Part 22: Luna Park Melbourne & St. Kilda - November 19 & 20

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​For my visit to the Melbourne area, I stayed with a lovely couple who lived in the St. Kilda area, which was easy to reach by trolley as several of the lines that travel through the Central Business District's Fare-Free Zone spur out to different locations of the greater Melbourne area. Having a place to stay in St. Kilda meant that I was only about a 10-15 minute walk away from Melbourne's Luna Park, So after getting checked into the Airbnb and taking a bit of a nap, I wandered on over for some rides.

In comparison to it's Sydney counterpart, Melbourne's Luna Park is much smaller, as it is enclosed inside of the classic Scenic Railway roller coaster. Entry into the park has you entering through an opening under the main lift hill. One of the unfortunate themes of this visit to Australia seemed to be that of missed coasters. I knew ahead of time that there was a chance the Scenic Railway would still be closed for on going maintenance, and as it turned out, it would not reopen for another month or two after my visit, making for about eight different roller coasters missed out on for the trip. But on the bright side, they are at least maintaining it and there will be future opportunities to come back and ride it!

While the park is small, it does have quite a bit of character thanks to some of the statues on display, along with an old trolley car that they display in the park.

Along with the Scenic Railway, the park features a few other staples of amusement parks, including a Ghost Train dark ride, swinging ship, and Ferris wheel. There was a small powered coaster that I rode, unfortunately the picture for it was incredibly blurry and not worth keeping.

The next morning, I decided to head back into the main part of St. Kilda. Because of it's location on the shores of Port Phillip Bay, St. Kilda is a popular beach town with several restaurants located near the trolley line, and a very popular sandy beach with a nearby marina.

One of the most popular attractions of St. Kilda is the Penguin Refuge. Just off the shoreline of St. Kilda, there is a breakwater that was built in 1956, and a colony of penguins decided to make a home of it. The Parks and Wildlife department had several restrictions on visiting the refuge so as to not affect the colony, but you could still go and see them for yourself.

These guys were a smaller variety of penguins called Little Penguins, or sometimes called Fairy Penguins. Their nests are deep inside, and they will come out to go to the waters to hunt for food.

Before heading back home, there was a stop for a tour of Victoria's Parliament building.

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