Melbourne & The Great Ocean Road: Travelling Australia solo & on a budget

Melbourne is the city everybody wants to move to. Young Irish people are moving there in droves, and my Instagram feed is overrun with pictures of people enjoying the amazing lifestyle it has to offer. Melbourne is also known as the starting or end point for the famous 240km Great Ocean Road, one of the most scenic road trips in the world.

Overall, I’d say visiting the Great Barrier Reef was the highlight of my 4 weeks in Australia and the best ‘activity’ I did, but Melbourne was the coolest city for sure. Getting to spend time with my old friend (who moved from Ireland to Melbourne) after 2 years of seeing each other and getting all his local tips made this city stand out for me – but honestly Melbourne just has great energy!

One pro tip: Pack layers! Melbourne winter is still a lot milder than Northern Europe, but make sure to pack some layers. Australia is massive, and the difference in climate is pretty extreme, even though it’s all one country.

With so much to do, it can be hard to narrow it down. Here’s what I recommend:

Where to stay

I didn’t research this at all, luckily I have friends in Melbourne who kindly hosted me! Melbourne is the start of the East Coast backpacking route, so there are plenty of hostels, and also has such a jam-pakced event calendar, there is plenty of accommodation for different tastes and budgets. As always, book far in advance and shop around to get the best deals.

I stayed in the very trendy South Yarra, and Southbank, Fitzroy, and St Kilda seem to be the other in-demand neighborhoods. 

Getting around Melbourne & transport

Honestly, I found Australia a really easy country to get around. Melbourne was no exception. Public transport is easy to navigate and very reliable.

Getting a myki card (public transport card) is easy and saves you some money. Buy one at the train station or convenience store when you arrive, and you can start tapping on and off straight away. There’s also a free tram zone in the city center where you can travel unlimited for free.

Eat & Drink

If you already saw my articles on Sydney, Airlie Beach, and Brisbane & Queensland, you’ll know I’m very cheap and mainly cooked at the hostel to save money. Melbourne was the end of my Australia trip so I loosened my purse strings a little and tried out my friend’s recommendations. Here are a few of the places we recommend:

Lune Croissanterie

Shop 16/161 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia

This pastry shop, with two locations in Melbourne (CBD & Fitzroy), describes croissants as ‘a precise balance of science and craft’. It’s a very trendy spot and highly Instagrammable. I will admit, the pastries were DELICIOUS! The downside is the line is very long (although the Fitzroy location is usually quieter) and the price is a bit high.

The menu changes and is different at each location, so check their website for the latest info. If you’re on a tightline and determined to get your croissant fix, you can also pre-order online.

Hochi Mama

35 Little Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia

This was the food highlight of the trip! It’s a Vietnamese fusion place. You can order as a group and get several things to share, so we got a mix of vegetarian and meat options. We all LOVED the vegan duck, and thought it was actually better than regular-duck we’ve had in other places.

Seven Seeds

114 Berkeley St, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia

This trendy brunch spot is a perfect stop on your way to the Queen Victoria Market. I had the Banoffee French Toast, which was $23 (around 14 euros). 

Gacha Cafe

Lower ground, Shop 14/300 Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia

Sadly I only found out about this one once I’d already left Melbourne 🙁 That’s why you always need to do your research in advance, I guess! t’s an adorable Japanese dessert cafe with cherry blossom flavored mochi (so sad I missed it) and a lot of matcha.

Source: Gacha Cafe’s Instagram

Free sights to see in Melbourne

Melbourne was the last city I visited on my Australia trip, and I felt I’d already seen a lot of what Australian cities have to offer. I was more laidback in Melbourne, I was mainly there to hang with friends and just walk around. We did still see a few sights:

Shrine of Remembrance: We wandered into this very random building by accident. It’s apparently based on the Pantheon, and is a memorial to Australians who served in wars. I have to admit I’m not so interested in military history, so the exhibits didn’t capture my attention too much. However, there were nice views of the city from the top of the building, and this was all completely free.

Victoria State Library: The state library is completely free to visit and bound to appeal to your dark academic vibes. They have many different events happening, and a lot of resources for tracing your family history, if that’s something you’re into.

Street Art: Melbourne is the hotspot for street art in Australia. There are guided walking tours, and What’s On Melbourne also offers a self-guided walk to pass by all the most well-known works. We casually wandered around Hosier Lane and a few side streets to get a taste of it.

Rent a boat in Central Melbourne

If you want to see Melbourne city center from the water, On a Boat lets you ‘charter’ your own small, lurid, orange boat for 1 hour – and you can drive it yourself! It’s very easy, you won’t need a license or any training.

You can bring your own food and drinks, and the cost is 99$ per hour. This one only really makes sense if you’re in a group. We were 5 people, so it was only $16.5 (less than 10 euros), which is actually pretty cheap for a boat tour. 

Shopping in Melbourne

Queen Victoria Market: This is the largest open-air market in the Southern Hemisphere and offers specialty food, gifts, clothing and accessories for all budgets. It sells literally everything!

DFO South Wharf: DFO stands for ‘Direct Factory Outlet’, there are lots of these in Australia, and they’re good spots to get good deals on anything from clothing to housewares or electronics.

Princess Highway: this is Australia’s most popular vintage-inspired brand, and I was a big fan! I got some good deals in the June sale. We actually initially went in there so my friend could check the selection of cute scrubs (he’s a doctor), so if you’re a healthcare worker in need of some Harry Potter or koala print wear, this is the place to go.

Spellbox: In a very random turn of events, we stumbled into a Diagon Alley-like witch store right in the middle of the CBD. It has TWO outlets in Melbourne, to satisfy all your spellcasting, fortune telling, tarot and other witchy service needs. The store employs 20+ witches/psychics. I did not know this was such an industry, but apparently it is.

I’ve always been intrigued by psychics, even though I’m too cynical to fully believe in them. I did a session, but honestly wasn’t too impressed by it… the predictions were extremely general. My friend’s colleague swears one of the psychics at this place is amazing, but you need to book online far in advance to see her.

Culture, music & events

Melbourne is the hippest city in Australia, and there are non-stop cultural, music and sporting events. Of course this is different every week, so check What’s On to find out what’s happening when you’re in town. We went to see the musical Wicked in the Regent Theatre and it was a wonderful experience 🙂

Lume Digital Art Gallery

The Lume in Melbourne is the world’s largest digital art gallery. When I was there, they had an exhibit on the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, I absolutely recommend it if it’s still on when you visit.

I thought I already knew a lot about Leonado Da Vinci, but seeing his inventions up close and seeing how they work was really interesting. He was the first person to discover many things that now seem like no-brainers in physics or engineering, but seeing it deconstructed makes you realize just how amazing that must have been at the time.

The digital art show part was really interesting, and as a certified lazy gal, I will have to say I appreciated the very comfy giant pillows we could lie on while we watched it 🙂

Puffing Billy

Puffing Billy is a very aesthetic Victorian steam train in the Dandenong Ranges, mountains near Melbourne. It’s very popular with families, but we (3 adults) were not ashamed to say we wanted to ride that choo choo too.

The vintage locomotive chugs through forests, hills, and farmland to bring you to a cute, Christmas-market-inspired town for a relaxed drink or two. If you go during the daytime, you’re allowed to sit on the edge and dangle your legs out the side in reckless abandon, which makes for a very vibe-sy Instagram post. 

We went in the evening. It’s dark so the Puffing Billy projects very cool light shows and other special effects onto the forest as it moves. It was honestly kind of hypnotic. When we went past clearings, there were local kids waiting to wave at us and see the light show – it’s a really iconic Melbourne thing. We really enjoyed it and got a wholesome, whimsical ‘Christmas in July’ vibe 🙂

A few tips:

The Great Ocean Road

So, anyone who’s done the Great Ocean Road will be horrified when I say this, but… I stayed in Melbourne for a week, and I did not do the Great Ocean Road. This was Week 4 of my 4-week Australia trip and I’d already done several very active and jam-packed day tours (North Stradbroke Island, the Great Barrier Reef, the Blue Mountains…). 

I felt I’d seen a lot of beautiful nature on this trip and was happy to just relax and not have a schedule, since I planned to spend a lot of time just hanging with friends and eating good food.

I did research doing the Great Ocean Road though, so I still have some tips for you. There are a few ways to do it:

So, what did I do instead? My friends have a car so we did a very relaxed drive to Brighton Beach and Philip Island (that place where you can see wild penguins). Read on for more info.

Source: Tourism Australia

Brighton Beach

Brighton Beach is home to 96 very Instagrammable beach boxes – probably one of the most popular attractions in Melbourne. The boxes were built in the 1860s, so wealthy Victorian people could ‘modestly’ change into their bathing suits before going swimming.

Now, they’re privately owned and the experience feels more like visiting an art gallery. Every box is painted with a different theme, and there are plenty of nice photos ops. 

How to get to Brighton Beach from Melbourne:

After getting some cute snaps at the boxes, we drove on to Phillip Island.

Phillip Island & Wild Penguins

Phillip Island is around a 90-minute drive from Melbourne but feels like another world. It offers otherworldly coastal views which reminded us a little of Ireland.. Until we saw the wallabies and penguins 😉 We hit two of the main landmarks, the Nobbies and Pyramid Rock, then did the ‘must do’ attraction: see the wild penguins.

Nobbies Center 

We wound up here by coincidence. There’s a beautiful boardwalk route near the center where you cant see antarctic fur seals and all sorts of cute wildlife, as well as some very rugged coastal scenery and caves.

The Nobbies Center had some general free exhibits on the island, and a whole section dedicated to Antarctica, Antarctic animals and how it is to actually live there. You can go into a ‘simulated’ room that is as cold as Antarctica (basically, stepping into a giant freezer) and sit on a giant iceberg. I never imagined I’d learn so much about Antarctica while in Melbourne, so this was a pretty unique experience.

Pyramid Rock

This is a short distance from the Nobbies and from the Penguin Parade, so we went for a nice scenic walk to kill time. If you have more time, you should do the full Pyramid Rock to Berry’s Beach walk, which takes about 2.5 hours (return).

We’re standing on front of the pyramid in all my photos! So enjoy a nice sunset from the area instead.

Wild Penguins/Penguin Parade

The Penguin Parade is the must-do thing on Philip Island. Phillipp Island is one of few places in the world (outside of Antarctica) where you can see WILD penguins waddling in from their day’s work fishing in the ocean. The penguins you’ll see on Phillipp island are ‘fairy penguins’, the tiniest penguin in the world weighing around 1kg. AND THEY ARE ADORABLE!

Every evening around sunset, the penguins pop up on the shore, do a panicked honk and look for a group of penguins or ‘raft’ they can make their journey inland with. Once they have enough lil buddies to feel safe, they start dramatically running uphill, tiny wings flapping behind them. They stop to honk at their neighbors before jumping into their burrows.

Source: abc.net.au


We were naive and believed watching wild animals walk around would be free, but oh no sir, it is not! We paid $32 per person (19 euros), which seemed quite steep. But by the end we were really happy we did it, it’s a unique experience in a very beautiful place, and we were just totally in awe watching such tiny penguins waddle on their epic quest uphill 🙂

Where to go next

And that’s the end! I stayed in Australia for 4 weeks total, and I think I made decent use of the time. I saw a lot, but also had a lot of time to relax. If you’re looking for more tips on travelling the East Coast on a budget, check out my other articles: