Melbourne Day 2

Another day, a new city, and an eagerness to explore it.

Photo courtesy of my friend, MM.

With an early morning because we planned to head on out to Mt Dandenong for a nature-day, we arose at quite an early hour (we only barely dragged all 8 of us out of bed).

As we made our way via the free tram to Southern Cross Station, we wandered into Woolies and bought some lunch. Lunch being bread. A big downgrade from yesterday, but hey, I'm not complaining (the bread was good!).

With a bit of confusion and uncertainty as to how trains work, whether our Mykis had enough fare loaded onto them, where the platform was, etc., etc., we managed to ask for help and get directions on how to get to Mt Dandenong.

A close call, because there were moments when we were going to catch a train to Dandenong, which (with much reinforcement from JH), we were made aware was an entirely different place to Mt Dandenong. (WHY?)

Meanwhile, MM explored around the city of Melbourne, and took a really nice cafe photo.

Courtesy of MM

After a (very) long train ride, we made our way to the appropriate station stop, and attempted to locate a bus stop to ride up the mountain.

Much further confusion ensued, and we ended up throwing our hands in the air and screaming "Oh whatever, let's just catch the bus to the top of the mountain and figure it out from there." What possibly could go wrong?

We initially planned to go bike-riding at Mount Dandenong, but it took us a long time to locate where the bike hire was. (It was at the bottom of the mountain; we only realised this once we had gotten to the top and spent a good half-hour staring at the maps and trying to achieve a decent-enough signal to search it up on our mobile data.)

Instead, we just wandered around and followed the good advice of the bus driver (who was ever so nice) and found a small trail in the forest that we followed.

GoPro photo

The views were spectacular, and there were so many butterflies (!). After about 45 minutes of walking through itchy grass and navigating around a fence with an aggressive dog (terrifying), in addition to our constant "??? Where are we going, guys? Is that a trail?" and "What's TRIG TK?", we made our way out onto a road.

Conveniently, there was a bus stop right there, and so we half-guessed and followed our intuition, and managed to ride the bus back down to the base of the Mountain.

With much guidance and asking-the-locals, we were instructed on how to reach the '1000 Steps Trail; Kokoda Track Memorial Walk', and with a great deal of perseverance, we eventually found it (with, of course, a stop at a cafe and also a children's park).

Climbing up the 1000 steps was, not going to lie, a challenge. Initially JH, DL, and myself powered up the first 500 steps... Or so we thought.

We counted each 'step', and reached 500. This was our initial plan; to reach 500 and then go back, because we weren't certain we'd have enough time to reach the top and back (it said 1.5 hours), though in hindsight I think the fear was that we wouldn't have enough energy to reach the top and back.

So, we managed the 500, and turned around, later bumping into the other group.

With a little bit of discussion and positive-feedback-encouragement, half of us decided to take the challenge and head to the top.

As we were going up (RA, JH, DZ, DL, and myself), we passed a man who overheard RA groaning "How much longer...". He kindly informed us that we only had 100 steps to go, although we were only at the step count of 730.

Assumingly, we weren't counting right; apparently the steps started before the actual stairs started, and we weren't exactly counting each 'step', and rather, were numerating each 'stair'. Does that make sense?

Either way, long story short, we had a pleasant surprise, and powered our way to the top.

"Do you taste that guys? That's the taste of victory."

It was a really great feeling of accomplishment. Though, in hindsight, the 1000 steps wasn't actually too difficult. I'm really glad we powered our way up, though I was starting to fear that I'd regret it the day after when my leg muscles would feel the pain.

Whilst returning, we passed a desolate trackline that seemed quite unused. After noticing a small paved pathway across the tracks, meant for people to cross, a couple of us went over to take some pictures. Probably the safest opportunity to take a rail-track photo that I'll ever come across.

Anyway, enough about that. Upon returning, we went back to the hotel and rested up (and showered off all the gross sweat). Dinner time was here, and we met up with JH and another friend (who I'd been anticipating to meet for a long time), MC.

The Rice Workshop in Chinatown was our planned meeting space for dinner, and the food was quite a nice meal.

Chicken teriyaki with soft-boiled egg. The egg was so good.

We all dug into our meals, after a day of hard cardio and energy-burning, but walked out of the store super-full.

None-the-less, we were highly recommended to check out Dessert Story, so we took a bee-line there for a few meals of snow ice (yummm).

With the night ringing early at 9PM, we decided to take a nice stroll around the Yarra, and sort of see it at night. We passed by a cute 'love-lock' bridge, taking inspiration from the original one in Paris.

Awkward moments ensued.

And, before finally calling it a night, we took a quick stop at the local mini-market, filled with mysterious foreign consumables like 'Kickapoo Joy Juice' and 'Mogu Mogu' (three for $5!!), and the classic Green Tea Kit-Kat (yum).

Finally, we were satisfied, and headed home to call it a night.

Man, these days get absolutely exhausting.