G’day Mates, we’re on a new continent! We took an overnight flight on New Years, party animals here with two tired toddlers in economy, and arrived in Melbourne Australia to begin 2026. I wish I could say we’d mastered jet leg at this point. However, the variability in a country’s airport, the airline and whether or not it’s a Blood Moon seems to impact the children’s mood on flights. We flew Qantas and the midnight dinner, only four hours of dimmed lights and then cheerfully served breakfast did not yield a great start to the new year for team Devereaux.
On to Australia, we found out it’s big, like really big. My original plan of spending three weeks there “only” on the East coast proved to be far too ambitious when we actually mapped out drive times. Instead, we ended up focusing on two areas: Melbourne and the Sydney/Canberra/Coast triangle. We definitely plan to come back when the kids are old enough to enjoy the water more (aka swim) to visit the Gold Coast and Great Barrier Reef.
Where Are We?
After the go go go of Japan/Hong Kong we elected for an extended stay in one spot: Melbourne. For the next two weeks, we called this city home before flying up to New South Wales (Sydney) for the remainder of our time “Down Under”. Specifically, we stayed in the North Carlton neighborhood, which gave us access to great food, parks and the tram to get anywhere in the city we would want.
Why Melbourne? We heard it was Australia’s Seattle and Portland, our fave stomping grounds. So we booked it with very little research. Melbourne is a big city, over 5 million people, but prides itself in being the more laid back, artsy place when compared to Sydney. It offers tons of green spaces, street art, delicious food and coffee, like the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life (I know that is sacrilege for a Seattle resident). I’ll be honest, our initial impressions weren’t great, as there is graffiti literally everywhere and many store fronts look run down. But, as soon as you step inside, you enter a world of decadence in all things gastronomic and craft that quickly changed our minds.
A typical day for us looked like: 1) Wake up and eat first breakfast. 2) Pick a neighborhood/park to explore. 3) Eat second breakfast at one of the many fantastic brunch spots. 4) Head home for Emmett’s nap and chill at our Airbnb. We did the same thing nearly every day and it gave us a chance to recharge. At points we felt guilty about not “optimizing” our travel time to see all we could, but neither the kids nor adults complained about the extra down time.
The outskirts of the city offer a wide variety of activities. We ended up renting a car for a few days. We visited two areas: the Yarra Valley and Phillip Island. The Yarra Valley area is known for wine and we appreciated the rolling hills and forests, a stark contrast the flat, urban sprawl of Melbourne. We visited the Healesville Sanctuary for some close encounters with Australia’s wildlife before having wood fired pizzas (and wine of course) at Zonzo Estate. Phillip Island was a longer haul, but we had to make the trek to see the adorable fairy penguin parade as the birds returned from the sea each night. The island had great beaches and a Koala sanctuary as well, where Madeline discovered that they are her spirit animal.
Overall we loved our time in Melbourne and it is on our list for a return trip. The city is also known as the Australian center for sporting events. We would love to come back particularly for the Formula1 Australia race or during the rugby season. Also, a bit further out from the city are stunning national parks and the Great Ocean Road to road trip. There is plenty more to see some day!
Favorite Experiences
Places
Here were some of our favorite activities from the trip! I put these on a map at the end of the blog along with our accommodations if you want links and more information. I used the same map for our entire Australian experience, so there is stuff on there that I’ll mention next blog.
- Queen Victoria Market – If you can’t tell from our past posts, we love a good farmer’s market. The Queen Victoria Market is a year round food, crafts and produce market in the heart of the city and was so good we went back twice. There was a swath of inexpensive, fresh produce (passion fruits!!!), and countless places to grab a bite to eat. I can’t recommend just one place to eat since we did our classic indecisive Devereauxs move of getting one item from 10 different stalls.
- Penguin Parade – An hour and a half from the city is Summerland Beach where 1000s of the world’s smallest penguins return each night from fishing to feed the chicks in their burrows. An independent company has invested heavily in ecotourism and built up a whole experience surrounding the Penguin Parade, including food court, gift store, stadium seating and guides. It’s a little touristy, but totally worth it. We particularly liked the walk back after dark where you could see the penguin parents running around below the boardwalks to hungry waiting chicks.
- Healesville Sanctuary – Out in the Yarra Valley sits the Healesville Sanctuary, a “zoo” where Australia’s many unique creates call home. This was a fantastic place to visit with the kids and see everything from platypus to kangaroos up close. The kangaroos/wallabies area didn’t actually have any fences between you and the animals and they wandered as they pleased. There were several interactive add-ons you could do with the animals as well but we were regrettably pressed for time. Leave half a day at least for this place with kids.
- Royale Park Playground – Our number one playground we visited during our time in Melbourne. It had an awesome splash park area and tons of play structures for Mae and Emmett to play “café” in.
Food/Coffee
Here were some of our favorite restaurants from our travels. I also went a little crazy on drinking as much coffee as possible while in Melbourne so I added a dedicated category on our tracker map for those places too.
- Naughty Boy Cafe – It’s hard to pick just one brunch place in Melbourne, but we went with Naughty Boy Cafe, conveniently only a block from our Airbnb. The avo toast (learned you abbreviate everything in Australia) was on point and the Flat Whites extra smooth. The kids were big fans of their waffles, complete with ice cream and cotton candy on top.
- Hareruya Pantry – We’ve visited plenty of ice cream parlors on our trip, but Hareruya stood out for its unique take. The flavors where all Asian inspired (black sesame, matcha, ect…) but the coolest part was that you could get any of them hand wrapped in Mochi, sandwiched between rice crackers, or both at the same time. The adjacent playground was the perfect combo for Emmett and Mae.
- Melbourne Coffee – If you’re a coffee drinker, Melbourne needs to be on your bucket list. From sourcing the beans to roasting through preparation, the people of Melbourne are obsessed with trying new things with coffee. I went on a solo coffee tasting experience (Molly’s Coffee Culture Tour) since Madeline isn’t a coffee fan and the kids don’t need any more energy then they already have.
- Small Batch Roasting Co. – As the name implies, a small batch roaster. We stopped here on the tour and sampled side-by-side tasting of various roasts and bean origins. It was really cool to learn about the different bean varietals and growing locations. I can now sound super snobby when I ask for Geisha washed coffee from Colombia, my personal favorite.
- Tone Coffee Roasters– The place was started by the 2015 Latte Art World Champion and remained a World Coffee Championship Judge (didn’t know that was a thing). He invented a drink called the “Tiger Bomb” with espresso, sweet cream and orange zest. I’m not usually a sweet coffee drinker, but this thing is worth the visit.
- Seven Seeds Coffee Roaster – Another, more “mainstream” roaster in the city, I went here and spent the most I’ve ever spent on a cup of coffee ($20!!!), a real “treat yo self” moment and it was delicious.
Family Moments
- Lego Star Wars: The Exhibition – My birthday happened during our stay in Melbourne and my fantastic, amazing, perfect wife discovered that the Lego Star Wars: The Exhibition serendipitously happened to be at the Melbourne Museum at that time. The exhibit , even for non-Star Wars fans, is phenomenal. There are really cool builds, process videos and interactive exhibits. We all loved creating our own robots, lightsabers and making patterned tiles for a huge Lego mosaic.
- Cemetery Shortcut – On a walk to a playground, there was a shortcut through a HUGE, ancient Italian cemetery. We were NOT prepared for all the questions from the kids. “Why do bodies go underground? Who is that? Why do they have their picture? Why doesn’t this person have a picture? Why are some bigger than others? Are you going to be buried?” for 30 minutes.
- Friends we met in Malaysia – In a “small world” moment, a family we met back in October in Malaysia happened to be in Melbourne in January at the same time. Their daughter, Sofia, was also celebrating her 6th birthday, so we got to join them for that and other meetups at playgrounds. Its been a joy meeting people along our travels and reconnecting with them along the way.
- Per Mae (5 Yr Old): Favorite moment was “Sofia at the playground” – Mae’s favorite memory of Melbourne was meeting up with Sofia and playing on the playground. The two of them, with Emmett in tow, played so well together in their own pretend universe.
- Per Emmett (2.5 Yr Old): Favorite moment was “Chocolate Dinosaurs” – Welcome to the mind of a 2.5 year old. Emmett’s favorite part of this leg were the dinosaur shaped chocolates we got at a sweets shop in the Yarra Valley. They were a big hit and he rationed those chocolates surprisingly well over almost a week.
Tips & Lessons Learned
This is where we put all of the things we learned along the way about traveling in the region as well as traveling with toddlers.
About Melbounre:
- Didn’t Need Cash – Australia is all digital. In the nearly month we were there we never used an ATM or carried any Australian dollars on us. Tap-to-pay was omnipresent.
- Melbourne Public Transportation – Melbourne was straight forward to travel around with good public transportation (free for kids!) and Google Maps providing minute-by-minute directions for which tram to hop on. You paid using a Myki Card, which you could buy/charge at the major stations or, in a rare win for Android users, have a digital Myki Card in your Google Pay wallet to recharge at will. If you are not Android, plan ahead as you may have to trek a bit far to get a card at the right station.
- Aggressive Flies– Melbourne had really aggressive flies and I’ve heard its worse in other parts of the country. They didn’t bite but whenever you were taking in a view, or eating or doing nothing at all, a random black fly would unrelentingly buzz your face.
- Check your Arrival/Departure Airport – Apparently there are two airports in Melbourne: the main one, Melbourne (MEL) and smaller one called Avalon (AVV). I accidently booked our flight to Sydney out of the latter. Luckily, it ended up being a very easy, small airport to fly out of. A little unsettling to just leave my keys at the empty rental car desk, per instruction, but worth it for a cheaper flight.
About Traveling with Toddlers:
- Document Your Accommodations – As we’ve traveled, we’ve stayed at all sorts of accommodations, many of which plenty of breakable items at kid level. Madeline has gotten in the habit of taking pictures at arrival of our stay location so we can kid-proof it but then return it to the original state before we leave.
- The Parks – Take advantage of travel destinations with good parks (like Australia!). You get some fresh air and the kids get to burn off some energy. Madeline and I have had some of our best chats while watching the kids from a nearby bench. Playing “shop” with them was a fun view into how they think economics work.
- Libraries – It was exciting to be back in an English-speaking country if only for the libraries full of English books. We got visitor library cards and the kids were more than happy to visit multiple times and read more than our standard rotation of 5 books. Australia also has a variety of toy libraries where you can borrow toys!
