Welcome to Part 2 of my travels in Melbourne! I stayed in Melbourne from Saturday to Tuesday during the Queen’s holiday, so if you didn’t see my previous post detailing Saturday and Sunday’s activities, please check it out.

Monday morning we all did different things. Some of the CAPA students went on the Great Ocean Road Tour, which was an all-day road trip that took them to various sites, including the Twelve Apostles, a set of enormous limestone rocks scattered across a shore.

However, I went with another group of students to tour a few different spots in the actual city. First, we checked out the Melbourne Museum, which featured everything from an outdoor plant life section to a section on dinosaurs and Australian animals. When I was in Sydney, I was able to visit the Australian Museum which hails as the oldest museum in Australia, but I honestly thought the Melbourne Museum was even more interesting.

Afterwards, we went to the Old Melbourne Gaol (pronounced “jail”), which was a jail that had prisoners until the 1990s, including Australia’s most famous criminal, Ned Kelly. The first part of the tour was really interesting because we were sent into a real holding unit as acted as prisoners – they even gave us story cards that told us what crimes we were sent in for. After this, we were left to tour the rest of the jail units; it felt eery inside, but it is crazy to realize that real prisoners once walked through those very hallways.

Tuesday morning was a little bittersweet; I was alone because the other CAPA students had an early flight, but I was able to go on a walking tour across Melbourne. The tour started at the Old Treasure Building, and took us to Federation Square, the Yarra River, the Eureka tower, the Old Shot Tower, Flinders Street Station, Southbank, the State Library of Victoria, and the Immigration Museum. It also took us through various famous alleys to see street art and to a local coffee shop for a flat white (Melbourne is famous internationally for its coffee). The picture in this post is from ACDC street, a famous alley filled with gorgeous graffiti art. After my tour, I went straight to the airport and headed back to Sydney. It was an amazing weekend, and I’m so glad to have gotten the chance to visit Melbourne.

Cheers,
Jocelyn