Brought the kids to watch Barbie the movie today.
It was the highest opening movie weekend of the year, so why not.
It had a big feminist slant, but all in all I quite liked it.
Gave good vibes and I can see why it did so well in the box office.
Next one would be Oppenheimer I guess.
Sigh.
It’s the final day!
We just have the famous W Hotel breakfast, then we chill and get ready to head to the airport.
Returned the car, and then took a final walk around the city back to the hotel.
What a beautiful trip and all went well with the in-laws.
100% will do again!
And we finally wind down into the final couple of days.
It is day 8 and we have to get back to Melbourne.
The drive is about four hours back.
We check into W Hotel Melbourne. It is so cool!
Then we head to the Crowne casino area and Docklands to walk the area.
Dinner was Thai food along the river.
It is day 7 and we will climb a mountain today!
We are going to climb The Pinnacle.
While we did this in 2019, this time around we had the in-laws with us. Also we took a different route.
The route up was very scenic and it took us about 90mins each way.
The terrain also changed the higher we trekked. It looked like a scene on some alien planet at times.
It was quite rewarding at the top and made for lots of awesome pictures. No many things beat hiking in the cold :)
After that we went to visit the McKenzie Falls and its associated lookouts. Unfortunately the base of the Falls was closed due to unstable rock, so we hiked to another lookout. Pity it wasn’t as impressive.
Dinner was at the Kookuburra restaurant and we tried kangaroo meat.
Then even in the drizzle, I insisted on starting a campfire again and had beers to celebrate a wonderful Australian trip gone by.
It’s day 6 and we have the second half of The Great Ocean Road to drive, followed by up the mountains to The Grampians National Park.
We start off heading further south to Cape Otway Lighthouse. We’d come here before so we knew our way around, but it was still fun to climb to the top of the lighthouse and marvel at the open sea with the cold winds howling in our faces.
Thereafter we had a major fuel incident.
We didn’t pump petrol the day before even though we wanted to and on our way to the Twelve Apostles, the low fuel gauge light turned on! My heart stopped for awhile as I fear we couldn’t get to a petrol station in time. In fact our first stop to a supposed petrol station didn’t have diesel which we needed! It was only after we drove in anxious silence for a while further at Port Campbell that we found a petrol station with diesel available. What a relief!
Then we headed back to the Twelve Apostles, which by then wasn’t so exciting anymore after what we went through. We also visited the Loch and Gorge and the Razorback. All very beautiful rock formations.
Then we stopped for a late lunch at a very quaint and small Australian town called Terang. It was so cute and cool and the little shop we had lunch in had such nice folk!
Finally we arrive at Halls Gap, at Grampians National Park and check into the A Frame chalets.
Now this A Frame chalet was awesome. There was a very nice backyard which is linked to an open kangaroo reserve. So kangaroos will come to our backyard to graze. And being so cold, we had a campfire area in the backyard which we could use.
So we went to the supermarket at Halls Gap to stock up, then had dinner at Halls Gap Hotel (we ate here twice in 2019), then bought some firewood and fire starters and marshmallows!
We then went back to start our own campfire and had beers! And we had a pair of kangaroos hang out behind us too!
Time is passing so fast!
It is already day 5!
So today we have to do a lot of driving, because we start on The Great Ocean Road.
This means we have to go back up to Melbourne City, then Geelong, and then start The Great Ocean Road highway.
We still found time to do the whole farm feeding morning routine once more before we bid Phillip Island goodbye.
We had a nice seafood lunch on the way.
Stopped at a lighthouse which I cannot
remember its name. Oh it was the Split Point Lighthouse! This one was funny because the boy had to pee urgently and we couldn’t find any toilets! In the end luckily we found one at the foot of the hill leading up to the lighthouse.
Then we had a brief stop at The Great Ocean Road memorial entrance. Did you know that The Great Ocean Road was built as a memorial to commemorate the sacrifice of three thousand Australian soldiers who perished during the First World War?
Finally we arrive at Apollo Bay, the one night check point towards The Grampians National Park.
We took awhile to find our AirBnB lodge but it turned out to be very nice!
Then we wanted to have dinner at this famous fish and chips restaurant that we tried back in 2019 but the in-laws weren’t really up for fried food again! Plus it was cold and drizzling. So instead we went for Asian food at a restaurant called the Asian Tuck Shop!
By night time, we decided to walk to the beach after dinner as the weather was beautiful, to gaze at the stars in the night sky. It was so lovely as the stars were shining so bright.
Now it’s day 4 liao.
We start the morning with the morning farm animals feeding session. It was so fun feeding all the livestock like sheep, horses, ponies, pigs and cows.
Then it was off to Churchill Island and their memorable conservation farm. We’ve been here before and there are some very picturesque views to be soaked in.
This was followed by the Koala Sanctuary. Again we’ve been here before but it’s still nice always trying to spot koala bears on the eucalyptus trees.
Finally we went to the Nobbies Centre Antarctic Journey. This one we’ve also been before and we got to explore the famous boardwalk where you could see the Seal Island, and Island full of seals. The views from the boardwalk were so beautiful that we took so many photos and spent so much time there that it was getting dark.
By evening we decided we’d eat the same instant noodles and chicken dinner again! Shiok!
