Slowing Down, Kind Of: Our Time Around Melbourne
A not-so-slow week of food, nature, and continuing to fall in love with Australia
Hola, ¡estamos en la Ciudad de México! Today we’re writing about our time around Melbourne, Australia. After nearly two weeks of fast-paced travel through Southeast Asia, we landed in Melbourne at 6 a.m., fresh off a red-eye from Jakarta. Groggy but grateful, we immediately felt the shift: clean tap water, hot showers, air conditioning, and a noticeable absence of mosquitoes.
We had a simple goal for our week in Victoria (the Australian state home to Melbourne): reset. But as is often the case with us, our reset turned into a loop of wildlife encounters, countryside stops, and more than a few standout meals, plus one minor medical emergency and our first milestone in wedding planning.
Melbourne: Lemon Cruffins and Solo Missions
We spent two days in Melbourne pretending we weren’t traveling full-time. That meant sleeping in, running errands, and, for the first time in nearly two months, splitting up for the day.
Claire started her wedding dress search, prompted by recent tariff news and Australia’s reputation for having amazing bridal designers. It felt like a less intimidating place to start than New York (where appointments can cost upwards of $100 USD), and she booked a mix of appointments at single- and multi-designer boutiques. It was also a fun opportunity to see different Melbourne neighborhoods; she particularly loved Armadale.
While she tried on gowns, I had a foodie day. I started my day with a lemon curd cruffin from Lune Bakery (shoutout to Amy for the rec!) and wandered through Queen Victoria Market, where I sampled some Tasmanian oysters and picked up cider, cheese, and Tasmanian (yes, again!) honey for a low-key 2.5-year anniversary celebration later that night. It was a great preview of the food to come in Tassie, our next stop.
We wrapped up Melbourne with an evening cocktail at Caretaker’s Cottage, which somehow manages to be one of the world’s top 50 bars (#21!) and still feel like a cozy neighborhood spot.
The Great Ocean Road: Beautiful, but a Bit Too Fast
From Melbourne, we drove down to Apollo Bay for a quick overnight stop along the Great Ocean Road. The drive itself was gorgeous, painted by windswept cliffs, lush hills, and dramatic coastlines, but we spent more time in the car than outside of it. After reflecting, one night wasn’t enough.
We didn’t have time to stop at Great Otway National Park (where we hoped to spot our first Koalas) or to walk along any of the beaches. But even from the car, it was easy to see why this road has earned its reputation. We’re already planning to come back and do it properly, with more time and fewer hours staring at the GPS.
Daylesford: Rainy Days and Market Treasures
From the coast, we headed inland to Daylesford, a small town known for art galleries, farm stays, and antique shops. We stayed on a working farm with alpacas, sheep, and one extremely aggressive turkey. The rain kept us indoors for most of our stay, but honestly, that was the perfect opportunity for us to sleep in (with a record-breaking 11-hour night) and catch up on White Lotus S3.
Some highlights:
Feeding the animals oats (which we also typically eat for breakfast, so we felt connected)
Visiting a former convent that’s now an art gallery and café, where we had excellent scones
Wandering the Mill Market, a huge antique warehouse where we picked up a couple of fun finds: Claire grabbed a disco shirt for an upcoming wedding (shoutout Tanaya & Nishal), and I found a Cuban bill for my dad’s currency collection
Yarra Valley: Koalas, Birds, and a Budget-Travel Revelation
Our next stop was Healesville, where we planned to split our time between wine and wildlife. But after chatting with our Airbnb host, who told us wine tasting was “for old farts” and raved about the animal sanctuary, we decided to spend the day with the animals.
The Healesville Sanctuary is home only to native Australian species. It was super immersive, and we walked away feeling like we learned a ton. A few fun facts:
Koalas sleep for 18–20 hours a day and only eat eucalyptus trees (around 1,000 each year)
Eucalyptus is poisonous to most animals. Baby koalas don’t have the right gut bacteria to digest eucalyptus at first, so they eat a special kind of poop (called “pap”) that their mothers produce
Echidnas are one of only two living mammals that lay eggs (monotremes). Know the other? We’ll come back to it in the next newsletter.
Claire got teary-eyed finally seeing her first koala, and the bird show, featuring owls, eagles, and one show-off parrot, was well worth the hype. I, on the other hand, got teary-eyed after realizing I’d paid $17 for a sandwich.
We did make it to one winery the next day before heading to Philip Island: Balgownie Estate, where we sat down for a multi-course lunch. Claire’s gnocchi and cheesecake (from St. David’s Dairy, also recommended by Amy) were a food highlight of the trip.
By this point, eating at restaurants every day was starting to catch up to us, so we started mixing in grocery store meals for lunch and dinner. These quick, microwaveable meals from Coles (which is no Publix but still earns a shoutout) were way better than expected. It helped us stay healthy(ish), save money, and feel a little more balanced between splurges.
Phillip Island: An Eye Injury, our First Koalas, and THE Penguin Parade
We finished the loop with two nights on Phillip Island, best known for its nightly Penguin Parade. It was recommended to us by a friend we made while penguin watching in Oamaru, New Zealand, and it turned out to be one of the wildest animal experiences we’ve had.
Funny enough, at the Healesville Sanctuary the day before, we’d seen a one-eyed kangaroo, and the guide told us her injury came from a grass seed that got stuck. Then, upon waking up on Philip Island, I was greeted with sharp pain in my left eye. No matter how much I blinked or rinsed, it wouldn’t go away. We ended up at a local optometrist, where they suspected I had sand trapped under my contact lens that scratched my eye. I told them I felt like I was turning into the one-eyed kangaroo. No one laughed.
After receiving some prescription eye drops, we visited the Koala Conservation Reserve, which had more koalas than the sanctuary, including a few just a few feet from our faces thanks to the elevated walkways, which brought us tree-level. We also saw a wild echidna and a bunch of wallabies hopping through the trees.
We also squeezed in a visit to Churchill Island (an island within the island!), where we learned to milk a cow (easier than it looks) and went for a short run. Claire tweaked her knee and ended up needing PT the following week. Between that and the eye debacle, we were reminded that real life can still get in the way of travel.
That night, we headed to the main event, the Penguin Parade. We sat on the beach for the best view and right on cue, a seagull pooped on Claire. Apparently that’s good luck? Then, the largest colony of Blue penguins (the tiniest of the 18 penguin species) on earth waddled out of the ocean at dusk and into their burrows. Their official count was over 1,600 penguins that night.
But the real magic happened on the walk back to the parking lot. Penguins were everywhere and calling to their mates, waddling home together, getting rejected, and (very obviously) mating.
Claire shouted “David! David! These penguins are having sex!” more times than I can count. It was chaos in the best way. We took no photos to respect their privacy… and also because it wasn’t allowed.
Final Thoughts
What was supposed to be a chill reset week became one of the most varied and animal-packed stretches of our trip. We saw koalas, penguins, echidnas, wombats, parrots, wallabies, a one-eyed kangaroo, and at least ten penguin hookups. We also ate so well, discovered a few new favorite spots, and kicked off the wedding dress search.
We’ll be back for a longer version of the Great Ocean Road one day. Next time, we’ll give the coast more time, find more penguins, and hopefully skip the eye injuries. Tasmania is up next! (Spoiler alert: It was our favorite part of our amazing time in Australia).
:::wedding dress hunt::: (Claire out here playing 4D chess with tariffs). You dropped this 👑 Penguin orgies (DAVID! DAVID! DAVID!) that sleeping Koala, you may need that picture framed… all of this is a Nat Geo fever dream for me jajajaja
Hola! Cuida tus ojos David!