Brooklyn Arts Hotel - Melbourne, Australia

We spent only a week in Australia and decided to spend all of it going a bit deeper into Melbourne rather than moving about in a huge country. Looking up hostels on the internet told us that they were quite a bit more expensive than in New Zealand so Kelli looked around to find something different that we could call home for the week. She happened upon the Brooklyn Arts Hotel and sent an e-mail off to Maggie the owner to see if we could stay.

Now, we don’t make a practice of staying in hotels on this trip, too expensive and frankly too impersonal and insulating. In fact, the Crown Suites Hotel in Miami is really the one and only hotel so far and that was the first night and on hotel points. But, this is not your standard hotel. More like a rambling old house with a really caring and interested owner and loads of interesting guests to meet and talk with. We met an American, funny enough from Brooklyn, who was in Melbourne to attend the wedding of a friend. The friend is the Resident Director of the Wicked production in town and as a result Kelli and Jack spent a wonderful evening at that show. We also met a jewelry designer from New Zealand, two landscape architects from Tazmania, a local Lonely Planet author, and many more interesting and genuinely friendly people. Eliot made friends with one particular guest who kindly listened intently to his many stories of our trip and then left him a very sweet note the day we left with a special pen for him to use for writing in his journal.

Maggie from the very start went out of her way making sure that our stay in Melbourne would be everything we hoped. She provided loads of information, advice and help in getting around, even lending us her car one day to travel to the Healesville Sanctuary to see Koalas, Kangaroos, and other animals unique to Australia. We enjoyed a dinner with her one night, great breakfasts and many conversations and interactions along the way. Oh, yes the easter bunny came here too and hid lots of chocolate easter eggs all around the house.

WGGSH? - Yes

WWSHA? - Absolutely