our favourite city

Melbourne is the food capital of Australia, 

if you ask anyone 'what do you do in this

city?' more often than not their reply will be 'drink and eat'

this suited us perfectly.

We'd be lying if we said we didn't live by those 3 words,

we went on multiple bar crawls, ate A LOT of free food

and met some of the greatest people you will ever meet.

Our plan was to stay one week in the centre of Melbourne and 

then move to St Kilda for the second week, however,

we fell deeply in love with United Backpackers, with it's

incredible staff, residents and Sean, so ended up staying

a second week there. The hostel held events each day and night,

from bar crawls, to free taco and trivia nights to group trips to the

local night market.

They even had 11am free tea and biscuits, which was such

a vital part of the day that we planned activities around it.

The staff were so friendly, they felt more like friends than

workers, always so willing to talk, they gave us free cake, $50

bar tabs and played marshmallow games with us.

After rocking up to the hostel at 4:30am 

after a bar crawl, Robyn often end up having 

long chats with Michael, the night worker, about life ambitions.

We should probably also mention Sean, 

after just days in Melbourne we soon became best friends

with this Irish travel agent. There was a connection like 

no other, the banter was flying in all directions every evening

from 4pm-8pm *insert laughing emoji*.

Basically what we are saying if you ever go to Melbourne

stay at United Backpackers or you're missing out on half the fun.

actual love of my life

drunk Calamari is the best Calamari

 Seeing as this is a Melbourne blog post we should probably 

talk about the city itself and what we got up to.

Melbourne is a sophisticated city, it's full of culture and

the most beautiful and diverse street art you'll see.

At night the town lights up, the trees are covered in fairy lights,

the musicians bring out their instruments and you'll fall

in love with the city just like last night, and tomorrow night,

every night.

Melbourne is full of side streets, they're the most important ones,

 hidden, tucked away, but the best. They're full of

little cafes and patisseries, it makes you feel like you're

somewhere in Europe, they're very beautiful.

 Finally if you come to Melbourne there are two things you can't

leave without seeing

No. 1 The Great Ocean Road

No. 2 The Pink lake.

A scenic drive along one of the world's most beautiful roads was an incredible experience which showed us some famous landmarks such as the twelve apostles as well as wild koalas sleeping for up to 20 hours in the trees. At 243km long it took a 12 hour tour just to cover half the road but it was worth it to see and walk along Australia's well known beaches. 

Secondly, we visited a 'pink lake' a naturally coloured lake due to increased temperatures in summer causing water to evaporate and the salt levels to increase thus reacting with the algae producing the pink pigment. 

 I think we can all agree that Melbourne is by far our favourite

city on this trip so far and we hope one day we can 

come back and enjoy it just as much the second time around.

lots of love,

Megan, Robyn and Erin

xx