Work Trip & Wave Pool in Melbourne

Earlier this year, I started a new job. When I was applying, I knew there was a strong chance of some international travel, so when they asked me to go manage an event in Melbourne, Australia, I was excited to say yes! It would be my first visit back to Australia since I did a working holiday visa back in 2019-2020.

I decided to make a whole workaction out of it. I would fly to Melbourne to work the conference, visit my friend Mike in Sydney, and then meet Bryan in New Zealand for actual vacation. I carefully selected my flights and packed my bags.

Of course, the morning I was set to fly out, I woke up to a text message that my flights were rerouted, adding an extra stop and landing me in Melbourne only a few hours before the event. I frantically rescheduled everything and, luckily, found a better flight out. I was on my way!

After many long hours of flying, with a brief stop in San Francisco to stretch my legs, I landed in Melbourne. Our hotel was in the Central Business District to stay in walking distance to the event, so I took the airport SkyBus to the CBD. My first priority was coffee, Australia’s specialty. I needed a flat white, and Come Back to Earth Coffee did the trick. Apparently my second priority was a donut, but I didn’t know it until I walked past the window of FOC Melbourne and felt the call to step inside. It was yummy!

After that breakfast, my third priority was a quick workout in the hotel gym. Then it was time for a bit of work. My boss and I met up with our Australian partners at the Melbourne Convention Center to check out the venue. All was in order and looking good, so we’d have the afternoon free to roam… and it was Sunday for goodness’ sake!

The weather was perfect and the walk to the convention center was right along the river:

I was hoping to have the afternoon off, because I had big plans in mind. I’d been dreaming of booking a surf session at the fancy wave pool, URBNSURF. I’d never tried a wave pool before, so I didn’t know what to expect. Since I didn’t really know what I was doing and I’m not the world’s greatest surfer, I booked a lesson so that I would get a board and wetsuit included and hopefully wouldn’t get in anyone’s way. But first, food! I grabbed a quick snack from Onigiri To Go on Degraves Street, a street with a lot of cute little restaurants and shops, then I took an Uber back out towards the airport to URBNSURF.

The wave pool was magical. The check in process was seamless, and the staff were all very friendly to help me get set up with equipment and check in for the lesson. And as much as I enjoy the natural appeal of changing into my wetsuit in surf spot parking lots, it was pretty nice to have a changing room with showers for before and after. There were also lockers and water coolers nearby.

The wave pool produces waves at different levels and styles according to a schedule that varies throughout the day. I signed up for the easiest waves (cruiser) and the next level up from beginner lesson (beginner progressive). It ended up being a little below my level, but I caught tons of great waves and had a blast. The coach was really helpful, and it was probably better for my jet lag to lean toward an easier session. The sun was shining the whole time! I didn’t need booties and some people weren’t even wearing wetsuits.

I headed back to the hotel and got some tasty indian takeout for dinner (Me & Yogi Indian Kitchen). I didn’t take a picture, but here’s some street art near our hotel:

After that, it was full-on work mode, with conference events from sun up to sun down for the next two days, followed by work dinners at night. We did have a nice Thai meal at BangPop and enjoyed the evening walks back to the hotel along the river.

Once the work was done, my next stop would be Sydney…

Penguin Parade

I hadn’t quite gotten my fill of animal sightings, even after our Sydney zoo tour featuring the koala breakfast, so I rallied Mike for another one-day bus tour, and we took a voyage down to Phillip Island to see the parade of penguins. Every night (I think) at this point about 2 hours from Melbourne, a number of tiny penguins waddle in from the sea and make their way up to their wooden nest boxes on the coast to sleep or feed their kids or mate (very noisy) or whatever else penguins do in their nests. I was told there would be hundreds of penguins to view, so it sounded like a sight worth seeing. Count us in.

But first, we needed to find more kangaroos, so we were taken to a stop at an animal sanctuary where they had koalas, emus, and a dingo for viewing and a bunch of kangaroos for feeding.

The kangaroos were very relaxed and open to being fed, but the whole feeding event really was a testament to the ridiculousness of human behavior when new animals are present. Everyone was crowding, poking, and generally bothering the very calm kangaroos, so it was a little disheartening.

After the sanctuary, we visited the beach and ordered iced coffee, which is actually either coffee with ice cream or with a whole bunch of sugar. I should’ve just gotten a Golden Gaytime like everyone else was doing.

We stayed in our habit of not listening to the time we were supposed to be back on the bus and then arriving to find we were the last ones on the bus. Then it was time for a stop at a place called the Nobbies, which held excellent seascape views and the Seal Rocks where, unfortunately, the seals are too far away for the naked eye to see.

Finally, onto the much awaited final destination. We arrived at the penguin march around 7 and entertained ourselves with a light dinner and sunset vistas while waiting for the penguin migration.

They started coming in around eight o’clock and, I must say, there were far fewer penguins than we were expecting. Like, we saw 8 when we were expecting hundreds. Still cool to see I suppose, but also a bit anticlimactic after all the hype of waiting. However, when we turned around to walk back to the van, we did see at least tens, if not hundreds of the tiny birds. The trip was saved, either by the viewing of the penguins or by the hot chocolate that was waiting for us when we got back.

Fairy Floss

During the trip, I overhead someone say that a visitor to Australia will take one of two sides: you’ll either decide that you’re a Sydney person or a Melbourne person. I had heard cool things about the art, music, and culture coming out of Melbourne, so Mike and I decided to make a weekend out of it and flew on the budget Tiger airline to check it out. I’ve also heard that Sydney is more like the west coast of the US and Melbourne is more like the NYC area. So, you can probably figure out which one I prefer as I sit here writing this from my sunny SoCal apartment with lots of grass in the backyard.

I didn’t dislike Melbourne at all, I was just surprised to find it so similar to big cities that I’ve seen a lot of before. Hip bars, delicious restaurants, but overall not much newness. Well, there was one new thing… Melbourne is well-known for its coffee, and we were promised some of the best cups of coffee in the world. However, I hadn’t been that huge of a fan of Australian coffee at that point. I don’t like to add cream, so I found the long and short blacks all too bitter and the lattes much too milky (even though they sometimes came with adorable koala designs!) I (and Mike, too) missed the good old fashioned drip, which, while it might not be the fanciest or highest quality, felt familiarly like a satisfying cup of home.

On our first day in Melbourne, we were off to try this famed coffee, but I decided to mix it up and sample something new based some intriguing Yelp reviews. Enter, fairy floss. What was this? It looked like a cloud in a cup and appeared to be more about novelty than actual taste. I can be into that, especially in the midst of an impromptu vacation down under. I ordered what looked like (and was like) plain cotton candy and selected the matcha to pour over top. There was also a hot chocolate option, but when I tried to order a coffee version, the waitress looked at me like I was crazy (which was a lot coming from someone who seemed like they had inserted an IV drip of caffeine for her entire shift), suggested the matcha, then brought me an extra shot of espresso just in case I wanted to try it.

The pouring experience was quite a treat, and it was the best matcha I’ve ever had. No joke! Our caffeine choices gave us the energy to continue on explorations of the botanical gardens, figure out the public transportation system (some free, some not free, some trolleys), and eat the most incredible Italian dinner from this unbelievable restaurant, which you should go to and tell me seriously, how is it all vegan??

While I might label myself a Sydney person, I enjoyed the rest of our stay in Melbourne, playing hipster Guess Who?, drinking craft beers, and checking out the local music scene. I would certainly go back for more of any of what Australia has to offer.