Flight Centre’s Leesa Boyd joins us for part one of her travel blog series from Melbourne, Australia. Leesa arrives in the cultural capital of Australia and tours the shops and cafes of Acland Street, has some vacation fun in St. Kilda and around Luna Park, travels to Warrook Cattle Farm to feed the wombats and kangaroos, and then heads to Phillip Island to visit the fairy penguins and koalas. Over to Leesa -

While Melbourne is not the most popular city in Australia for tourists, it certainly has a lot to offer! Melbourne is known as the cultural capital of Australia and is popular with Australians for its great shopping.

I had the pleasure of visiting Melbourne in late May 2009. My visit was short, only 8 days, but I managed to pack in a lot of activities. Although the main purpose of my trip was to visit friends, I got to see the highlights of both Melbourne and Victoria State.

I departed Halifax on 24 May on United Airlines, with connections at Washington, Los Angeles, and Sydney. I had a long layover at LAX – 7 hours – so I decided to fork over $50USD for entry into United’s Red Carpet Club lounge. The money was well worth it! It gave me a place to relax with free WiFi and coffee, juice plus snacks. They also had a nice clean bathroom (which is a bonus as airport bathrooms are notoriously disgusting). The United flights were uneventful — luckily on the long flight from LAX to Sydney there was no one next to me so I could stretch out and catch some zzz’s so that I would be ready to go once we arrived in Oz. The one downside to United is that on their flights between the US and Australia they do not offer the individual seat back televisions — however, they did play movies continuously throughout the flight -and the food was great!

Upon arrival in Melbourne I was met by my friend Amanda, and we headed to her flat in St. Kilda. St. Kilda is a suburb of Melbourne and is an “up and coming area”, meaning that “it’s a little sketchy”. It’s known for drugs and prostitution, but the government is trying to turn it around by building many high end condos and flats. The main drag, Acland Street, is filled with shops and cafes and is a great place to spend an afternoon people watching.

My first full day was spent milling around St. Kilda, checking out the local sights, including St. Kilda beach, Melbourne, Australia‘s most famous piece of coastline. St. Kilda is also home to Luna Park, a historic amusement park that has been in operation since 1912. It is easily recognizable by its “Mr. Moon” face entrance.

The next day my friend and I booked a tour to Phillip Island to visit its famous inhabitants – the Fairy Penguins. We traveled with Australia Pacific Touring and were happy with the service and tour overall. We were picked up at the Novotel Hotel in St. Kilda and transported to central Melbourne to meet up with the rest of the tour group. The trip to Phillip Island takes about 1.5 hours from the city. We stopped at Warrook Cattle Farm on the way down and had the opportunity to see some local wildlife up close, including wombats and kangaroos, which we were able to feed and pet. This was one of the most thrilling experiences I have ever had! We also stopped at the Koala Conservatory on Phillip Island and were able to see koalas in the wild.

We arrived at Phillip Island just before dusk. It was extremely chilly and windy as it was May (fall in Australia) and we were on the water. However, it was worth the discomfort to see the tiny penguins come out of the ocean and waddle up the hills into their little burrows — this is known as the “Penguin Parade”. Unfortunately cameras are not allowed (as flashes will scare the little guys away)!

St. Kilda suburb of Melbourne, Australia is highlighted on the Flight Centre travel map.

Looking for more information on Melbourne, Australia? Contact Leesa Boyd, a Team Leader with Flight Centre based at Eglinton and Yonge in Toronto, Ontario who can be reached at 1 866 816 2337.

Categories: Destinations

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Destinations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.