Originally Posted by moneypenny20

Just to say a massive thanks for all the suggestions given. We had a blast, walked our legs off and slept like logs every night. We stayed at the Causeway 353 in Little Collins Street. Nice place, didn't use the restaurant so can't comment on that but the room was smallish but fine for us and very clean with a decent shower and very comfortable beds.

Thoughts:

Got a tad confused by the Myki card but only because instructions for use about the place was rubbish and from watching everyone else, never bothered swiping it when getting on and off trams. Apparently the fines are massive but never saw an inspector so never mind

Restaurants/Cafes/Coffee: Brilliant, so much choice and so busy. Felt a bit sorry for the ones that were quiet as, whilst surrounded by really busy ones but they're obviously doing something very wrong.

Attractions: Not as much as I thought there would be, would have struggled to find stuff to do (on very little money) if we'd been there longer. However I guess with a bigger purse there is way more. The Reading Room in the Library actually managed to shut us up. We weren't going to bother, like, really mum? Anyway really glad we did. FB even said she'd be in there all the time if we lived there. Possibly not, but high praise indeed. Loved all the elephants about the place, some Tiger Airways/Zoo endangered animal awareness thing. Spent much of Sunday and Monday out in the hills/mountains, fab, did Philip Island on Monday, didn't see any penguins/seals but then we didn't see any penguins out at St Kilda so not to worry.

Only real wildlife we saw was a giant fricking spider in friend's car. FB managed to get out of a (slow) moving vehicle without hurting herself whilst I got caught by the arm through the seatbelt. Hevs was trying to get out of my side totally forgetting she hadn't stopped the car until I screamed something along the lines of ****ing brake!

Managed to gatecrash a funeral which was interesting We'd gone for a wander around the NGV and heard music (fairly durge like guitar) coming from a side gallery, door open, went in, some boards up about various (we thought) stuff, loads of people sitting down listening. Decided to get my phone out to record it only for the guitarist to stop and a guy step up to the mic and start whittering on about how we all knew and loved Frank! Made a quiet but speedy exit and ended up crying laughing outside! I still don't know who Frank was but I think he must have loved bikes, judging by the fact there were some lined up against a back wall. Bizarre!

Some great architecture, shame about some of it, Fed Square buildings look crap in my ever so humble opinion.

Very easy to get around, didn't bother with trams really other than the free one and then walk a lot.

Clothes shops - bloody expensive! Went into Top Shop expecting prices to be slightly higher than Valley Girl (which is what I'd say it was equivalent to clothing wise) and everything was way more expensive. $100 bucks for a simple loose jumper! I think not. All the other shops seemed to be about the same as TS. Didn't bother with the stuff we have up here.

Vic Markets - why would anyone in and around Mellie do their food shopping anywhere else? My god, I wish we had that up here! Awesome prices and looked to be great quality. Must be worth driving in once a week/fortnight to stock up, even if you're quite a way out.

Weather was fairly average but we've had a great start to Spring up here so I guess it suffered in our eyes because of that. Might have been nice to see more sun but at least we only froze our toes off when we got off the plane. Going from 20 to 6 degrees with just a short plane ride inbetween was a bit of a shock!

Anyway, had a great time, very relaxing and chilled. Would I want to live there? Nah, but then I'm not a city girl anyway. Need a fair amount of spends if you're there longer than a weekend but that's probably true of most places so not really a negative.

All in all, loved it.

Originally Posted by moneypenny20

who knows! If you saw two females either looking exhausted, blank or giggling like morons, that was probably us!