Travel Guides on Channel 9 – Our Guides are heading to Melbourne for a week long vacation in Victoria’s capital of cool before a quick pitstop on Phillip Island.
Starting off by hitching a free ride on the iconic City Circle green tram, our Guides check into their towering accommodation smack bang in the middle of the city centre grid at Avani Melbourne Central Residences.
Well rested, the Guides swing into the home of the southern hemispheres’ biggest sporting event, the Australian Open, for a quick bash at the National Tennis Centre. After a visit to the Tennis Lab where careful analysis proves just how bad some of our players are, it’s time to face some real champs with a game of wheelchair tennis. Despite Melbourne’s predictably unpredictable weather, the Guides join in on a very wet training session of the Australian Open Ball Kid Program where they are put through their paces.
Having worked up an appetite, the Guides are ready to test Melbourne’s claim to being Australia’s foodie capital starting with a morning dash to Lune Croissanterie in funky Fitzroy where devotees line up to try what has been reviewed as the best croissant in the world.
The perfect partner to a pastry has to be Melbourne’s famed coffee which calls for a coffee appreciation class in South Yarra at Market Lane Coffee. But not everyone is a fan of the coffee cupping.
Finishing their foodie trifecta our Guides get all dolled up and head skywards for some serious fine dining at one of the country’s best restaurants Vue De Monde situated on the 55th floor of the ritzy Rialto Building. At the starting price of $350 each for the 14 course degustation menu the Guides are left stunned by the most memorable meal of their lives.
Every year Melbourne hosts one of the world’s biggest comedy festivals and our Guides are off for a lesson in the LOLs by taking a stand up comedy class at South Melbourne’s comedy club The Rubber Chicken. It’s all laughs until they discover they’ll be performing their routine to a real, paying audience.
While crafternoons may not be everyone’s idea of a great way to relax and chill, crafts are big on the hipster Melbourne scene. Whether it be macrame or jewellery making, some of our Guides surprise with their creativity while others just get all tied up in knots.
For those looking for a slightly bigger thrill then a sausage making class with Melbourne’s famed Sausage Queen will have them pumping out metres of their personalised meaty bangers.
Shifting their holiday into top gear our Guides head two hours south to Phillip Island where they get to burn rubber on one of the greatest motorsport’s tracks on earth.
The BMW Experience is a crash course in high speed performance driving where some get fast, while others just get downright furious! And for those feeling the need for speed then being handed the keys to fang it around the track at a speed of up to 220 km/hr is a dream come true.
To wrap up the week our Guides shuffle their happy feet off to Phillip Island’s cutest tourist attraction, the nightly Little Penguin parade. Home to the largest Little Penguin colony in the world, this natural spectacle of watching their nightly return home to the burrows has some of the Guides realising that a holiday close to home can be the best. So, what will they score their Melbourne hip city trip out of 5 stars?
Travel Guides – Wednesday 13 June, 2023 at 7:30pm on Channel 9 and 9Now
TV Central Nine content HERE
