Travel


My recent two trips around Australia has been good. Thanks to budget airlines that made my trip possible. People tend to be sceptical about budget airlines and always tend to compare with commercial airline.

When the comparison failed, phrases like, “…this is my first and last trip…”, “…I’ll never fly with XXX airline anymore…” are often heard.

To me, as long it can take me from “A” to “B”, I’m fine with it. For poor students like us, that’s the only practical way that we can travel. I’m sure most students can agree with me on this statement :P .

How can one even start the comparison? You get what you pay for.

Today, I want to talk about Tiger Airway. Tiger Airway is a Singapore based budget airline that have a base in Melbourne.

So far, my flights with Tiger Airways has been good so far. The longest delay I had was 30 minutes, which is not too bad. What I found amusing was how “budget” Tiger Airways can be. Let the pictures do the talking.

tiger01

That’s the toilet at the Baggage Collection area. To me, it looks like a cargo container being modified to a toilet. But the toilet is clean. No worries.

tiger02

Yes. This is where you collect your baggage. And yes, that’s the normal road. They just build a roof over the “road” and put the baggage carousel. That’s what I called “budget”.

tiger03

However, I thought the idea is cool. Behind the fence, you can actually see the staff putting your luggage on the carousel. At least you know whether they throw your luggage or handle it with care :D

Anyway, I will still fly with Tiger if their fare is cheap. At times their fare can be 50-60% cheaper than the remaining budget airlines flying the same destination at the same time. To me, when flying budget airlines, make your expectation as LOW as possible.  In that way, you will somehow feel that your flight can be a pleasant one. :)

Managed to get a very good deal to go home. That would be my first time home after 27 months.

Yes, I’m talking about Air Asia recent MYR 0.00 fare. Praise God, that we managed to secure that fare home for Chinese New Year till after Cap Goh Meh.

aa

So all in all, for the return tickets for both of us cost us AUD 300.00 (approx. MYR 810.00).

I was just telling Flora that I hope to see snow as I have never seen one before. I told her that this year Melbourne could have snow in winter considering Victoria had had the hottest summer in its history, the coldest winter in its history may just seem realistic.

And, snow did come to Victoria pretty early this year (now is mid-autumn). Mount Buller, one of the place where Victorians go to enjoy winter sports had snow. In addition, one of the cell group member suggested that we go there for a day trip and I quickly answered yes.

Mount Buller management gave special rate to enjoy winter activities. When I said special rate, it’s really special. Everything inclusive unlimited ski lift and equipments rental for the whole day cost us less than AUD 50 (~RM 135) per person. Initially, our (Flora and I) plan is just to see snow. Since our friend came with the purpose of skiing and snow boarding, we decided, why not. Honestly, we especially me are not prepared for ski at all. I’ve never seen snow needless to say to ski!!! But I did it anyway. Thanks to Jason for short tutorial.

First lesson in skiing is normally to learn how to stop. Well, I sort of did learn to stop quite well…..by falling. I think I fell at least 6 times. Thank God the snow is soft and it didn’t hurt that much as you fall. Being a beginner, I think I’m pretty optimistic to take the ski lift all the way to the top of the hill and tried to ski down. As soon as I disembark from the lift, I skied and fall…..HAHA. To cut the whole story short, at the end of the day, I ski only at gentle slope and walked down hill at steep slope, cause I can’t even stand still at steep slope.

It was an experience. And here’s the pictures…

buller03

Ski lift.

buller01

Posing

buller2

Ready..set..go...not

buller04

This is at the bottom of the hill. Took me almost 2 hours to get fall down

buller05

The weather is superb.

buller06

The village nearby the skiing area I

buller07

The village nearby the skiing area II

buller08

Skiing area at the back of me….

buller09

Snow….

buller10

Group photo: From left, me, Flora, Wen Li and Jason

buller11

The Werribee Park and the Victoria State Rose Garden are located almost next to the Werribee Open Range Zoo. Since we were at the zoo, might as well pop over for a visit.

rose00

The park has a big mansion called The Mansion which has some historical value to it. Unfortunately, to visit The Mansion, one have to pay for the entrance fee. Too bad…., so we just took some pictures from the outside.

rose011

rose03

This is not The Mansion. This is where you pay for the ticket :P

rose05

Next to The Mansion is the Victoria State Rose Garden. For roses/flower lover, I think this place should be on your must-visit list. I’m not a flower needless to say rose person but the view of the garden is just fantastic.

rose04

Some of the pictures of roses taken by Flora.

rose09

rose14

rose15

rose20

rose16

rose17

rose18

During New Year eve, we visited the Werribee Zoo. This is an open range zoo. Open range as in, you are free to walk together with most of the animals. The zoo is about 37km away from where we stay.

wzoo00

Together with my officemate and his family, we made our way to the zoo at around 930am.

wzoo01

The Werribee Zoo is made up of 4 main sections. The bus safari-like section, the normal zoo section, the water saving plant section and the Australian animal section.

wzoo02

The idea of the bus safari-like is something like Open Safari in Africa you see on TV but a much milder version.

wzoo03

Animals here are free to roam around. The environment setting is pretty much like the animals own habitat.

wzoo04

There’s bison…

wzoo05

Antelope…

wzoo06

Wild horse…

wzoo07

Giraffe…. The normal ticket does not include animal feeding. If you want to feed the giraffe up close like those shown in the picture, additional ticket need to be purchased.

wzoo08

Zebra… The bus driver literally has to stop the bus for the “Zebra Crossing” :)

wzoo09

Rhino… Once again, to feed the rhino, additional ticket is needed.

The bus tour took about 1 hour. The zoo also provided benches and shelters for picnic.

wzoo10

Lunch time. It’s advisable to bring your own food as there’s only one restaurant/cafe in the zoo. Food’s choices aren’t that many. The price is quite on the high side. After lunch, we continued our visit to the remaining 3 sections.

wzoo11

In this section, we can see hippo…

wzoo15

Meerkat…. the weather for the morning was relatively cold. That’s why you see the meerkat are so ‘friendly’. In the late noon when the temperature rises, this is what you get…

wzoo12

The normal zoo section has not so many animals. There are cheetah, lions, african wild dogs etc No pictures were taken because when we were there, these animals were sleeping and it makes no point for photo taking.

Then, we proceed to water savings plant section. Since water is a big issue in Australia, the planting of water savings plant become more and more popular.

wzoo13

This picture is showing part of the garden. You’ll get the idea by looking at the soil type at the base of this plant. These plant are pretty lasting under dry condition and are quite nice for house decoration too.

The last section is the Australian animal section. Sadly, the kangaroos are sleeping (as they always do). We only manage to see emu roaming around.

wzoo14

Comparing this zoo with Melbourne zoo, I would say the latter one is much worth visiting. This zoo didn’t give me a “WOW!!!”. Regardless, it’s a nice way to celebrate the New Year Eve.

It’s Christmas Day and the public transport is FREE!!!! So we took this opportunity to travel around. After the church service, we went to the Shrine of Remembrance and Royal Botanical Garden. The Shrine of Remembrance is the place to remember the sacrifices the Australian soldiers made during the war time.  Again, let the pictures do all the talking.

christmas01

A famous statue of a soldier carrying another soldier located outside the Shrine of Remembrance

christmas02

The Shrine of Remembrance

christmas03

Some silly-cool pose

christmas04

More silly-cool pose

christmas05

A nice view from the Shrine of Remembrance

christmas06

Flora adoring the well-built soldier

The Royal Botanical Garden is located nearby and this place is best for those nature lovers.

christmas07

The garden is big. Check out the map. The walking path sums up to about 1.5km.

christmas19a

Some nice flowers in the garden.

christmas21

It’s a nice place to have picnic and to be with the nature.

We started the journey feeling very excited

christmas16

After almost 3 hours spent around the shrine and the garden, under a quite hot weather, we were exhausted.

christmas17

It was the eve of the Christmas Eve (23rd Dec 08). With Vik Tor visiting from Brisbane, we decided to visit the Phillip Island. It’s about 150km from Melbourne and the journey (by car) took us about 2 hours 30 minutes.

philip00

We departed around 9am and we’re hoping to catch the Pelican feeding session at San Remo at 12pm. San Remo is the last town on the mainland before crossing the bridge to Phillip Island… and we did manage to see the feeding session.

philip12

Pelican feeding session at San Remo.

We had our lunch at San Remo and stuffed ourselves with Fish & Chips with Osyter. Personally, I didn’t like it. It was Vik Tor’s idea to let us try. At the end, he ate most of it.

philip13

Waiting to eat

philip14

Fish & Chips

Before I proceed, it’s best to clarify how did we get to Phillip Island. I DIDN’T buy a car. I DIDN’T rent a car. Thanks to Simon for letting us to use his car during his holiday back home to Malaysia. Thank you so much. And just to show off a little bit :D

philip08a

My 5 minutes of fame.

Ok…back to the journey. After lunch, we crossed the bridge to the island. We visited the “AMaze N Thing”. Here, I’ll let the pictures do all the talking.

philip01

A room filled with water (I wish we can enter it)

philip02

philip03

philip04

This mirror thing is really cool and confusing

philip05

A quite tricky Maze

philip06

Yay! We “conquered” the maze.

philip07

There’s mini golf too.

I wouldn’t recommend this. It’s a 18-hole mini golf course. By the time we reached the 6th hole, things started to get very very very very……………. (you get the point) BORED! I think it’s because we suck in golf, I can’t find better explanation for the boredom.

Next stop….Phillip Island Grand Prix circuit. This circuit hosted the MotoGP as well as A1 GP. For me, this is a must visit. Unfortunately, when we reached there, it’s almost 5:45pm. It’s closed. Well……. a picture will do, even though it’s outside the circuit.

philip09

At least…..

The highlight of the island is of course the penguins. These cute little penguins will come back to shore near sunset. The sad part was, since now it’s summer, the sun set very slow. The arrival time for the penguins the night before was 9pm. So, since we have around 3 hours to kill, we decided to have dinner in Cowes. After dinner, we went off to Nobbies for a bit of sight seeing before “waiting” for the penguins to arrive. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures of penguin.

philip10

At Nobbies.

The penguins eventually arrived at around 915pm. Some tips. Just get the cheapest ticket as you still can see the penguin up close. Left the island at around 1030pm and reached Melbourne around 1am.

Ok…Flora has finally written about our trip during the weekend escape. Hence, I include the links to all the 5 parts of her post and a final link to all the pictures that we had taken during the trip.

Weekend Escape Part 1

Weekend Escape Part 2

Weekend Escape Part 3

Weekend Escape Part 4

Weekend Escape Part 5

Weekend Escape Pictures

Enjoy…….

Finally a time for short break. A weekend escape to Lorne. To show how’s our journey for the weekend, refer to the map below.

From the map, A – Melbourne, B – Lorne, C – Port Campbell

You may be asking, any holidays? Special occasion? etc? Well, a friend of ours (a doctor) has a weekend job in the Lorne Hospital, so instead of him going alone, why not we tag along. And, yea, that’s how we ended up in Lorne. From the map, the journey from A to B to C is about 273km. We drove along the Great Ocean Road and the scenic view was just splendid. I will not show much of the pictures here and I will refer you to Flora’s blog for all the pictures. But I will post some of the pictures here as “sneak preview” to our weekend escape. These pictures were taken on our way back to Melbourne.

During the 2005, DeepaRaya holidays, we had no where to go. So when our pastor also cell group leader in CDPC invited us to join them for a trip to Batu Pahat, both our eyes went *ding*. To know where is Batu Pahat, as usual, maps of Batu Pahat below.

Map of Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia

Well, Batu Pahat means Chiseled (Pahat) Rock (Batu). Hence, you see this icon in the town.

Flora trying to imitate the icon with a little “help”….

We stayed overnight at pastor’s place so we can wake up early and leave early and reach early to eat breakfast… chai tou kueh (some kueh made from white carrots.. like carrot kueh like that lah). So, we left I think about 6am in the morning.. i can’t remember… you can see all the sleepyheads climbing into the van, one of them was me… that’s why I can’t remember what time we left!! So once in the van, the kids and I dozed off right away.

We reached Batu Pahat I think at 9am or something like that, pastor and wife wasted no time at all in tapaoing food from stalls after stalls… and you can bring outside food into cafe one you know… *culture shock*

Lontong and Nasi Lemak

Wantan Mee with Duck Meat

Kueh Chap (pretty much like the one in Kuching)

From the time we reached Batu Pahat until we fell asleep again, we ate and ate and ate and ate. I’ve never ate so “crazy” before. After finishing our eating here, get in the van, stop somewhere, eat again, get in the van, stop somewhere, eat again. The next morning, same thing!! Get in the van, stop somewhere, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat.

Next Page »