Melbourne!!! Day 3 - Great Ocean Road Tour

breakfast was a couple of croissants from "Pie Face" which we had purchased the night before.  I tried to heat them up by snuggling them close to the boiling kettle in our hotel room. fail. Still, yummy enough croissants! We were being picked up by Wild Life Tours Australia for a one day tour of the Great Ocean Road!


first stop was the famous Bells Beach






I saw my first ever "wild" Koala. In that we saw Koalas that were in trees, not in zoos!





We had lunch (included in the tour) at Apollo Bay. Hanet had the Roast Chicken, Chips and I ate her salad :-)




I had a Vegie Burger.


We had about half an hour after lunch to have a wander around. We found ourselves at this ice cream shop :-)






It was delicious icecream! Janet had honeycomb, I had Dulce de Leche Gelato. mmmmmmmmm



We ate our ice cream whilst walking out to see the view of Apollo Bay.Then it was back onto our little bus.




next stop was Maits Rest Rainforest Walk


Then on to the twelve apostles.....


......Loch Ard Gorge


........London Bridge. All amazing sights to see (and a million more of my photos can be found here!!




on the way back to the city, we stopped at the Noodle Canteen at Colac for dinner

lemongrass & chilli vegie noodles



sweet chilli chicken noodles

Melbourne!!! Day 2 - busy busy!!

We started our day with a bit of breakfast from McDonalds.

mmmmm pancakes!


Janet had a bacon & egg roll


Then we caught a tram to the Melbourne Zoo. We were a bit early, so we had to wander around aimessly for a while waiting for it to open!  The zoo was the place I really wanted to go to while we were in Melbourne. And I took about a million photos, so will share just a few here...


Meer Cat


Gorilla! - We stood and wached the gorillas for ages - they were enjoying a feed of spinach!


We also got to see the baby elephant!!

And of course, my favourite - Giraffes! Janet told me that they didn't have giraffes at this zoo, so I was very excited to see that they actually did!!





Lion


Brown Bear

After the zoo, we hopped back on the tram, and jumped off at the Queen Victoria Markets for a quick look around.

we managed to squeeze in time for some lunch

yes, we ate churros for lunch. We shared a bag of 7. for $6. delicious! Although I did get rather covered in icing sugar!


We then headed for Federation Square, because we had tickets for a very important event.



This is the whole reason we were in Melbourne!!

The Abba World exhibition was really good! They had heaps of the actual costumes, instuments and other ABBA memorabillia, as well as interactive sections where you got to sing with ABBA, dance in a video clip etc etc. We had a great time!







Of course, all that ABBA-ing makes you hungry, so we went over the road to "Lord of the Fries" for some dinner!!



how exciting! a vegetarian burger place!!! I want one in Brisbane!! please!!!

JAnet had the French-Canadian Fries, or Poutine, which was fries with cheese and gravy


I went for an original burger, which was fantastic! loved it!! the burger patty was delicious, the sauces, the pickle, everything was just as a burger should be!

And after all that healthy eating (just as well we also did A LOT of walking) it was back to our hotel for some sleep!

Out for Lunch - Grill'd (Garden City)

We had a buy one get one free voucher for Grill'd so off we went for lunch!!!!

I ordered the "Garden Goodness" with no bread roll (because I wanted to be able to eat my lunch with out feeling like I was going to explode at the end :-) ).  This was a great way to have this burger - they put the avocado in a little container on the side. mmmmm this was a fantastically delicious lunch! (unfortuately it seems I wobbled when I took the photo)

Janet had the crispy bacon burger, in the traditional fashion, and somehow managed to eat the whole gigantic thing!

 

and we shared these absolutely deliciously crunchy chips! (with some sweet chilli mayo to dip them in!!) Best. Chips. Ever.

Out for Lunch - Just Poppys - take 2!!

We were going to be in the area, so we just had to go back and try Just Poppy's again!!

They have a wide selection of different soft drinks in their fridge - Janet had the Lime, I had the Raspberry Cranberry - YUM!!

We both tried different burgers to the ones we had on our previous visit -

Janet went for this Lamb Mince Burger - "Ewe Bewdy" - Lamb mince seasoned with lemon, basil, thyme, on onion, lettuce, tomato & bbq sauce.  (minus the tomato and onion) This was a big hit - she said she could really taste the seasoning in the meat, and it was delicious!!

I tried the "Salt of the Earth" burger - pineapple, egg, cheese, mushroom, grilled onions on lettuce, tomato & beetroot with sweet chilli sauce & Mayo. (minus the egg).  This was a great burger, although a little on the drippy side, as could be expected with the pineapple, sauce and mayo.

Dinner at home - Vegie not-Burger!

This is one of my favourite dinners at the moment - super easy too - mixed salad leaves from a bag (that includes grated carrot and grated beetroot), tossed together with some chopped tomato and drizzled with a little mayonaise and topped with an oven baked Sanitarium Not-Burger and some onion. (the onion on this one went a little crispy in the oven - oops!)

BBQ Dinner - Berrinba Wetlands

We had a bbq at the Berrinba Wetlands. They were extra Wetlands, since it was raining.  Too bad they don't have the bbq's under cover! An umbrella soon took care of that though.

I continued with my "I like Mushrooms" quest. by bbq'ing a large mushroom. I put some garlic on it for flavour.

THis is my giant mushroom burger. Unfortunately, I ended up removing the mushroom. Too much mushroom for me. Way too ambitious. Small chopped up pieces of mushroom would be a better plan!!

Janet had a sausage burger.

and Shadow behaved herself tied to a post nearby!