vineyard

We saw Billy the goat which the owner told us about! 

She said we could give him a little pat, which I wanted to but I was afraid he would bite.

But he didn't bite....

Right after this photo, he bumped me so hard in my knee!!! 

I screamed coz I was shocked by the sudden impact! 

So scary :(

Had our early lunch at Wombat's Chai, a place I googled and placed in my itinerary.

I only chose it because the price seems decent and it was around our area.

Turned out to be pretty good! The stuff they sell there are all organic :)

Their delicious scones!!! I think it was my first time having this and I was rather skeptical about how they would taste. The lady recommended it and when I tried it, I love the tastiness and the soft texture!!!! Nom nom :)

 

Menu / Their mini grocery area

Our breakfast: Scones/sandwich/mushroom soup/freshly squeeze orange juice

Following that, we headed for my much much much awaited, 

GERBERA FARM!

Gerberas are my favourite flowers, and when I knew there was a farm at Yarra Valley, it was a MUST DO in my itinerary. There was a guided tour to see their greenhouse with all the planted flowers, unfortunately because we were running late, we missed the hour for the tour.. It was a waste :(

Chubs bought me flowers though! Hee.

The place is called The Big Bouquet, it's not just a gerbera farm, but they have Alpacas there as well! It's my first time seeing such animals, and I think they're pretty cuteee! They look like a cross between a camel and a lamb. Heh

I got one alpaca to look in my direction!!!! :D

Very kind stranger who was also visiting helped us with a picture :)

Thanks again alpaca for looking here!! Hehehe

I love my flowers :)

I suggested taking the flowers with the blue sky background!

So pretty isn't it? :) :)

Be sure to check them out when you're at Healesville!

http://www.bigbouquet.com.au/

Next up, Chubs wanted to get some wine so we went to a winery, Chandon.

 

The sky was so beautiful! There was a couple taking wedding pictures there.

Love the picture of this. The winter trees are still barren. 

And here commences our road trip to Philip's Island!!!! 

The time taken from Yarra Valley is about 2 hours plus. It was a great drive, coz it was sunny and bright, with so much to see. I love road trips!! :) :)

Here we are, finally arriving at Philips'!!! That's the bridge to cross over.

They said it's colder there as the island is further down south.

Love these short, wide spreaded trees that line the road.. So pretty...

Arrived at Coachman Motel! The home for our stay here. The one night costs us US$100.28, which is cheaper than our cottage at Yarra. This place is nothing spectacular, as you can tell from the name.. Haha

A clearer picture of our ride for the 4-5 days, as you can see it has been very dirtied from the daedenong ranges, and the small area where it's "cleaned" is from our pants coming out from the car. Haha!

Rested for abit, realised we were so hungry, popped into a chinese place and got takeaway to eat in the car!

Then we headed for our evening show, at the penguin parade!!!!!! http://www.penguins.org.au/

We paid A$22.10 for each person for the normal tickets. There are other tickets which could give you a better view. And tickets that are cheaper if you visit their other attractions!

Waiting for the penguins to come out!

There were so many China people there.... It didn't make our experience very nice.

By night fall, we were all peeling our eyes by the sea shore just to see something small moving.

And we did!! We noticed the penguins moved in groups, and they came out only at night to escape from their predators.

Here are 2 very blur pictures of them.

We couldn't take pictures with flash (or rather no pictures at all) or it would scare the penguins, but everyone still whipped out their cameras.

They were really adorable!!! They're the miniature size ones, instead of the ones we see in the zoo.

Our dinner at Isola Italian.

The restaurants at Philip's is a little pricier. I wanted to go to Harry's on the Esplanade, but it was really expensive! In the end we settled for this italian place that was still open near our motel.

Back home to have a nice hot shower before bed :)