Three Kids and a Dog: Melbourne - Dec. 31- Jan. 2 (Happy New Year from Australia!)

We got up early on Dec. 31st to board our flight as a group to Melbourne. It's nice when you're not in charge of getting everyone to the airport and dealing with luggage, etc. It was a breeze. We boarded our flight with our Group of 37 (plus two tour guides) and when we landed, we were off to hit the Gaol Watch Tower and the city jail to learn about where they kept a lot of prisoners. Apparently, the Gold Rush in Australia made some people a little greedy. Dinner was at Taxi Kitchen with the group and then we finally went back to the hotel to check in before getting ready for the 9:30pm fireworks (not many were holding out for the midnight fireworks). Our guides led those who wanted to go to a park by our hotel where you could watch the fireworks and be the first ones in the entire world to welcome in 2024! Not a bad way to start the new year!

Hailey feeding the Kangaroos

The next morning we had a new breakfast buffet at the hotel (our favorite of the trip). We stayed at the Park Hyatt in Melbourne which was probably my favorite hotel of all three -although they were all nice. We started the day by kayaking on the Yarra River. Tom had Hailey, I had Peyton (who barely paddled) and Austen and Papa were together. Austen was always aiming to be first in the competitive group. On the other hand, I should have put myself in the leisurely group because without Peyton doing much paddling, it was a lot of work! Still it was great to see all the amazing architecture and buildings in Melbourne. I was so impressed with the city. It was clean and nice and not what I was expecting at all. My Dad could have moved us there when I was in the 6th grade and it wouldn't have been a bad place to live - it's just so far from the rest of the world.

After kayaking, we went straight to the Melbourne Sky Deck where we got to walk out on "the edge" of the city and participate in some virtual reality games of Melbourne. The views from the Sky Deck and the top floor were stunning. Melbourne has so many parks that were planned into their city, it really is impressive. It was time for lunch and we went to a Michelin star restaurant for dumplings. It was very good but you had to use an iPad to order your food and our table wasn't so skilled at putting in the order so it took awhile to get our food. But, the dumplings were great! They had these robot "cat" servers that came out of the kitchen and delivered the food to your table. Papa ran into one of the cats when he was walking in (I don't think he knew what it was) and then spilled his hot tea (but he only spilled once the entire trip!).

When lunch was over, we headed to a walking tour of Melbourne. Again, impressive! They had these little alleys tucked away all over the city with shops and amazing graffiti. They had big Xmas windows like our Macy's stores with Bluey as their theme this year. Hailey loves that show but being the youngest in the group, she was embarrassed and didn't want to get her picture taken next to the windows.

It was Jan. 1 so dinner was on our own that night and it was hard to get a reservation places because a lot of them weren't open after New Year's Eve. But, I found a place about a 15-minute Uber ride away that was pretty good. So we all feasted on pizza, salads, pasta and gelato.

The next morning, we took a bus to the Ballarat Wildlife Park where we fed kangaroos and saw koalas as well as a Tasmanian Devil and some other animals. From there we went to Sovereign Hill where the kids could mine for gold and we went down into one of the old mines for a tour. We made candy and candles in the makeshift mining town which was super fun for the kids. Saw a magic show, learned how to make gold and did some shopping too. We hit dinner on the way back into the city of Melbourne and then got back to our rooms to pack up to leave the next day for our trip to Sydney.