Day 1:
After checking into our hotel (Radisson on Flagstaff Gardens, Melbourne), we walked to Queen Victoria Market which is located just 2 minutes away.
Victoria Market is a fantastic place to do some souvenir shopping as well as trying out different ethnic cuisines. In addition to souvenirs, they had a variety of shops such as clothing, fruits and vegetables, artwork and handicrafts.
After having some delicious Gozelme at a Turkish shop, we decided to do some late afternoon sightseeing.
All the trams in the Melbourne CBD are free as designated by the free tram zone. Therefore it won’t cost anything as long you get on and off from the tram within the free tram zone. A lot of tourist attractions of Melbourne are within this zone.
We took a tram to Flinders Street station and then walked across the street to Federation Square, one of the most busy and happening places in Melbourne.
After walking around Federation Square we walked to nearby Alexandra Gardens and then part of Queen Victoria Gardens.
We walked for quite a while in Alexandra Gardens along the Yarra river.
After seeing Federation square we took a tram to St. Patrick’s cathedral. The building looked impressive from outside.
After doing our sightseeing for about 3 hours we went back to the hotel.
Day 2:
We started our day 2 by taking the tram to Shrine of Remembrance which is outside the free tram zone and so we got ourselves a Myki card.
The Shrine of Remembrance has a very nice gallery in its basement which illustrate in detail about the sacrifices made by Australians during the two world wars.
Next we took a tram to the Docklands. We walked by the water back to the tram station while enjoying the summer weather.
After resting in the hotel for a couple of hours in the evening we took the tram to St. Kilda Beach. Since we were planning on seeing some penguins after dark, we decided to get into Luna Park nearby to kill some time and watch some people. However, this park is mainly for children (and their parents) so we quickly got bored here and walked to St. Kilda beach which is very close to it.
It was extremely windy in St. Kilda beach which meant lot of people doing windsurfing.
We did not want to wait till too late and walked to the penguin observation area of St. Kilda Pier.
We did not have to wait till sunset to see a couple of little penguins out and about on the rocks.
Day 3:
This was our last day in Melbourne and me and Karen spent the morning doing some souvenir shopping at the nearby Queen Victoria Market by our hotel.
After lunch, me and dad took a tram to MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) to watch Australia play Pakistan in a one day match. Mom and Karen spent the afternoon doing more souvenir shopping at the Queen Victoria market.
After having an early dinner in downtown Melbourne, we took an uber to drop my parents to the airport while we stayed overnight at a hotel near the airport. We flew out early next morning to Los Angeles thereby concluding this amazing and memorable 12 day Australia – New Zealand trip.