Melbourne’s the cultural capital of Australia and yet is still only a footstep away from wildlife and wilderness. Seasonal whale-watching opportunities abound along the state’s whole coastline and Melbourne is surrounded by idyllic wine regions; world-class surfing beaches suitable for beginners and pros alike; and striking national parks, with adventures ranging from hiking to horse riding, and scuba diving to sailing.
Even the city itself offers visitors a range of pulse-quickening activities, guaranteed to keep adventure junkies and children entertained. It’s also a city of arts and indulgence, with hands-on opportunities to explore the city’s rich culture, history, drinking and dining.
Main photo: The Gippsland Lakes (Getty Images)
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1. Experience Melbourne from the Sky in a Hot Air Balloon
Among the rare urban landscapes offering aerial explorations through hot air balloons, Melbourne stands out. Start your day immersed in the sights of the sprawling 38-hectare Royal Botanic Gardens from a vantage point like no other, skimming over its lush canopy at dawn. Capture a bird's eye view of the Yarra River, its serenity belying its centrality to the city’s bustling life. Marvel as the metropolis wakes, with the sparkling city lights gradually dimming as the skyscrapers welcome the morning sun. The winding journey of trains towards the city, unloading a stream of people into the heart of Melbourne at Federation Square, unfurls beneath you as you glide over the renowned Edwardian architecture of Flinders Street Station. After an early morning hot air balloon ride, consider staying near Melbourne's famous Lygon Street, known for its vibrant dining scene and Italian influence. Visit https://www.hotelsinvictoria.net/en/near-lygon-street-dr1864264/ to choose the perfect option!
From the animated scenes of Queen Victoria Market to the thrilling exhibit of diverse species at Melbourne Zoo, hot air ballooning offers an unparalleled lens to appreciate one of the most captivating cities in the world. Looking for a place to stay? Check out accommodation options on tophotels.com. Let the adventures that Melbourne offers extend even after your hot air balloon ride has ended.
2. Journey to the Pinnacle of the Eureka Skydeck
Regardless of the weather, one can relish the panoramic view of Melbourne's skyline by journeying to the Eureka Tower's Skydeck, the crown jewel of observation decks in the southern hemisphere. Towering just short of 1,000ft, it offers unrestricted views that span across the city's pulse, Fitzroy Gardens lush greenery to the far-flung Dandenong Ranges and even further. For adults with an adventurous spirit or children who are daring, testing your bravery with The Edge experience is a must. Here, you find yourself in a glass cube hurtling out from the tower's 88th level to reveal an arresting view of city life beneath your feet.
melbourneskydeck.com.au
3. Delve into Aboriginal Heritage
Nestled within the vast Melbourne Museum is the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, a nurturing platform crafted to allow Aboriginal individuals to express the essence of their rich heritage to both indigenous and other visitors alike. From the intriguing medium of visual arts, the deep archives of history exhibits, the powerful platform of performance and the narrative wonder of storytelling, to the indispensable Milari Garden, flourishing with vegetation crucial to Victoria's First Peoples — the Koorie community recounts their robust cultural's endurance. Previous natives of Australia resided on this very land for a span extending well into tens of thousands of years before European intervention.
Did you know that the name "Bunjilaka" translates to "Bunjil's Place"? Bunjil is the Creator deity of the Kulin Nation, which includes the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung, Taungurong, Djajawurrung and the Wathaurung tribes - the traditional owners of Melbourne. Moreover, the Centre holds regular cultural events that can offer a deep dive into the history and traditions of the First Peoples of Victoria.
museumsvictoria.com.au/bunjilaka
4. Watch an AFL game
Australian Rules Football was born in Victoria in 1859 and it remains the state’s favourite sport. For the uninitiated, the fast-paced game is similar to Gaelic football, except it’s played with a rugby-style oval ball, usually on a modified cricket pitch. To this day the Australian Football League has its headquarters in Victoria’s first city and Melbourne Cricket Ground — known to locals as “The G” — is still the best place to catch all of the action. An intrinsic part of Melbourne’s culture, it’s here that the AFL Grand Final — the world’s highest-attended club championship event — is held on the last Saturday of September each year.
mcg.org.au/
5. Take a mixology masterclass
Melbourne knows how to host, with great nightlife, craft beers, wonderful wines and some of the best offbeat bars on the planet. Expect to find find plenty of comprehensive, clinking collections of obscure specialist spirits and bartenders who treat cocktail making as an art form. If you fancy impressing your friends by mixing their favourite poison or creating your own signature drink, consider joining one of Eau-de-Vie’s cocktail lessons. This 1920s prohibition-era themed bar hosts hush-hush mixology masterclasses, hidden behind a bookshelf in the not-so-secret Whisky Room, which holds a vast collection of rare and exclusive whiskies (of course).
eaudevie.com.au/melbourne
6. Marvel at pink lakes
Do not adjust your rose-tinted specs: due to a rare set of conditions, a harmless algae in the lakes of Victoria’s Murray-Sunset National Park releases beta carotene into the water, turning the lakes flamingo-pink each summer. You needn’t stray that far from the city though: since December 2012, the saltwater lake in Melbourne’s Westgate Park has been putting on the same psychedelic display nearly every summer too.
parks.vic.gov.au/places-to-see/parks/murray—sunset-national-park
7. Explore Melbourne’s foodie trails
Multicultural Melbourne is a veritable melting pot of flavours, and coupling this with Victoria’s agricultural backdrop makes Melbourne a foodie’s dream. There’s a huge Greek community that brings its unique Mediterranean cuisine; Carlton is the city’s very own Little Italy; Richmond offers Vietnamese food in Little Saigon; Fitzroy boasts vegan restaurants; while the Central Business District’s laneways are crammed with hole-in-the-wall joints selling incredible coffee, street eats and Chinese food. Take a gourmet tour of the city, such as the “Melbourne Foodie Culture” experience, to get a proper hold on it.
8. Ride the world’s oldest rollercoaster
The Great Scenic Railway, which opened in Luna Park in 1912, is the oldest continually operating rollercoaster on the planet. While Leap-the-Dips in Pennsylvania, USA, opened ten years earlier in 1902, it was closed from 1985 to 1999, but the Great Scenic Railway is still the second-oldest rollercoaster even if you ditch the “continually operating” caveat. It has all the thrills, twists, turns and drops along its wooden track as it did way back in 1912 and provides amazing — if fleeting — views over Port Phillip Bay from the top.
lunapark.com.au/
9. Wine and dine in the Yarra Valley
Internationally famous for its excellent chardonnay and pinot noir, Victoria’s oldest wine region, the Yarra Valley, is locally celebrated for fresh produce, freshwater fish, caviar, artisanal cider-makers and breweries, and delicious handmade cheeses. It’s perfect for a decadent day trip or a weekend out of the city and is less than an hour northeast of Melbourne. You’ll find it’s dotted with luxury spas, private art collections, chocolateries, boutique ice-cream shops and — of course — cellar doors offering wine tastings. Book a tour to avoid arguments over who will be the designated driver.
10. Hot-foot it to Mornington Peninsula
An easy day trip from the city at only around an hour southeast of Melbourne, Mornington Peninsula is made for horseback tours, so saddle up your steed and trot along golden sands as turquoise waves lap at your mount’s fetlocks. Riding tracks wind their way through both beach and bushland and the best way to conclude a day on the trails is by steeping your own feet (and the rest of your body, in fairness) in the geothermal waters of Peninsula Hot Springs. Maybe you should spoil yourself to a spa treatment too. Go on, you’ve earned it after a day on the hoof.
11. Scuba with sharks at Melbourne Aquarium
Whether you’re an experienced diver or you’ve never tried scuba before, any swimmer aged 14-plus can pull on a wetsuit and dive into the tanks at Sea Life Melbourne to swim with 10ft-long blacktip reef sharks, largetooth sawfish and sandbar whalers. You can even get up close to gigantic groupers and huge rays. The whole experience lasts around 90 minutes and includes equipment rental and a scuba safety briefing, plus an all-day pass to explore the rest of the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium.
www.visitsealife.com/melbourne/
12. Get spectator’s neck at the Australian Open
The southern hemisphere has only one grand slam tennis tournament. Sports fans know that Melbourne is home to the Australian Open where each year January superstars of the court battle it out at Melbourne Park. Hardcore fans can grab a Ground Pass for just $49, granting access to all of the surrounding courts where future luminaries of the sport test their mettle, but — with tickets to the Open released in waves to stamp out touting — it’s always worth checking out Tennis Australia’s temporary booth at Federation Square every few days during the event, where you can often bag coveted seats to the final at face value mere days before the match.
ausopen.com/
13. Take your date to the Prom
Just a stone’s throw from the city, Wilson’s Promontory is an open-air menagerie of marsupials where wombats and wallabies scarcely bat an eye as you cycle past on mountain bikes, clamber up granite peaks, or ramble along turquoise shorelines so immaculate that the quartz sand squeaks underfoot. A nature lover’s nirvana, Wilson’s Promontory is an essential stop on the Sydney-Melbourne Coastal Drive — which itself showcases some of Victoria’s secluded coves and pastoral picnic spots — and you can even visit on a day tour from Melbourne.
14. Spot the world’s smallest penguin
Famous for its twilight penguin parade, Phillip Island’s radiant coastline shivers with flocks of the world’s smallest species of penguin each evening. As the night starts to drain the sea’s cobalt colour to inky black, white specks begin to pop up on the edge of the beach. A heartbeat later there are five, eight, ten — the bellies of little penguins (aka fairy penguins or little blue penguins) flocking together on the shore, not so much for warmth as protection from predators. Their slate-blue plumage makes them difficult to spot as they raft in on the water, but on land they’re all-too visible and quickly begin their march homeward, a short, adorable (unmissable) waddle uphill to their rookery located beside the visitor centre.
15. Sail to see seals
Phillip Island also surprises with the chance to see one of Australia’s largest wild fur seal colonies. Seal Rocks is just over a mile from the island’s rugged southwest corner, where tour boats drop anchor within yards of thousands of doe-eyed seals, flopping around in the sun. Pack your camera and keep an eye out too for dolphins, humpback whales and stirring coastal views as you cruise around this watery wildlife wonderland.
16. Take part in a street art workshop
Awash with art galleries, Melbourne is a wonderland for those who want to soak up some culture. The National Gallery of Victoria has an encyclopaedic collection of world art, while its celebrated Ian Potter Centre is dedicated to Australian works. Meanwhile, the city streets are an artists’ canvas, and Melbourne’s laneways and many urban neighbourhoods pop with graffiti by world-class street artists. Far from being shady operators, these urban creatives are a friendly bunch, and Blender Studios — a studio space, gallery and hub for fine artists and street artists alike — runs street art tours of the city as well as monthly stencil art sessions, giving you tips on how to become the next Banksy.
17. Hit the Great Ocean Road
The Great Ocean Road snakes west from Melbourne towards the Grampians Ranges along a shoreline that puts the Amalfi Coast to shame. The improbable pillars of the famous Twelve Apostles are among some of the many incredible limestone cliff formations that line a route, spiking some of Australia’s favourite surfing beaches. Take a leisurely cruise along this legendary driving route with a surfboard strapped to your roof-rack, or — for a truly unforgettable experience — try skydiving to soak up some spectacular views.
18. Hike the Grampians National Park
A fantastic area for walking adventures, the Grampians are riddled with a network of sylvan treks that reward climbers and walkers with ancient Aboriginal rock art, dating from the days when this magical place was known only as Gariwerd. Ancestral home to the Jardwadjali people, the National Heritage-listed Grampians National Park is an area of outstanding natural beauty that conceals up to 90 per cent of all the historic rock art in the whole state of Victoria. The park’s (literally) breathtaking mountainous trails often end on craggy sandstone escarpments, offering viewpoints overlooking the verdant Victoria Valley.
19. Play with dolphins and dragons
Pristine Port Phillip Bay — specifically just off the beach from the seaside town of Portsea in metropolitan Melbourne — is the place to clip on your snorkel and swim with some wonderfully weird sea dragons (cousins to sea horses). You’ll find them hiding among seaweed beds, where their peculiar shape makes great camouflage. Those looking for a close encounter with something a little less alien can take a marine-mammal ecotour, allowing small groups of visitors the chance to come nose-to-nose with wild bottlenose dolphins.
20. Float across Gippsland Lakes
The interconnecting lakes Victoria, King and Wellington comprise the largest inland waterway system in Australia. Separated from the ocean by the narrow strip of 90-mile beach, the Gippsland Lakes is a supremely peaceful spot to hire a vessel and languidly bob past black swans and ponderous pelicans.
21. Come face-to-face with Ned Kelly
Ned Kelly, one of the world’s most notorious outlaws, is known for his homemade suit of bulletproof armour, portrayed on screen in 1970 by Mick Jagger, and is immortalised in Sidney Nolan’s series of iconic paintings. A visit to the Old Melbourne Gaol — which is now a museum but operated as a prison from 1845 to 1924 — gives a fascinating insight into old-fashioned Aussie justice, having held and executed some of Australia’s most notorious criminals. Kelly was hanged here in November 1880, and it’s also where you can see the bushranger’s death mask. Head over to the State Library of Victoria to see the armour worn by Kelly.