Fellow Melbourners,
Planning to travel from Sydney with 2 kiddos.
Spots where we be going:
* Airport to depart and arrive: Melbourne Tullamarine.
* Need to visit relatives down at Sunbury for few days.
* May go to Melbourne CBD for shopping.
And yes, we will drive.
I'm thinking of a suburb in between Melbourne Tullamarine & Melbourne CBD.
Can you kindly recommend which suburb should we go for? Somewhere relatively safe and with good profile.
TIA !
Much appreciated :)
Try Quest apartments in Williamstown. 30 minutes from airport and 10 minutes to city off peak. Williamstown has great tourist features for shopping, eating, exercising and sightseeing.
I will add that to our option; many thanks!
EDIT: actually I don't think this is a good idea as it's a bit far to Sunbury & Tullamarine.
It's great for Melb CBD though.
Looking at the map you might want to look around Brunswick, Preston, Thornbury areas. Public Transport is pretty good for those areas and they are very gentrified now days. Brunwick isn't far from the Zoo either. Not sure how long you intend to be here but it might be worth thinking about using Air BnB if you are going to be here for any length of time; they might have car parking and you might get a house, rather than rooms.
The think to keep in mind is that Melbourne public transport is pretty much a spoke and hub, the trains/trams come into the CBD from the suburbs. There are cross buses but they aren't that great.
You will need to get MYKI cards to use public transport.
https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/tickets/myki/buy-a-myki/myki-expl…
You really want to avoid driving into the Melbourne CBD, if you can avoid it as traffic and parking are a PITA. However, if you really want to drive I would suggest parking at Crown Casino as the parking fee is not horrific. Also, if you walk to the next tram stop in you get to the free tram zone. All tram transport within the CBD is free within the designated zone. Just watch the free zone boundaries as a lot of the attractions are one tram stop before the attraction, e.g. the museum, NGV, etc. (Don't get me started on that one).
https://www.crownmelbourne.com.au/general/parking/informatio…
If you want some food suggestions then post back and I will give some ideas.
Enjoy our fair city.
Yes please … being a food Mecca, definitely things that we will explore, but mind you, as we travel with 2 kiddos, fine dining is definitely to be avoided and we will only stay for 3 days 2 nights … so perhaps a short listing will be better than a long one.
Somewhere outside the CBD is good too as I assume parking will be a tad easier but please don't limit yourself to this requirement.
We look forward hearing from you :)
Disclaimer - we don't tend to go to cheap, cheap places and we don't have children but we do have some favourites.
We live in Fitzroy, which is only a quick tram ride/walk from the CBD.
We have an African place in Brunswick St called Nyala. It is a staple of ours and it is reasonably priced and does BYO. As long as the kiddies don't mind the spices; but it isn't really too hot. Most of the menu is also gluten free friendly and there are a number of vegetarian dishes as well. We do the mixed entree, mixed meat and mixed vegetable options which would probably be plenty for the family.
If you can get to Lune, in Rose St, at 8 am on a weekday then the croissants are great. Especially if the coconut rough ones are available. This is open Thursday to Monday but the queues can be long on the weekends and really early mornings. Note, the price ranges from roughly $5 for the plain up to $11 for the fancy ones.
Shark Fin Inn does a great Yum Cha at lunch times - in China town in the city. The chicken pies and egg custard tarts have great pastry.
Pizza Mein Liebe in Northcote does very good, if a tad expensive, pizzas.
If you can dump the kiddies for a lunch time then I would suggest you go to Philippe near 101 Collins St. The lunch time $40 two course menu includes a 250ml carafe of wine and the food is really good.
Messina in Smith St, Fitzroy, have some very interesting ice cream flavours as well.
The Asian, particularly, vietnamese places down Victoria St in Richmond are particularly good value and if you end up in near Box Hill there is a thriving Asian food area there as well. China town in the city is also worth having a look at.
There is a food hall as part of the Emporium in the CBD which has a range of different food stalls, which is probably worth a look if you are shopping in the city and just want a quick lunch. There is also another group of places in the QV centre.
Melbourne can be the home of the queue for some of the more popular places; if you want to go to something like Chin Chin then turn up at roughly 11:30 for lunch or 5:30 for dinner and you are much more likely to get in.
This is Melbourne so cafes/restaurants don't tend to last long if they aren't any good. Zomato is a good reference for options.
When you have worked out where you are going to be stationed I'm sure other locals here will be able to give you other ideas.
I would book something near the airport - tullamarine and surrounding suburbs because sunbury is like a 20-30 minute drive the opposite way from the city - you could also go with something near Taylors Lakes and surrounds as that also is in between both cbd and sunbury .
https://melbourneessendonfields.place.hyatt.com/en/hotel/hom… is a pretty new hotel and like smack bang inbetween the city and sunbury .
But otherwise there are tons of hotels near the airport and that way you are close to the tullarmine freeway so you can go straight into the city or through moonee ponds if you dont want to pay citylink and have you close to sunbury and parking isnt really that big of a problem .
Yeah exactly what I'm thinking … because of Tullamarine & Sunbury, we definitely try to avoid the CBD as I don't think it is necessary to be in the crowd if we don't see the need.
I was looking at the possibility of these suburbs:
* Caroline Spring
* Brunswick
* Keilor
* Essendon
This is just complete blind research .. I have never heard of these suburbs, except of Essendon being Football Club … LOL
Id advoid brunswick and go for anyone of the other 3 - essendon is closer to the cbd while the other 2 are closer to sunbury .
Since you have a car you can easily drive in to the cbd and avoid citylink and free parking shouldn't be a problem on weekends.
Just interested where you think free parking in the city won't be a problem on weekends?
Moonee Ponds
Thanks; I will have a look.
I haven't read all the answers (above) but there is a Big 4 Caravan park with cabins at Elizabeth Street, Coburg, which is in a good place/area for you IMO. I have stayed there and it is very clean and well managed…a nice park! Good for the kids to play there as well :) Check out their website.
Try booking.com wotif.com or hotel.com which has a free car park?
Use the map and pick a hotel closer to nearest trams/train stop? then you can leave the car and use the public transport.
You can also use this https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/329697