First Time in Melbourne Australia - 48 Hours of Sights, Food, Activities & More

Melbourne claims to have Australia's best food, best coffee, best stadium and maybe even the title of Australia's best city and we've got just 48 hours to decide whether it actually deserves the hype. To give it a fair shot we've chosen three wildly different experiences. Hot air ballooning over the Yarra Valley, eating our way through Melbourne's laneways and markets and taking in a game at the iconic MCG. Will that be enough to sell us on Melbourne or will we head home convinced Brisbane is a better city? Let's find out. We've arrived at the Yarra Valley. It is 10 to 7 right now and I think it's about five degrees. So cold, so so cold. We've definitely layered up. They've been making quick work of getting this balloon set up. The basket is so much larger than I was expecting it to be. I mean I guess we're fitting about 20 people in it but I just, I don't know, I just expected it to be so much smaller. So it's going to be interesting. They did a little demonstration of how we're supposed to get into the basket and again we'll see how this is going to go. I'm already getting nervous. I know, same. Our guides came and grabbed us and asked if we wanted to come and see the balloon from this side and it's just, it's absolutely massive. It's huge. When you see it at a distance you never really understand how big it is but it's massive. When they get the flame going it sounds like thunder. It does. It's really really loud but now it looks like the balloon's just about to start rising and as soon as the basket flips up and over we have to go in fast. Hop in really quick. So we're gonna head back. Yeah. About to take off. I think there's already a couple of other balloons in the air. I started to get really nervous. I'm just picturing when it finally starts to lift off the ground how weird that's going to feel. Yeah, I'm a little nervous as well. How are you feeling about this so far? It's been pretty good actually. I think the pilot, driver, was unhappy that it's so foggy but I think the fog actually has something to it. As far as expectations go, it's been good. I've really enjoyed it so far. Yeah, no complaints. Not even two minutes ago we were down inside of the cloud. And now we're three, four hundred meters up. And we can see Melbourne CBD from here. Yeah, so that's about an hour's drive. Yeah. When we land you'll be facing the camera. Legs will be bent a little bit but strong. Not like this. Like this, holding on. All right? Coming in for a landing at any moment. Oh yeah, we're coming down quick. Just chill out. We've officially landed. We were up in the air one second and the next second we're bumping down on the ground. It wasn't bad though. They filled up the whole landing which is good and bad because I mean you want to be safe but when they hit down it's not as intense as you know. No, you're expecting it to like hit and then bounce a bunch of times but very slow motion is what it felt like. Yeah, no drama. We're walking from our hotel now to the laneways. I've heard nothing but good things and so many people have recommended that we have to see the laneways while we're in Melbourne. We haven't done a whole lot of looking up what those entail. I know Brisbane in Fortitude Valley has some that we visited but they were very very small so I'm expecting big things. We thought we'd stop along the way and get some coffee and then hopefully in the next couple days we can truthfully find out if Melbourne or Brisbane has the best coffee. I mean it's from a very popular location but I would say this is probably on par with some of the best flat whites I've had so far. Maybe this is what all coffee is going to be like in Melbourne moving forward but my expectations are very high and so far pretty good. We just finished checking out a couple of the different laneways and they're kind of interesting and I feel like people should let me know in the comments if this is true. It feels very commercial. It feels like it's only built for tourists which I mean we went there because we heard about it and a lot of the businesses that are there don't necessarily feel like they're like a small startup. My suspicion is is that at one point the laneways were like really cool and all these like small brands and now it's kind of completely commercialized and now they're all just big brands and we checked out a couple different places to eat because we wanted to stop off and try something interesting and new and eat in a laneway and the food cost was massive. I'm just jumping in to say that I fully agree with what Dave said. It was cool to see the art was nice and it was you know kind of cute with all the little shops. I think if you're coming to Melbourne you know you can swing by take a look yeah I wouldn't go back. Good morning it's our second morning in Melbourne and we're going to the Queen Victoria Market this morning. We are heading to an AFL game this afternoon so we don't have like a crazy ton of time but I feel like we're gonna have like a solid hour yeah and I looked some stuff up online. Being gluten-free I kind of need to scope out in advance just makes it easier and I'm pretty excited for some of the food items that we are going to find here. I know there's one thing in particular Dave is going to be very happy about. Oh okay. Yeah I feel like we entered the market at the perfect spot. Yeah. It's where all the food is so I think first things first we're gonna grab some coffee and then try and find something to eat. And I think this place just opened as well so there's not a lot of people here. So if you're gonna come, come exactly at 9 in the morning. Yes on a Sunday. On a Sunday. They actually opened at 6am yesterday. Today everyone sleeps in a little bit I guess. There's so many cool places. There's so many like food trucks on one side and then the other side has more like permanent stalls I guess. Oh it all looks so good. My mouth just watered as we walked past this place Cora Walk. Yeah the Korean place. That looked really good. All right let's go find some coffee. All right. It's really good coffee. We're gonna find some coffee which is really nice. Since then we've just been kind of walking around the market. It is so massive. There's so much to see. We're right now in a shipping container section. It's called Stringbean Alley. Stringbean Alley. There's like plant shops and clothing and street photography. It's really cool. We've done quite a few markets in Brisbane but I would say this market in Melbourne is the most impressive market we've been to. Even more so than the one in Sydney. There's just so many different things to look at here. I don't know I feel like we could spend half a day here just wandering around. Yeah. I've already been sad about not being able to buy produce because obviously we're leaving Melbourne tomorrow to fly back to Brisbane so it doesn't really make sense. And there's a plant container right next to us but of course we can't buy any plants because we're leaving Australia. Yeah if you didn't see our video from last week yet we are leaving Australia for good unfortunately. Well I mean hopefully we'll be back at some point but it means I can't buy all the cute plants and look at these little guys. We're walking away. We're gonna keep exploring and hopefully we can find some food shortly. I mean there's tons of food here. Oh yeah. But we have to commit to something. Yes. Perfect thank you. So after a long long wait 30-40 minutes we finally got some donuts. This is apparently the place to get them. The line was incredibly long. Sometimes lines can be misleading. Yeah. But I don't know. This is not a misleading line. I don't think this is going to be a misleading line. Didn't realize right away because just wasn't paying attention but you can actually also just place an order online. They had a QR code and then you just pick a time to come and pick them up. It's like a 15 minute window and they were basically having them ready for you like 20 minutes out from when you went to order. So yeah in hindsight if you're coming order them online go and walk around a bit and then come back to pick up your donuts because Oh hard left. Oh hard left. Because yeah we spent a lot of time doing that and we're now very behind schedule for getting to the AFL game. We still have lots of time to do it but we got things to do beforehand. We have things to do. So now we are just looking for a bratwurst place to get me something to eat. Maybe Dave something to eat and then we got to eat and walk so we can get where we're going. Well at least that was really quick. That was. The initial goal with Jess was going to go get herself a bratwurst on a gluten-free bun and then I saw them and I had to get one myself. So the donuts are now in your backpack. I haven't had one yet but they're warm and I have a feeling they're incredible if you eat them hot, the donuts. Yeah. But I'm sure they'll be just as good. In a few minutes. In a few minutes. But now we're quickly walking back to our hotel so we can get ready for the AFL game at the MCG. We're a little bit behind schedule but that happens. Even though we've got food here too I feel like we're still gonna have to get something to snack on at the game. Yeah. Let's try not to get run over. When I said earlier that I felt like you could spend half a day here I was kind of just being dramatic but I actually do think if you wanted to spend time and actually go through and see all the stalls and do some shopping I do think you could spend like six hours here. Oh yeah. We've already been here for two. All right we really invented we don't have time to stop so this is gonna be an eat and walk situation. First impression though that gluten-free bun is so soft. I have a feeling it's going to stay together as I eat it which is really exciting and just quickly I got onions, sauerkraut and mustard on it. Oh my god that's really good. That is really really good. The bratwurst is great, the bun is perfect. Donuts. Really good. We're almost back at our hotel but we just finished eating the sausage as we walked through the park. Very good. So good. My bun I think actually lasted longer than yours did. Yeah. Like it didn't fall apart at all. But the buns weren't really soft. So soft. So if you're ever in the area for a sausage that's the market for it. So we just made it back to the hotel room. Jess is quickly getting ready to head out for the game but I have donuts in my backpack still so just cracked them out. I ended up getting five donuts because they came in individual five or ten and I wasn't sure about the size of them. They're actually larger than expected. They look incredible and I thought I'd have to eat one while they're still warm and then I'll save the rest for later. Really good donut. Not like the best thing I've ever had but I think for a two dollar and fifty cent donut for the size of them that's pretty great and I do love a jelly filled donut. I'd recommend it. We've been talking about the game at the MCG throughout this video so here's a quick look at what happened. We had an absolute blast and the MCG definitely deserves all the hype it gets but rather than rush through such a big experience here we've given it a vlog on its own. In the next video we'll take you through the full match day experience and reveal which team we cheered for. All right so our subscribers have spoken and the team we're going to be cheering for today is... So it's the final morning of our trip here in Melbourne. This morning we don't actually have a lot planned. Over the last two days we've kind of done everything on our list and our list was not very long. Go to the MCG, go do a hot air balloon. We've done it now and this morning we wanted to go to a place called Patricia which is a very high rated coffee shop. Patricia is located in exactly what I think the whole alleyway situation should be like here in Melbourne. You had to walk down the street, turn right, walk down another street and then turn right next to the garbage bins. That was their door and then it was just this really tiny place packed full of people. So really fun. It kind of felt like you were discovering something. On their menu it just says black, white and filtered. I think we got white, flat white. I don't know exactly why there's only those three options or the pricing of it but that's what it is. And then another street and two alleys later there was a place called Schmuck's Bagels and they do a really big beefy bagel. So we thought we'd do coffee from Patricia, breakfast from Schmuck and what I got was the Polish hot brown which is just this absolutely massive Polish bagel. I would say this bagel is probably half a kilo. It's really really heavy and I don't know how I'm supposed to eat it in one bite. Probably one of the best bagels I've ever had. Like turkey and bacon and lettuce and mayo and yeah you should try some. So I do know because I had to look it up that the coffee situation in Melbourne they do the white, black and filtered coffee and it's just that any coffee that you get that's a white coffee is the same price. So whether it's a flat white, a cappuccino, a latte, it's the same price. I guess it just helps make it easier when you're ringing people up. It just is a lot faster. This is a really good coffee. It kind of has like a chocolatey taste to it almost. The beans they use. I'm a fan. And of course one really great thing about this Schmuck's Bagel place is that they have a gluten-free bagel and I haven't tried it yet but just from looking at the bagel itself it looks really good. It looks good quality. I'm hoping it tastes as good as it looks. It's like as big as my head. It's massive. It's so large. It's good eh? Oh my god. No notes. This is absolutely incredible. The vegetables taste super fresh. The bacon it's more like a like a back bacon. Oh so much good flavor and I'm really happy with the turkey. I was really debating between doing a chicken avo and this one here. I'm so happy. Dave had gotten the same one so I was kind of like should I get something different but then I knew I was going to be jealous if his was really good. So I got the same. The gluten-free bagel so far I mean it's only been one bite. It stayed together so I'm hoping it'll stay together for the rest of the time I'm eating it. Really really good. After 48 hours of hot air ballooning, eating our way through Melbourne's laneways and markets, and experiencing a game at the iconic MCG, did Melbourne live up to the hype? It gave us incredible food, unforgettable views, and one of the best sporting experiences we've ever had. Whether that makes Melbourne better than Brisbane, we'll let you decide. But one thing is certain, 48 hours barely let us scratch the surface of this city and we hope we'll get the chance to come back and experience more. If you enjoyed exploring Melbourne with us, give the video a like, subscribe to the channel, and join us in the next vlog for our full AFL match day experience at the MCG. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you in the next one.