Brighton Bath Box & Healesville Sanctuary

 Brighton Beach**** in Melbourne

Cute bath boxes which is sold at a high price! Owning one of these huts means you have at least AUD$50,000 extra! Using it for changing beach wear and etc!

  
Healesville Sanctuary**** entrance fee $25, with YHA discount of 10%. The main featured animals are kangaroos, koala, platypus, lyrebird, tasmanian devil and wombat. It showcase the native animals of Australia.

 Birds of Prey show.

Black-breasted Buzzard shows us how it breaks the egg  using a stone. Other than that, the cockatoo, wedge-tailed eagle & barking owl made appearance as well.

When the time of wedge-tailed eagle show out, there is another wild eagle flying up at the far top of the showground and try to chase away the park's eagle to mark its territory. That reminds us of the seagull, even though they are small but they are also the bird of prey and always try to scream at another seagull, especially if someone is feeding them! This happens everywhere in Australia seaside.

Lyre Bird, is the bird of Mimic and owns an extraordinary ability! It sings beautifully and mimics the voice of other birds like the Laughing Kookaburra. They can even mimic the dingos, koalas and humans!! It also fans out its tail (like the pic above) to court the female.

Zebra Finch

Cockatiel, the smallest of the cockatoos

Tawny Frogmouth, it's not an owl! It looked so grumpy =.=

Black -Winged Stilt, very long legs, looks like a pretty girl. Fact: They live on inland lakes and swamps but they can barely swim!

We have almost seen most of the animals in this sanctuary throughout our trip from Western Aus to Melbourne. But for Francis dad or any other tourists coming to visit for the first time, we think this sanctuary is the perfect place to go, to know more of the Australian animals!

For $10 extra for the ‘Magic Moment’ ticket, people can get upclose with featured animals such as the tasmanian devil, koala, and wombat. We think it is quite worth it to pay the $10, to have a special guide telling you about the animals, and maybe a chance to touch them?

Our last dinner with John, at his house. It was a good Australian meal, roast chicken, meat pie and chips&salad! A simple meal, but it brings lots of pleasure and satisfaction. It also lets P’s dad found out that his favourite food is Meat Pie! The Four n Twenty brand is the best!

We spent quite some time in Melbourne city alone before and after going Tasmania. Overall we think Melb is quite a relaxing place to live cause it is multi racial (means lots of good food =P), with convenient public transport and beautiful old buildings. And it is not as crowded as Sydney.

 

Sovereign Hill, Ballarat ~ Where people found GOLD

TIME to WORK!! Dig all the gold you can find! At Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, we can experience the life of the gold diggers in the 1850s. Sovereign Hill is an outdoor museum. It will take about one and half hour drive from Melb to Ballarat. Entrance fee is quite expensive, $45 per pax. But it is a really different experience with lots to see.

P's father looks like a Chinaman who come here to dig gold in those times. But he seriously got some gold pieces from his very first time. And we can put them in a little container as our souvenir.

Candle shop

 Gold Pour show, this block of gold is worth AUD140,000!
He will hold a 'shotgun' when he gave the gold block to a little kid to feel the weight of AUD 140k. So that no one dares to runaway!

Entertainer and Magician

Gangster and Artist

There always some actors inside the shop or along the streets, so it really feels like back to the old time.

Oh, the Chinese shop close so early! We need to buy some ‘lap cheong’!

Melbourne City with Peter's Dad

Second day in Melbourne, walking tour around the city by our local guide, John. That is St Paul’s Cathedral which is located just opposite the Flinders Station. Look at the design of this church, the feeling is so peaceful even though it is just in the middle of city center.

Cute CombiVan coffee vendor =)

John going to take us to a famous patisserie, on the way we past by Royal Arcade.

Very interesting cakes~ Oh my. . 

Irresistable but not it's not this shop we are going to.

But this one, tea time @ Laurent, French patisserie

Suburb of St Kilda

Savoury dinner @ Jim’s Greek Tavern (Add: 32 John St, Collingwood). Our second time here. Great recommendation from our friend, David. Their food is really delicious and all cooked with real fresh ingredient. This shop is one of the oldest greek restaurant in Melb. We start off with the dip platter, then Saganaki [baked cheese, MUST TRY!], grilled octopus, saganaki prawn, vine leaf rice, lamb gyro then finishing with a greek salad! Oh so FULL~ ~ And it didn’t cost more than $25 per person! Real good deal.