Breakfast at Bang & Grind -
We had to have breakfast at Bang & Grind because it is my favourite breakfast place in Cairns. I am so hungry now while typing this!
Basically, I ordered the same thing, but with an additional big mushroom (+A$4) - Egg Benedict with Smoked Salmon (A$14.90). My bf knew better not to order pancakes with super sour berry sauce. He ordered the Huevos Rancherios (A$17.90) which includes fried eggs served on sour dough with many other ingredients. The bacon is an add-on at an extra of A$4 too.
The smoked salmon on the crispy sour dough is amazingly good, especially with the green spinach & hollandaise sauce. The field mushroom is very juicy and yummy. I cannot remember the taste of the other, but my bias opinion is that it must be good :p. A long black (A$5) for me & a mochacinno (A$6) for him to start off our day.
The flight to Melbourne by Virgin Airlines -
We waited for our Sun Palm transfer bus to come and pick us up to the airport. We reached our destination quickly and had ample amount of time. While going through the gantry for checking, I stupidly left my phone in my pocket and had to go back and go through again 😩. I must be sleepy.
There are quite a number of shops on the inside. If you are hungry, you can grab a bite at the cafe. I was craving for some cold nice sandwich, but I did not see any.
As it was a 3 hour 20 mins domestic flight, I was not expecting any food. But to our pleasant surprise, there is a yummy set of snacks! The small sandwich bun satisfied my craving a bit. The vegetable crispy puff is served hot and it is so delicious! I think it is curry flavoured.
Similar to SilkAir Studio, Virgin Australia has their own entertainment system app that you can only access in-flight. You can watch movies or read interesting books, but we were so sleepy and napped on the plane instead.
Melbourne, here we are! -
First thing on my itinerary was to buy the tickets for SkyBus transfer to bring us to Southern Cross Station. The return tickets for one person cost A$36. No worries about booking the tickets in advance, the interval is quite frequent and you may get tickets directly at their booth with ease. Furthermore, our hotel was one of hotels in which free shuttle to & from Southern Cross Station is provided. You may check the website for more information. [To think I wanted to walk to the hotel or take the metro with our luggages.] At the station, we had to inform the staff which hotel we were going and then wait for the hotel pick up shuttle. The drivers will come later and shout out the hotel names for you to follow them.
There is free Wi-fi on SkyBus by the way!
There is free Wi-fi on SkyBus by the way!
Hotel Windsor -
There were a few others with us who were heading to different hotels. Ours was the third or so. We arrived at the beautiful majestic looking Hotel Windsor, which was just opposite of the parliament house. The hotel staff are always very nice. They will always greet us happily and hold the door for us. Our luggage was given to the staff to bring up while we did the check-in process (brought up to us a while later). The front desk staff was also friendly and provided lots of useful information.
The hotel lift is so cute with manual buttons like a type writer. You cannot even tell if you have pressed the button since it won't be lighted or anything. And guess what! We witnessed how the door of one of the lifts was stucked! I think the staff eventually pried it open and the people inside were all relieved to be out from the trap. No one was really upset about it though, all seemed so smiley. Maybe it was an interesting experience for them. The lift is really slow too! So we always hoped nobody takes the lift from level 4 or something. Our room was only on level 2.
Other than this minor "issue", the interior design of the hotel is really nice. Victorian style & has a very vintage feel. The chandelier and the flowers decoration are beautiful. The room itself is a little small but really cozy. I only felt that the bed could be bigger! If you are a person who is particular about your pillow, it is great news to know that Hotel Windsor provides a pillow menu. We requested for 2 types of pillows on two different days and somehow they never removed the original set. We ended up with so many pillows!
Dinner at Sempre Pizza & Calzone -
Dinner was a random walk down the street. I was quite tired and did not want to put in too much effort to decide on the food to eat.
We had a Sienna & Prova (Total: A$42) from the menu. It was a little difficult to make the choice of what to go for. We were unsure of quite a number of ingredients on the menu. It was not as clear cut to us as a chicken curry or hawaiian pizza at Pizza Hut. It was so Italian, or how I believed it to be Italian :D.
The taste is distinctly different from the Singapore localised ones. But the calzone and pizza were both tasty. One of them was a little salty if I remembered correctly. We did not really take the olive oil & chilli provided. My bf did not enjoy the dinner as much as I did.
We had a walk around the neighbourhood and I felt like my eyes were closing. I was so sleepy already. It was still so bright at 8pm or so. That night was windy and very cool! I have read about Melbourne's drastic weather change and I was excited for it.
There were a few others with us who were heading to different hotels. Ours was the third or so. We arrived at the beautiful majestic looking Hotel Windsor, which was just opposite of the parliament house. The hotel staff are always very nice. They will always greet us happily and hold the door for us. Our luggage was given to the staff to bring up while we did the check-in process (brought up to us a while later). The front desk staff was also friendly and provided lots of useful information.
The hotel lift is so cute with manual buttons like a type writer. You cannot even tell if you have pressed the button since it won't be lighted or anything. And guess what! We witnessed how the door of one of the lifts was stucked! I think the staff eventually pried it open and the people inside were all relieved to be out from the trap. No one was really upset about it though, all seemed so smiley. Maybe it was an interesting experience for them. The lift is really slow too! So we always hoped nobody takes the lift from level 4 or something. Our room was only on level 2.
Other than this minor "issue", the interior design of the hotel is really nice. Victorian style & has a very vintage feel. The chandelier and the flowers decoration are beautiful. The room itself is a little small but really cozy. I only felt that the bed could be bigger! If you are a person who is particular about your pillow, it is great news to know that Hotel Windsor provides a pillow menu. We requested for 2 types of pillows on two different days and somehow they never removed the original set. We ended up with so many pillows!
Dinner at Sempre Pizza & Calzone -
Dinner was a random walk down the street. I was quite tired and did not want to put in too much effort to decide on the food to eat.
We had a Sienna & Prova (Total: A$42) from the menu. It was a little difficult to make the choice of what to go for. We were unsure of quite a number of ingredients on the menu. It was not as clear cut to us as a chicken curry or hawaiian pizza at Pizza Hut. It was so Italian, or how I believed it to be Italian :D.
The taste is distinctly different from the Singapore localised ones. But the calzone and pizza were both tasty. One of them was a little salty if I remembered correctly. We did not really take the olive oil & chilli provided. My bf did not enjoy the dinner as much as I did.
We had a walk around the neighbourhood and I felt like my eyes were closing. I was so sleepy already. It was still so bright at 8pm or so. That night was windy and very cool! I have read about Melbourne's drastic weather change and I was excited for it.
