With 4 remaining days in Australia we popped into Melbourne, another impressively modern and large metropolis (Australia’s second largest city). Melbourne has a population of 4+ million and has one of the largest ports in the Southern Hemisphere. Thousands of early immigrants passed through here as they made their way into Australia. Today the city is very diverse and our plan was to immerse ourselves in its prominent cultural, social and food scene.

One of the things we really wanted to do in Australia was rent a car and hit the road. With about 600+ miles between Sydney and Melbourne, we figured this was a perfect opportunity. But what really fueled our motivation was to drive The Great Ocean Road, Australia’s most scenic road and arguably the most beautiful in the world. In doing so, we would also pile on another few hundred miles to our trip, so good thing for unlimited miles!

Sydney, capital-grade city but not exactly Australia’s capital. The coastal sprawling metropolis is home to 4.5 million people and was the next stop on our trip. We planned for 4 nights there and were excited to see the city that’s always “first” to ring in the new year.

At last, Australia! It was only fitting that we reached the “final frontier” in the last (official) month of our journey. We had always dreamed about coming here and this was it! We planned to start off with a week in and around Cairns as it’s the most popular launch point to the Great Barrier Reef. Our first glimpse of the incredible natural wonder was from the plane on approach for landing. From the right side we could see the lush mountainous coastline and from the left window we saw the endless beautiful blue Coral Sea.