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Besides trams zipping every which way, Melbourne is pretty much like Sydney or the other cities we’ve seen. I’m sure a Melbournite or Sydneysider would gasp to hear that, but eh, we’re only here for two days. Haven’t had time to really get to know the place.

We found a light lunch at a pub, where we split an order of nachos. Note: nachos in foreign countries are not necessarily tasty. Then we walked over to the Carlton Gardens and Exhibition Hall, a pretty relic from some World’s Fair back in the nineteenth century. The Exhibition Hall itself was closed, though we did poke around the adjacent Melbourne Museum, which was having a show of unusual furniture. For dinner we had Chinese food and for the second time in three days, our waiter spilled a full glass of liquid on the table. (This time it was water, not red wine; and hit the table, not either of us. Whew.)

Sunday, we had breakfast at the café in the hotel (MB discovered she likes eggs benedict) and hopped the free circular tram around to the south side of downtown, home of Federation Square and the Australian Center for the Moving Image. It was hosting a big retrospective, “Pixar: The First 20 Years.”

Pixar is American as apple pie, but it was either that or BodyWorks, and we decided on the option that didn’t involve human corpses on display.

This was another high point of the trip. They prohibited all photography, which was like torture. The collection included everything from the first sketches of the Pixar lamp, “Luxo,” to clay models of the entire Incredibles family. You don’t realize how much effort these folks put into their movies until you see their production design: one sketch of Sully from Monsters Inc. broke down the different hair types all over his body and how each section would react to wind and water.

(Fun fact: Nemo’s anenome home in “Finding Nemo” is actually just a small bunch of Sully’s hair made thicker and more anenome-looking.)

The best part of the exhibit, I doubt I’ll be able to properly describe. It was a zoetrope, which can mean any device that displays static images rapidly enough to create animation. In this case, the zoetrope was a large circular platform, about seven feet across, with a couple of hundred Pixar “action figures” arranged in a repeating formation. The zoetrope spun up, and the whole platform began spinning around rapidly. Then they cut the lights and flicked on the strobe lights, and like frickin magic, you were looking at animated figures right in front of you. It was a mind-boggling thing. I want to buy one for the home. Maybe I can find a picture online or something.

Having gotten our Pixar fix for the day (sort of - we were tempted to go see Ratatouille), we wandered a bit through Federation Square and downtown, then headed back north to the State Library of Victoria. This impressive building has an enormous central reading room and is the proud displayer of Ned Kelly’s armor. (Ned was apparently some anti-government outlaw who gained some popularity while on the lam, and was captured wearing a ridiculous homemade suit of armor that looks straight out of Monty Python.) We also checked out a portraiture exhibit with presidents, musicians, actors, and other Aussie and US celebrities. Jonathan Ive even had a picture, for those Apple geeks in the audience.

Then we headed back to the hotel and ironed our nice clothes as best as possible for the evening’s ballet performance of “The Nutcracker.” At the Arts Centre, we experienced our biggest heart attack since losing MB’s bag in Sydney when the ticket lady couldn’t find any purchased tickets for Miller. Milliseconds before MB burst into tears, she finally found them under Whitmire. Whew.

The ballet was nice. The Nutcracker has so many famous songs (err, themes?) that it’s almost like a Greatest Hits compilation. And the dancing was good, though the rat king stepped on his own tail right during his big introductory dance and when WHAP. (He popped up and the song continued.)

Then it was time for our final dinner in Australia, which naturally would be at a big frou frou restaurant. Rockpool Melbourne, in this case. We drank sparkling wine (maybe a bit too much) and enjoyed steaks and a muy rich dessert along the water line.

We still had $60 in Australian cash, so as we walked out of the restaurant we decided to blow it at the adjacent casino. Didn’t take long. We don’t know much about roulette, maybe.

Then it was to bed for the final time on Australian soil. The trip home, as exciting as it seemed, would be something of an ordeal.

Surf Coast Spa, the jewel of Anglesea, was a hideous collection of purple buildings. The whole place was mid-renovation, which given its state was long overdue, but at present resulted in a construction zone-type appearance.

We missed the chance to back the car up and keep on driving. Instead we were checked into room 4, an unnecessarily large suite with a whole extra room containing three single beds.

We’d booked the “Romantic Escape Package” which includes spa treatments in the morning, breakfast delivered to the room, and champagne, chocolates, and a votive candle upon check-in. The votive candle was sitting unceremoniously on the dining table, though there was no way to light it. The untasty champagne and retail brand chocolates sat nonchalantly in the mini-fridge. Anticipating a large party, I suppose, the resort had stocked nineteen champagne glasses above the range.

Oh, but I get ahead of myself. The room itself! Pastel wall coloring. Enormous windows which in the brochure likely are advertised with a “Great Ocean Road view” but in reality look out upon a busy roundabout. If you want some privacy, you’re forced to draw the curtains, a busy floral pattern circa 1989, surrounding yourself with tacky. The furniture is wicker. The toilet seat is square.

In short, yes, this place desperately, DESPERATELY needs renovation. The construction workers across the way were accomplishing that task. In the meantime, however, we’d paid $400 for…this.

We had a tasty dinner at the local pub, apparently the only place open on a Saturday night, then headed back to our, uh, room for sleepy time.

The next morning we got the GOOD part of the $400: two one-hour spa treatments each. Kevin stuck with, you know, a massage. Normal thing. Mary Beth had to go for “candling,” wherein a paper cone is inserted in your ear, followed by a lit candle. The smoke creates a vacuum, or something like that, which draws a disturbing amount of wax out of your ear and leaves you a half-pound more clear-headed. So I have a relaxed back and Mary Beth has cleaned-out ears (feel free to joke now).

We hit the road, vowing never to speak of that hotel room again, and drove the last 100 km of the Great Ocean Road. (Part five: just a highway, no view to speak of.) The road ended ignominiously in a town called Geelong, and we drove the remaining hour into Melbourne, a busy bustling city that really really loves its public transportation: trams (aka light rail) run down almost every street, and there’s a subway network to boot.

Gratefully, we checked into the Atlantis Hotel on the western edge of downtown and I turned in my right-hand-drive Toyota Camry. I hope I never have to do that again.

The next morning was blue skies, brilliant sun, and as usual, a chilly wind. Our hosts brought down poached eggs, sausages, and other yumminess for breakfast, after which we wandered down to the empty beach and enjoyed the view.

Then it was off eastward for the official Great Ocean Road drive.

Now, the G.O.R. can be divided into four parts (my invention, not theirs). The first gets you from Warrnambool to the coast, and it’s essentially zigzagging country roads marked as the Great Ocean Road on the signs. You feel like you’ve been gipped at first.

Then you approach the coast, and out the corner of your eye, you suddenly spot a tremendous cliff formation with angry blue seas below. Out of nowhere, you’ve entered part two.

For 100 km or so, the G.O.R. skirts a continuous cliff that drops down to the Southern Ocean, in some parts as high as 1,000 feet above the water. There are scenic turnoffs almost every five minutes, which can make for very stop-and-go driving if you catch them all. Each one presents some strange new rock formation, all along the same theme of Land! Cliff! Water!

Almost at the end of this stretch is the viewing area for the Twelve Apostles, or the Postcard Image for the G.O.R. Actually only numbering seven or eight, they’re massive pillars of stone standing along the edge of the water, slowly being eaten away from underneath by the waves. It’s definitely the pinnacle of this part of the drive.

On to part three. The road peels away from the ocean, and begins a twisty-turny route through the pristine Ewok-looking forest along the peninsula. For an hour or more, you forget all about the ocean part of the road, and worry all about the 30 kph switchbacks you have to navigate. The views are of course impressive. I’d like to do it again in a Porsche (or at least a Mini).

Then in the distance the ocean reappears. Before proceeding to part four, we took the turnoff to Cape Otway, the southernmost point in mainland Australia (Tasmania of course is much further south), and the most well-known spot along the so-called Shipwreck Coast. The Cape Otway lighthouse has been in operation since 1848, when it was built by hand over 10 months. It’s not even at the highest point of land, but with the sharp drop to the water, it’s still 40 meters above sea level. We bought our overpriced admission tickets and walked the spiral staircase to the top. Outside the platform we got an encore of the bitter ocean wind that knocked us on our keisters back on Kangaroo Island. The ocean stretched for over 180 degrees around us.

That was fun. Part four! This is the original stretch of the G.O.R., which was conceived as a works program for World War I vets back in the 1920s. The road connects the dots from one coastal town to the next, hugging the curves of the coastline the whole way. This is maybe the most death-defying portion of the road; there’s more killer switchbacks, only this time instead of grass on either side you’ve got cliffs. We were just glad the weather was fine, and (unlike the oncoming traffic) we weren’t driving into the sun.

We only got a couple pictures of this portion of the trip. Shame, cause the vistas are amazing (see the banner pic at the top of the page; that’s pretty much it). But all the photo turnoffs tended to be right at the corner of the road when you had no visibility to exit and enter. So we played it safe.

Back in civilization, we had a late lunch (as before, overpriced). Around 5:30 we landed in Anglesea, where we were reserved for a Romantic Escape Package at the Surf Coast Spa and Resort.

Now, all day we’d been passing cute little B&Bs and other accommodation with killer views. So our hopes were high. Surf Coast had also been recommended by both my Lonely Planet guide book and Qantas magazine on the flight over.

We drove into the place and gasped.