Melbourne
 

I will be in Melb. in a few weeks & am interested in taking some day trips. Any suggestions?

There are several you can do but they will require driving there.

1 - Daylesford and spa country. This is an old country town in a part of Victoria that has plenty of mineral springs. About 20 years ago city types began moving there and reinvigorating the place. It now has really good eating places, nice small walks you can do, and of course, plenty of places to get a massage. At Hepburn Springs, which is 3km from Daylesford is a large spa/massage centre set amongst plenty of trees. This will be approx 90min drive from Melbourne.

2 - Yarra Valley. This is wine country. Some of Victoria's best wine comes from here. Domaine Chandon does good sparkling wines. This is the only place in the valley where you have to pay for sparkling wine samplings. It costs about $15 but you get a complimentary cheese and cracker plate with the four samplings. If you go there, check out the Yarra Valley Dairy. It has cheeses, homemade ice-cream, coffee, tea etc. It is a functioning dairy so late in the afternoon you will be able to see all the cows coming home, if you are sitting down at a table having a meal or coffee. This will be approx 1hr and 15min drive from the city.

3 - Great Ocean Road. You can do a day trip to a couple of places on the Great Ocean Road. You can go as far as Lorne and still manage to see other places along the way. Airey's Inlet is an interesting stop over. Lorne itself is very busy over summer with holiday makers. There are numerous surf beaches you can stop off at before you get to Lorne. They are superb. This will take you approx 2hrs 15mins from the city.

4 - The Peninsula. You can drive to Sorrento and Portsea - which are the summer playgrounds to Melbourne's rich. Sorrento has a huge main street with plenty of cafes, a good old pub with impressive water views. Portsea is much more establishment. Both have access to the foreshore national park. There is an entry fee involved. But the areas are beautiful. While in Portsea, you can drive to the London Bridge look out. There is no entry fee here and you will be able to do a short-ish bushwalk along the coast. The drive here will be approx 2hr from the city.

Enjoy.

Thanks.

I think I would prefer taking a bus trip to any place that's over an hour away.

I think you would find it difficult to get to any of these places by bus, unless you mean an organised coach tour. Even if there is public transport to your destination, you would still need a car to get around. Unfortunately public transport in Melbourne is not the best.
If you want to do some things around Melbourne, you could get the ferry to Williamstown and wander around there - Williamstown was one of Melbourne's early ports and now has lots of little shops, restaurants, markets etc.
You could also get a boat from Southbank to see the penguins in Port Philip Bay.

There is a tourist information centre at Federation Square in Melbourne, which is directly opposite Flinders Street train station. It is a fantastic centre with plenty of information.

From there, you can pick up any number of brochures on organised bus tours to certain parts of Melbourne.

You can do a day trip to the Twelve Apostles on The Great Ocean Road. It would be a full day trip. You can also do a day trip to Phillip Island to see the penguins.

Some companies offer trips to Sovereign Hill - which is a set up of what country towns used to be like in Victoria during the gold panning days. I personally think that's a bit boring. But you may think otherwise.

If you want to do day trips within Melbourne, catch a tram to St Kilda. There are two main shopping strips but Ackland street is the more interesting. It has plenty of cafes and European cake shops. From here you can catch the ferry to Williamstown as mentioned above.

There are shopping areas you can check out but I'm sure any travel books you have already mention them. If not, and you would like more information, let me know.

Cheers.

Hello....

That's a very broad question... there are hundreds of things to do in and around Melbourne.

Try http://www.austtravel.com.au/victori..._surrounds.htm to help plan where you want to visit and http://www.austtravel.com.au/australian_tours.htm (Victoria tours) for a list of tour operators and the tours they have available with costs.

Hope this helps.....