I love Melbourne, but they have to make a more efficient way to and from their airport. I had to walk 10 minutes, catch a tram, get off and walk 5 minutes, get on the sky bus for 18$ and sit on that for 30 minutes. All in all it took 65 minutes to get to their airport. There I grabbed my car and commenced the worst commute ever. Melbourne's CBD traffic makes LA's 405 highway look like a joke. It took 80 minutes to get to the city and find parking for the one store I needed to go to before I left Melbourne. $23 later for parking, I finally arrived at Lightning Ridge Opal store. I met with the owner, who happens to be a miner of opals as well and he took me through the process of mining opals and what makes an opal valuable. He also had what you could call a petting zoo....of some of Australia's deadliest animals. They are all the animals you run into while out in Alice Springs mining. The spiders, thank god, where behind glass, but the lizards and snakes were in their cages. I allowed the lizards to come within a foot of me, they were actually pretty cool. When he took one step towards the snakes to take them out, I took 5 steps back and screamed NOPENOPENOPE. He chuckled and left the snake in the cage. He then let me take 3 sets of earrings on the street and see them in the natural light, which was pretty trusting, but showed the true beauty of the stones. Why I needed to go so badly was my mom wants an opal necklace from Australia. My god, trying to find the perfect opal was gd impossible, but I think I came close. So gold is actually terribly expensive in Australia, so all the set pieces were hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. So the owner recommended I get the opals and have them set myself, which is exactly what I did....kinda. I found two beautiful stones that are about half a penny in size each and I'll let my mom pick which one she wants and I'll get it set for her. I bought myself a pair of earrings and I bought something else for my mom that seemed like something she would like, but I can't say, cause she reads this, and it's the surprise part of her Christmas present. So after I completed my Opal quest, I got a recommendation from a store clerk, who was from Montreal, about a laneway not too far from the store to grab some lunch. Melbourne is known for their laneways because they are these secret roads full of food, stores, and street art. They are absolutely beautiful. Once fed, my next mission was the Twelve Apostles. Fun fact that crap is 4+ hours from Melbourne. Hell no. I'm driving 9 hours the following day, not driving 7 hours today. So I decided to just go see the great ocean road. The great ocean road is a highway and literally does not hit the ocean until you've been on it for 2 hours. It was cold, so I snapped a picture of the stupid ocean and got back on the road in time to hit rush hour traffic in Melbourne. I had a quiet evening in, packed my bags, and got ready for my 6am alarm so I could get on the road as early as possible.
