Tutankhamun Exhibit and Melbourne Museum
Our first adventure was seeing the amazing Tutankhamun exhibit at the Melbourne Museum. After a 4h red eye flight from Perth we managed to sneak in a few hours of sleep at Adam's house before heading out. Even with the Berocca and Nodoze we were still having a bit of trouble staying awake, but the exhibit was wonderful. My favourite thing was one of the treasures pulled from Tutankhamun's tomb - a beaded bracelet with a scarab beetle closing mechanism. I was really hoping they'd have a replica in the gift shop, and they did! However it was $500 so I gave it a miss :(
After lunch we hung around the Melbourne Museum for a bit and saw their fabulous collection of taxidermed animals, rocks and minerals, and bugs. I wasn't expecting it, but to my pleasant surprise it was more of a natural history museum. We even found a bug similar to the one we'd found on our driveway!
To finish off a busy first day, we ended the night with some amateur live comedy for the Melbourne Comedy festival. We entered the "comedy club" (which was actually the 2nd floor living of the first floor bar's owner) dead tired, but Josh Makinda woke us right up with a super funny and intimate show.
Melbourne Zoo
This was the highlight of my trip. The zoo itself was fairly ordinary, but Pooja had organised for us to have a giraffe encounter, which involved getting up close to the elegant animals with a group of 6 friends. We were allowed to feed the giraffes carrots, but we weren't allowed to touch them. They're quite timid animals, and they pull their heads away if you make any sudden movements or try and touch their faces.
I managed to sneak in a quick pat while one of them was trying to pry a carrot piece from my hand with it's long grey tongue. I never thought I'd be so close to such a large and gentle animal!
The Great Ocean Road
We hired a car and spend a couple of days on the road driving to Port Campbell and the 12 Apostles. On the way we saw some awesome sights, like the lighthouse from Around the Twist, and we even had a midnight stroll in the forrest to see some glow worms, which were almost impossible to photograph. I was actually a bit scared about seeing the glow worms - trekking through a forrest in the day is scary enough, but at night surely I would never make it out alive! However it was tourist season so we were accompanied by gaggles of torch wielding forrest explorers, so I felt a little more at ease. The glow worms were very pretty, like little blue fairy lights hung randomly on rocks and ferns.
The 12 Apostles were lovely, but extremely packed with tourists, so we didn't stay too long.
On the way back we stopped to do a tree top walk which made me realise that I have a slight fear of heights! At this point in the trip a few of us had started coming down with a cold so the tree top walk was spotted with bouts of tree top sitting down. My favourite part was looking down on the fields of ferns which looked like big green fireworks.
Melbourne
Back in Melbourne we spent our last day shopping and hanging out at restaurants and cafes. The food in Melbourne was lovely! My food highlight was Dalmatino's, a Croatian restuarant. I ordered the chicken soup with polenta (soothed my cold right down) and a shot of slivovita (plum brandy, also good for my cold). My dessert highlight was the Lindt factory where I had a beautiful hot chocolate and a couple of delicious macrons.
This break was one of those holidays you need a holiday from, but I really enjoyed it. It was lovely to travel with my uni friends, with whom I'd never travelled for some reason, and we packed in a lot of sights so I feel like we definitely got the most out of our trip.
Hope everyone had a great Easter!
