Sydney & Melbourne - Vegan must EAT/SEE/DO

[RiseAgainst]

We are a few weeks out from our Australia trip, I have quite a few of the top places to eat in both cities (HappyCow, Yelp, blogs,etc).

I am looking for something I might miss on those other resources and specifically anything else a couple of Vegans would find interesting in SE Australia and food in the out of way places. Here is our rough itinerary:
Sydney (2 nights) - staying CBD area
Blackheath(1 night) - going to Blue Mountains staying at apartment from AirBnb, wondering if it's best to bring food from Sydney (Go Vita?)
Yering/Yarra Valley (1 night) - staying in modern cottage in a natural setting. Yarra seems to be a foodie place if your food had a mother so thinking we should plan on picking up food on the drive out of Melbourne?
Melbourne (3 nights) - staying right in city on Collins st - one day we are driving out the Great Ocean Rd so lunch spot along that way would be good (or tell us to bring lunch from Mel)
Sydney/Bondi Beach (2 nights) - staying close to the beach, funky pies is on must do, other then that beach it if the weather is nice.

My main concern is having good meals in Yering and Blackheath. I see Go Vita everywhere, is this a good (the best?) option to pick up some to make a dinner or meal?

We are doing some scenic drives, visiting a sanctuary and just trying to see what nature we can and wildlife. In the cities we like to WALK. We walk lots when we travel, we aren't big museum peopel but we like to walk in cool neighborhoods where people live, see architecture and visit anyplace a vegan would be interested in (shops, animal sanctuaries, etc).

We got lucky and the first annual Sydney Vegan Festival is happening while we are in Sydney so we bought tickets to that and will be attending. Any locals or people that have recently visited either SYD or MEL feel free to chime in or PM me. Thanks!

[blinki]

Go Vitas can be pretty hit or miss, sometimes they are just vitamins shops with some TVP and organic cereal. The second best one I found was in Katoomba (Blue Mountains), it has a good fridge and freezer section- the best being Newtown, Sydney. In Leura (next stop along on the train line from Katoomba) there's a vegan cake shop (I forget the name but it's on Happy Cow) which is awesome, I've never met such happy cafe staff, and they have a small food menu too that'd do for lunch. If you have a kitchen then you'll be fine with Coles or Woolworths anywhere, they almost always have Frys in the freezer and a decent fridge section for burgers and stuff if you want to make meals with little actual cooking.

I made a list of places in Melbourne I like here. I'm not sure I could pick a favourite out of those but if you want someone to be more of a visit and hang out then Lentil as Anything Abbotsford, you can fit it in nicely with a walk along the river too.

In Sydney my favourite place is Revolution Food in Enmore. I think it might be my favourite vegan place ever. It might be worth checking out the vegan meet up group, it's really, really active and doesn't just go eat so you might get something interesting. Govindas on movie night is good, the dahl is good but they otherwise struggle on vegan options a bit but the movie room is good enough to make up for it. If you like Asian food (that isn't just rice, vegan and mock meat mixed together) then Vina in Newtown is good. California Burrito (which may have changed it's name but is still in the same place) in Surry Hills is the best burrito I've ever had (Australians seem to have issues with spicy food so go for hotter than you'd normally). Basil Pizza in Newtown is good for the novelty of vegan pizza and quite nice but not great. The breakfast at Mad Spud in Surry Hill is really good.

For shops the Cruelty Free shop in both Sydney and Melbourne are worth a visit, the one in Melbourne has only been open a week or two so the one in Sydney is still a fair bit better. The Sweet William white chocolate with raspberry had me going back a lot. In Melbourne it is handily next door to Fitzroy Lord of the Fries so you can have a burger then go next door for more junk food for desert. There's a (claims to be) vegan (but is actually vegetarian) shop in Newtown too which has good brownies and cake but is otherwise not that interesting.

I'd say do the I'm Free Toursin both on your first day.

[RiseAgainst]

Great, thanks! I found a few that weren't on my list that I will be adding .

So Woolworths and Coles is just a regular grocery store? I'm fine with that, just wanted to be able get some burgers/hot dogs and something simple to prepare where we had a kitchen (sandwhich or something for lunches away from the cities).

Of course I am looking for something equivalent to the Whole Foods chain here in the us (or some of the smaller natural grocery stores we have here)

[blinki]

Yeah, Woolworths and Coles are normal supermarkets but you'll get burger and sausages, plus things pies and chicken nuggets in a lot of them. They are the two big ones that are everywhere so you shouldn't struggle.

I've never been to a Wholefoods but I'm entirely sure Go Vita isn't in the same league. At their best they are like a good health food/natural grocery type place though the one in Newtown is a more decent size. The Cruelty Free shops are like all vegan little grocery stores with a few extra things like shoes and books. There's a huge South East Asian population here too so you get pretty decent Asian shops. If you go to Paddy's Market in Sydney then upstairs there's a Asian IGA supermarket and they have the best frozen vegan proteins section I've ever seen.