Home away from home in Melbourne
A short stay accommodation provides an ideal base to go exploring in a strange city with a small kid, writes
Coming in on a sunny Monday afternoon, the space is immediately inviting. Kneebone and her husband had cleaned and re-stocked the apartment’s amenities before our arrival.
A welcome basket consisting of fresh milk in the fridge, some local cheese and hummus, crackers and fruits go a long way, especially since we have breakfast at the apartment before going on our daily excursions around Melbourne. There is also an assortment of teas and coffee pods and coffee maker to make quick drinks.
The 60-square-metre apartment feels larger than its compact size, and is packed with everything we need and more. It comes with a washing machine and a dryer (which are very well used during our time there); air-conditioning and heater; our own highspeed WiFi connection; a fully-equipped kitchen (with oven and dishwasher); and a spacious outdoor terrace with a great view of central Melbourne.
Being just outside the city centre means that we could step out onto the terrace at night and enjoy the view of the night sky without being surrounded by skyscrapers. There are also parking facilities for people who drive and a gym within the building for fitness nuts.
Kneebone has also thoughtfully provided some reusable shopping bags and Myki cards — essential for getting round on public transport in and around Melbourne — for our use while we were there.
The Myki cards are certainly helpful — there are no one-way tickets available in the Melbourne transportation system so if you’re using public transportation, you would have to purchase a non-refundable Myki card (currently A$6 or about RM17.40) for full fare card and A$3 for a concession card).
Another reason why we chose Kneebone’s place was its strategic location. It’s adjacent to Flagstaff Gardens, which separate it from the city centre and the free tram zone, and is within walking distance to the famous Queen Victoria Market (which we went to for souvenir shopping) and Errol Street cafes (which we unfortunately didn’t get a chance to check out).
A bonus being next to the park is a playground where our daughter Adila happily runs around while we wait for our check-in time.
To give an indication of how much walking is involved — I clock well over 12,000 steps each day (over 15,000 on one of the days). On a usual workday, I would be lucky to hit 3,000!
We are definitely thankful for the stroller Kneebone loaned us — it ends up being a fourth family member we couldn’t leave home without! This is something we would certainly include in our luggage for travels while she’s still young enough to sit in her stroller.
Another essential we relied heavily upon to get around was data connection — so I would highly recommend getting a local SIM card with a data plan.
This made going around easy as we could easily refer to Google maps to get around — a feature we hadn’t realised before the trip was the timetable of the public transportation system, which helped us schedule our trips around the times we had to take the trams.
In the few days, we manage to check out a few main attractions: Queen Victoria Market, the Melbourne Zoo, St Kilda and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). In between we briefly visit Federation Square, the Ian Potter Centre,