The purpose of our trip to the mainland was to travel along the Great Ocean Road. I was excited to finally be visiting somewhere that has been on my bucket list for thirty years. I’ll post about our road trip in the next few days when I have sorted through several hundred photos.

I was surprised when Aussie Mate suggested we stay overnight in Melbourne. He is a Sydney boy and had never been to the city until three years ago. However, we wanted to visit some art galleries, explore the street art and try to find the hidden bar.

Melbourne has it’s own unique character with it’s trams, the Yarra River, iconic architecture.

It did us good to have a “big city fix”, to experience the hustle, the traffic, the crowds and the high rise buildings that we just don’t get in Tasmania.

I’d forgotten the idiosyncratic traffic rule of turning right from the left hand lane. It makes sense when you see it in action, so cars don’t queue across the tram tracks, but it feels strange at first.

We packed a lot into the twenty four hours, travelled on the free trams in the central zone and walked over twenty thousand steps according to my fitbit!

I wish I could have met up with blog friends who live in or around the city, but I just didn’t have the time. Apologies. The trip was squeezed in between work commitments. Hopefully we can meet in person, next time we head over Bass Strait or whenever you visit Tassie.