Up the next morning and headed to Melbourne for our final stay. We drive a section of the great ocean road that we hadn’t done yet back to Melbourne. It was like driving highway 1 in the US in California. “B” had found a chocolaterie and ice creamery along the road and we stopped there. We did an official chocolate tasting. That was fun. They gave us small pieces of about 14 different chocolates. I liked the fruit and nut one, which surprised me a little. The dark chocolate ones I didn’t care for as much, as usual. Then we got lunch there (nothing special in my opinion). Then we did some shopping for more chocolate. We bought A LOT of chocolate. We were buying for ourselves, but we also bought a bunch as gifts for others once we got back home. We then grabbed dessert before we left. I thought a milkshake sounded good. I asked if it was a thick or thin shake, and they said it was pretty thick. I love a thick milkshake and so I was happy to order one. Well, it was basically milk. It was terrible. There was no semblance of ice cream at all in it. And it made me feel sick afterwards. Truly terrible and at $8 way overpriced. Oh well. “B” thought I should say something, but that just isn’t me so I didn’t. The ladies enjoyed their desserts. Finished our drive to Melbourne and got to our place, and it was pretty amazing. It was a house built in 1882. The owner was very nice and showed us around and talked with us a bit as well. All my ladies loved it. We asked for suggestions on where to eat and were told about an area to walk around to find something. We ended up at a Thai place. I had green curry. I asked if it was spicey, they said not really. I said I liked spicey food, and they said they could make it spicey. It ended up being so spicey it hurt to eat. I also confirmed, again, that I really don’t like Thai curry. I don’t like the coconut base. Afterwards we headed back to our place and had more dessert that we got at the chocolate place today. It was ok, but not very good. I was pretty disappointed in the that. The place had a giant claw-footed bathtub and so the girls each took a relaxing bath before bed.
For our final day in Melbourne (well…) we talked with the girls and decided to head to the Healsville Sanctuary. “B” and I had gone there on our honeymoon 20 years ago. That was where we bought Moral the Traveling Wombat. This place is apparently known for its platypus knowledge and dedication. They have something like 9 there, but only 2-3 out at a time.
We got to see 3 platypus and 3 or 4 echidnas being quite active. So this was a definite highlight for me and the ladies. They platypus were so graceful to watch swimming in the water in their enclosures. We tried seeing wombats, but they were asleep – apparently that morning they had introduced the male and female wombats to each other for the first time, and they “did their thing” (queue the Barry White music) and then the male went to sleep and the female disappeared for the day.
We had a lot of fun wandering around. The animals all seemed very happy and well taken care of. For dinner we ate at a fabulous restaurant on our way back that we found on google maps. It was called Zegov and can be found in Thomastown outside Melbourne. It was Eastern European/Mediterranean style food. It was delicious. Probably my favorite sit-down meal we had in Australia (Jaffles won out for me!).
And then things got interesting. During dinner I got an email from United letting us know our flight from Melbourne to San Francisco had been canceled – WHAT?! The email also said they rebooked us on a flight from Melbourne to LAX, great, but not until the following day. So, I was a bit stressed thinking, “rental car?”, “place to stay?”, and “what to do?”. “B” was wonderful and calmed me down (I wasn’t too bad, but I was starting to checkout and she got me checked back in). And of course God was watching out for us as always. “B” got the car figured out that evening with no issues. I contacted our Airbnb host and found out it wasn’t booked for the next night and she let us extend one more night with no issue. She worked for an airline (not United) and so was pretty understanding (and since she didn’t have someone coming in anyways it was another night for her so I don’t think she minded at all). I was just well past wanting to be home, and one more day wasn’t what I wanted. Oh well, life likes to throw stuff at us like this sometimes. At least the rebooked flights still had us in premium economy seating and all sitting together, and technically the overall flight time was shorter (not by much), but still a pain. And now we have to figure out how to get compensation from United for the rental car and extra night stay in Australia. (still working on that).