Let May Maddness begin

“What are you doing this weekend?”—Me
“Going to Melbourne…..want to come?”—Jamie
“Sure!”-Me
“Okay!”—Jamie
“But really…..I can come?”--Becca

So it was a Wednesday afternoon and Friday at 6:45 am I was leaving for Melbourne! I initially was going to skip on a Melbourne trip because, well, I live in Sydney. I didn’t feel the need to go visit another city, but everyone who had gone said it was really cool. And they were right!

Friday we just walked around the city, and although it was just like every other city, it had a very modern and contemporary feel to it. There was art literally EVERYWHERE. From the buildings, to the street performers, to the walls and signs, to the people, to the sounds…you couldn’t look anywhere without taking in some artistic form. You could go to Melbourne and not pay for any tours or do anything except walk around and explore all the streets and alley ways and it would still be an amazing trip. I had some friends who went to Melbourne the weekend before and had graffiti street artist graffiti a Wisconsin “W” in the main graffiti lane, so my goal was to find that! Within this lane there is literally not a single space of wall that doesn’t have graffiti on it, but their “W” was somehow still there! Wisconsin has officially made its mark in Australia! We also got to see a few graffiti artists at work which was really awesome. It’s absolutely unreal what people can do with spray paint and brick walls when I can’t even draw anything remotely cool with a pen and paper.

  

We closed the night off with going up into the Eureka Skydeck, which is the highest public viewing point in the entire southern hemisphere! You go up to the 88^th floor in 38 seconds (also the fastest lifts in the southern hemisphere), and the views were absolutely amazing.

Saturday was road trip day. The Great Ocean Road. 8 girls. One van. 560 kilometers (348 miles). 13 ½ hours. Normally the trip would probably be done in two or more days, but we only had one so we did the entire drive and then back to Melbourne again in one day. Needless to say, there was plenty of Taylor swift, b-spears, backstreet boys, Nsync, and old school tunes played. The drive itself was absolutely awesome and so beautiful. It was hours of a coastal drive with beautiful beaches and extremely blue water. We took a few pit stops at a few of the beaches and lookouts and finished the drive up at the Twelve Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge. The Twelve Apostles are some limestone stacks off the coast….I’m not really sure entirely why they are famous, but it’s a huge tourist spot. We got there right around sunset and it was beautiful! At Loch Ard Gorge, we went to one of the world’s top “hidden beaches” as well as a the Thunder Cave!

After returning home at 1am, I woke up at 4am to head to the airport. I got back to Sydney just in time to participate in Mifflin Sydney style with my fellow badgers!

Up this Thursday-Monday: THE OUTBACK!