Top 10 things to do in Melbourne

Exciting news! After four months living in Melbourne, six weeks working in home insurance and one miraculous eye recovery, we are back on the road again!

For those of you who read my last post back in November and are interested in hearing how I’m getting on with the eye situation, you will be pleased to know that I am doing a LOT better! I’m still on drops six times a day and attending hospital appointments every couple of weeks, but for the past couple of months, my eye has been looking and feeling completely better! As I’m aware of how serious the infection is, and how it can affect a lot of sufferers for well over a year, I feel so unbelievably fortunate and grateful that I managed to recover in just three months. A lot of people can lose their vision (or even their eye completely!) from acanthamoeba keratitis; so, if not being able to wear eye make-up and being stuck as a glasses wearer for a while is the worst thing to come of this, then I count myself very lucky indeed! (Although, as my optometrist was keen to point out, not lucky enough to not get the infection in the first place…) I’m not completely out of the woods yet, but I feel hopeful to receive the all clear relatively soon and am very much looking forward to that day!

One of the best things about my eye having reached such a positive and stable condition so much quicker than anticipated is that we are finally able to get back on with what we came out here to do… travel!

In the interest of being completely honest, I want to admit now that a lot of this trip so far has been quite difficult for me. For the first couple of weeks after we flew out, my anxiety had flared up to the worst state it had been in for a long time. It got to the point where I had stopped eating and was having multiple panic attacks a day for the first time since I was a teenager. This transitioned seamlessly into the eye parasite horror story we are all so familiar with, which, in turn, transitioned into a 9-5 job working in home insurance. 

This series of circumstances was not how I had imagined travelling to unfold and had led to me feeling very home sick a lot of the time. I have had to give myself a bit of a shake, pick myself back up and remind myself not to take for granted what an amazing experience it is to be out here doing this. I don’t want to forget how unbelievably lucky I am to be here at all, embarking on such a wonderful adventure alongside my even more wonderful partner, or to wish it away for the comforts of a home that we have a whole lifetime to enjoy.

That is why I am so excited to finally get back to travelling and, hopefully, to make a better show of it the second time round! Being out here doing this is something I have dreamed of for a long time and I can’t wait to start making even more incredible memories. Memories that we can take home with us; fill scrapbooks with; tell stories about for years to come and cherish far after our tanned skin begins to fade. I want to start fully living in, appreciating and savouring every single moment of this once-in-a-lifetime adventure from this moment forward.

A week ago, Nick’s family flew out to visit us in Melbourne. We’ve been spending some time showing them around and doing some of the things on the list below, which has been really nice. And tomorrow morning, we will all be flying up to Cairns! As much as I’m so excited to get back to travelling and experiencing new places, Melbourne has been a lovely place to live for the past four months. And so, as a tribute to our first home in Australia, here is a list of my Top 10 recommendations of things to do if you ever visit Melbourne!

1. Catch a film at the Moonlight Cinema and/or Rooftop Cinema

In a hotel in Brussels, just a couple of months after Nick and I first started dating, he made a confession to me over a glass of wine. “I’ve never seen Dirty Dancing,” he admitted. “Me neither!” I replied. As two musical theatre lovers who had bonded over our shared love of the West End and spent our second date in London seeing The Book of Mormon, this was quite the revelation. Ever since then, it had been on my list of things for us to do together. Two years later and we still had never got round to watching it. So, you can imagine my excitement on Christmas Day when Nick gave me tickets, not just to see Dirty Dancing, but to watch it for the first time at an open air theatre in the middle of the Royal Botanic Gardens!

The film was amazing (how had I managed to go twenty four years without seeing it?!) and was made even better by the experience of the Moonlight Cinema. We picked up some pizzas and sweets on the way there, which we ate on our beanbag chairs in the middle of the gardens as we watched the sunset. As the film played, fireflies and more bats than I had ever seen before in my life flew over our heads. It was so beautiful. I really did have the time of my life.

Dirty Dancing at the Moonlight Cinema

A month later, we went to a rooftop cinema in the city centre to see A Simple Favour (a film I had been wanting to watch for ages because a thriller starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively sounds like something directed in heaven!) It was a really hot evening on the day we went (35 degrees even after the sun had set!) and as I sat in my deck chair, sipping my aperol spritz with the movie playing and the city lights sparkling all around us, I had one of those moments where you just can’t believe that this is your real life. It felt like we were in a movie ourselves.

Rooftop Cinema

There is a bar to buy alcohol connected to the rooftop cinema, as well as a candy bar and a food stall that sells burgers, hot dogs and the like. We had gone out for dinner before arriving, but I’d recommend waiting until you get there to eat. If you’re ordering food from the food stall, you get let into the screening area early, which means first pick of the best deck chairs!

If you’re a movie fan and find yourself in Melbourne, I would really recommend checking out one (or both!) of these two cinemas because they were both such amazing experiences. The Moonlight Cinema is only in the Royal Botanic Gardens from the end of November until the end of March (Australia’s summer season) but the Rooftop Cinema is open all year round!

2. Have tea and scones in the Royal Botanic Gardens

If you like the sound of visiting the Royal Botanic Gardens but don’t fancy seeing a film, it is open to the public for free all day every day. It is huge, absolutely beautiful and makes for a really lovely walk.

Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne

Nick and I have often taken our books there just to lie and read in the grass surrounded by all of the exotic flowers and plants. It would be a really nice place to take a picnic, but there is also an ice cream stall (I would recommend the cookies and cream!) as well as a café where we sat outside and had tea and scones one day for a little taste of home. They were made even more enjoyable by the beautiful views of the lake as tourists got punted around in boats. If that’s something that you’re interested in, you can book a ‘Punting on the Lake’ boat tour for a bit of a different way to explore the gardens!

Tea and scones in the Royal Botanic Gardens

3. Visit the penguins in St Kilda

St Kilda is one of my favourite places in the whole of Melbourne. It has a beach, lots of nice restaurants and a fairground called Luna Park. But best of all, if you walk down St Kilda Pier, you can visit the penguins who live there! Whenever Nick and I are showing anyone around Melbourne, this is always the first place we take them and there have been penguins there every time. The penguins are so little and cute and you can get close enough to them that you could stroke their little furry bellies (although I wouldn’t recommend trying to make physical contact as you might scare them). We’ve mostly been during the day and a couple of times at sunset, but apparently if you go at sunrise, you can see absolutely loads of them heading off to work. There are around 1,400 penguins living there in total.

Some penguins on St Kilda Pier

If you really love penguins, you can get a ferry to Phillip Island where you can see a penguin parade. However, it’s quite expensive and you aren’t allowed to take any photographs with the penguins or get close to them. We much prefer visiting them at St Kilda Pier for free!

4. Make your fortune at the Crown Casino

The Crown Casino is one of Melbourne’s most famous landmarks. Nick and I have been there a few times and lost our fair share of money on their roulette tables. It’s an impressive casino, so if you’re into a bit of gambling every now and then, I would definitely give it a visit (just don’t gamble away your entire holiday budget!) It’s on the Southbank, surrounded by lots of fancy restaurants, on a walkway brought to life by fairy lights and music; so it is a nice place to spend an evening. The Crown Casino also puts on a fire show outside every hour on the hour from 9:00pm until midnight Monday to Friday and 8:00pm until midnight Saturday and Sunday. It’s the kind of thing that would be worth a look at if you happen to be in the area at the time, but I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way or waiting around to see it as you’ll only be disappointed.

Crown Casino

Fun fact: when we lived in Melbourne, we lived in a building opposite the Crown Casino. It is the purple building on the Southbank skyline if you want to spot it!

5. Explore the city centre

You can’t visit any big city without exploring the city centre. In Melbourne, you can walk down Bourke Street, Collins Street or Swanston Street (to name just a few) to do some shopping, get some food and experience the general vibe of the busy city. Make sure to visit Federation Square, St Paul’s Cathedral, Flinders Street Station and Melbourne Town Hall if you want to tick some big landmarks off your inner city exploring list. The trams are all free within Melbourne’s city centre, which makes it easier to get around. There is even a tram you can get on that is especially for tourists, with a speaker that gives you information about the city as you ride through. But don’t forget, if you venture outside of the city centre, you will need to tap on with a Myki card!

Nick exploring Swanston Street

6. Take Instagram-worthy photos on #HosierLane

Whilst exploring the city centre, give Hosier Lane a visit. It is a famous graffiti street in Melbourne, providing you with the perfect background for any Instagram photos. The graffiti changes all the time, which is really interesting to see if you visit more than once. We have seen two separate marriage proposals spray painted there and gone by the time we returned.

Me and Nick on Hosier Lane

7. Hunt down the city’s secret bars

If secret bars are your thing, you’re in luck, because Melbourne is FULL of them! We’ve only been to two ourselves, but we had a really fun time tracking them down. The first one we visited was a bar called Goldilocks Bar, which is a fairy tale themed rooftop bar. To get there, you have to climb a tree-lined staircase hidden inconspicuously above a busy street of restaurants. 

Me at Goldilocks Bar

The second was a Christmas themed Americano bar that consisted of one very small room tucked away in an alleyway behind an alleyway. The whole bar wasn’t big enough for any more than ten people to stand up in, but the intimacy just added to the old fashioned and secretive feel of the place; it was all hardwood, dim lighting and mysterious concoctions. It felt like a secret club for time travellers.

Our Christmas themed drinks at Bar Americano

We tried to get into another secret bar that you have to enter through a wardrobe within a connected bar, but unfortunately it was booked out for a work Christmas party when we went.

There are loads more in the city that I haven’t been to or mentioned here. See how many you can find!

8. Get locked away in the Old Melbourne Gaol

The Old Melbourne Gaol (Jail) is definitely worth a visit. You get to go into the jail, look around the cells and learn about the history of the building, its prisoners and the Australian legal system of the time. After you’ve looked around the jail, you can go to the Police Watch House, where you’re “arrested” and shown what it would be like to be an inmate of the jail when it was in use back in the nineteenth century. You might be thinking that you don’t see the appeal of paying $28 to be treated like a prisoner for the day, but it was actually a lot of fun!

Nick after being arrested at the Old Melbourne Gaol

9. Go wine tasting in Yarra Valley

One of the best days out we’ve had in Melbourne has been when we took a road trip with Nick’s step-cousin and his girlfriend to Yarra Valley. We started our afternoon by having pizza on a vineyard, and then toured a couple of vineyards doing wine tastings. We went to Nillumbik Estate and Greenstone Vineyards, where we even saw a kangaroo! It was so much fun; we learned some things about wine that we didn’t know before and even bought a couple of bottles to take home with us for New Year’s Eve. 

Nillumbik Estate, Yarra Valley

After the vineyards, we went to a chocolate factory where we got to taste free chocolate and visit some farm animals.

If you’re in the Melbourne area and like wine, I would definitely recommend a trip to Yarra Valley.

10. Have a picnic in Albert Park

One of our favourite places in Melbourne is Albert Park. It is set around a huge lake, which we could see from the bedroom window of our flat. It makes for a really nice walk with great landscape views of the city across the water. 

The views of the city from Albert Park

There is a café by the water where you can sit and have a coffee or some lunch to reward yourself after your long walk or, as we did on Christmas Eve this year, you could even take a picnic - it’s a beautiful spot for one. 

Our Christmas Eve picnic in Albert Park

One of the things I will miss most about living in Melbourne is walking around the lake of Albert Park, talking about life and planning what we’re going to do next. But now it’s time to stop planning and start doing! The next chapter of our adventure is starting. 

Thanks for having us, Melbourne. We’ll never forget you.