After spending a week at a geomorphology conference (and the months before it preparing), my friend, Caitlyn and I decided it was time for a bit of sightseeing. She's been in Australia for a while and hadn't yet been down to Melbourne and since I also had not yet been down there, we found a cheap deal on tickets with EasyJet and the day after my conference ended, were on our way to Victoria where we would spend two days in Melbourne and two days driving the famous Great Ocean Road!
Melbourne (pronounced "MEL-bin" and not "mel-BORNE" as my dad likes to say) was awesome! It's the second largest city in Australia, only a half-million behind Sydney, but has been able to retain a larger amount of it's Victorian charm. A lot of people say that Sydney is the cosmopolitan international city in Australia whereas Melbourne is the cosmopolitan Australian city in Australia, and I was able to see that. The city, while big and having everything a big city must, was so much quieter than Sydney and it just felt more relaxed and easy-going. In fact, it took us a while to figure out why the city was so quiet, and we realised it is because there are no buses in the whole of the Downtown area! It's true! Melbourne has maintained its tram network, the world's largest, which dates back to 1885! And while the trams are noisy when they rumble on by, once they are gone, you don't hear anything but cars going by, which is so much quieter than buses constantly starting and stopping.
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| Melbourne tram in front of Flinders Street Station |
After lunch, as full as we were, we walked back toward the hostel and wandered around the lanes and alleys for a little bit, taking in some of the nearby sights including the magnificent Flinders Street Station and St. Paul's Cathedral. It felt a bit odd walking around because it was early December and everything was decked out in Christmas decorations all over the city, but it was HOT! It was such a weird feeling seeing and hearing all the Christmas cheer without the cold and the snow that we are used to back home in Michigan! But our destination was another place Caitlyn had heard about called, Little Cupcakes. After walking past it two or three times, we finally found it and stepped in for a wee coffee and some of the dare I say cutest cupcakes I'd ever seen!
It was still early in the afternoon and we decided we'd walk off our lunch on the way to the Old Melbourne Gaol (jail), an historic building in both the city's and Australia's past. We got there right before the last tour started, and while it was a bit more expensive than the general ticket to get in, it was SO worth it! You get put in a group that is led into the Gaol as if you had been arrested. The men are lined up across from the women and everyone is given an inmate card with the background of a convict and then your guide, the Warden, makes it very clear that you are to follow all rules of the Gaol and address him or her as Sir or Ma'am throughout the tour. It's kind of funny at times, but if you have a good guide, like we did, you quickly become afraid of stepping out of line (though humourous comments were appreciated). The warden checks you for any contraband and then leads you into the holding cells for the inmates, one of which is a giant padded room, and you learn how certain inmates, like the pedophiles, get a separate outdoor space in the yard during physical activity time because otherwise they'd surely be beaten to a pulp by the other inmates. It seems short, but the tour took about half an hour and culminated in a photo op where you get to hold up the inmate clapboard and have your mugshot taken! The tour only takes you through the holding cells, but the other half of the Gaol is in the main Men's hall - three stories of cells just like in the movies, lining a central corridor with walkways around the perimeter and stairways at the ends. In each cell you learn about specific convicts, or about jailed women, or immigrants, or whatever the case may be, but the Gaol is almost most famous for being where Ned Kelly, the famous Australian outlaw, had his last meal before being hanged.
Thoroughly worn out by history, Caitlyn and I headed back toward the hostel, but not without stopping at the James Squire brewhouse (which I thought was just a Melbourne thing, but apparently the first James Squire brewery is along the Parramatta River near Sydney). The beer was good anyway and we were back to the hostel soon enough for a wee nap before once again heading out for more alcohol and food! We got dressed up a bit and Caitlyn lead the way to Mamasita for some delicious late-night Mexican food and drinks in this upstairs restaurant that was well-worth the 20-minute wait for a table! Good food, delicious drinks, and great music put us right in the mood to find a place to go out for the evening. And while we asked around for a good place to find free live music, no one could tell us of anything nearby aside from places with $20 covers, so we went off to find our own adventure.
And find it we did in the form of Cherry Bar on AC/DC Lane where there was a live band covering The Doors in celebration of Jim Morrison's birthday. It wasn't really a dive-bar per se in that it was crowded, loud, and everyone was having a great time! The band played for another hour or so before calling it quits, and we followed suit, headed back to the hostel and crashed pretty quickly into bed.
We woke up early the next morning and headed off to one of the nearby cafés in the alley-ways for a good breakfast place. We found a place, and it was good, but the food was pretty generic, and not much to remember. Caitlyn wanted to do a bit of shopping so we stopped in a few stores and then headed out to the Queen Victoria Markets which are the largest open-air markets in the Southern Hemisphere. Frankly, I was pretty unimpressed; the market stalls were filled with the usual knick-knacks, Aussie t-shirts, and iPhone covers that you can find in Sydney's Paddy's Markets. Maybe the produce was good, but we weren't planning on cooking, and there was only one aisle, off to the side, where local Melbournian vendors were selling their art. Needless to say, we didn't stay long but made our way over to La Trobe street and hopped on one of the free trams that loops the Downtown area.
Back at Federation Square, Caitlyn and I decided to split up for a few hours. She stayed in the Square and stopped into the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and National Gallery of Victoria and I took my camera and headed off to the massive Botanical Gardens. While much of Melbourne is relatively flat, the Botanical Gardens are anything but! Paths wander in and out of groves and parks and plazas and statues of royalty, but I eventually found myself looking up at the the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne's ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) Memorial. Sydney's is nice, but Melbourne's is Grand! I hadn't planned on spending as much time as I did there, but the memorial is so full of symbolism in the carved reliefs high up in the central sanctuary and an outer hall with the flags of each of the main branches of the armed services. You find marvelous views of Melbourne's skyline from the rooftop terrace of the Memorial and down in the crypts are more rooms honoring fallen soldiers and special moments in military history.
Looking at my watch, I needed to get a move on to meet Caitlyn back at the hostel but I still had a bit more of the Botanical Gardens to walk through, and I was going to go a little out of my way to see the Melbourne Olympic Stadium (which I found out is actually the Cricket Grounds and farther than I was willing to walk!). But I did walk along Batman Avenue and I passed the Rod Laver Arena where the Australian Open is held.
The afternoon was drawing on and after rendezvousing, we headed out to the suburb of Fitzroy to have dinner and beers at the Little Creatures Dining Hall where we had delicious pizza and amazing doughnuts!! Fitzroy reminded me a lot of Burlington, Vermont, with its anything-goes attitude, hole-in-the-wall boutiques and cafes, and somewhat bohemian vibe. I think it was in Fitzroy that we decided what we'd do with the rest of our evening and concluded that the best option would be to go to an open-air cinema in St. Kilda, hosted by Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream to see a showing of the sing-a-long version of Grease! Haha.
The trams took us from Fitzroy down to St. Kilda and there was plenty of time before the movie started for us to walk out to the end of the St. Kilda Pier Breakwater where the Lonely Planet Guidebook mentioned we could see tiny fairy penguins swim ashore to their nests in the rocks of the breakwater at sundown. Not too many people were out on the breakwater when we got there which allowed us to enjoy a little bit of fresh air out and watch kite surfers on Port Phillip Bay in front of the Melbourne skyline. We didn't see any penguins swimming ashore, but more people were coming out to the breakwater and soon we noticed tourists pointing between the rocks and shoving their cameras into the holes. Clearly, there were nesting penguins already ashore and we walked right past them! I kind of felt bad for the little penguins, having all those cameras and flashes being shoved in their faces, but they took it like champs and either didn't notice or pretended not to, anyway. I was conflicted because I didn't want to be part of the mob, but these were the first penguins I'd seen in the wild and had to have my own proof, so I briefly joined the mob of tourists, took my photo and left. The sun was actually setting now, so we headed over to the open-air cinema, got our free samples of B&J ice cream, rented some seats (and blankets because it was windy and freezing!), and kicked back to enjoy singing along to Danny and Sandy, Frenchie, Rizzo, Jan, Kenicke, Doodie, and the other guy. I should have known, or realised before, but it only dawned on me that Sandy was a new student from Australia, played by then-breakout-star Olivia Newton-John. Who knew? Apparently everyone else.
Once the movie was over, Caitlyn and I headed back into town to get some sleep before our road-trip started the next morning. But before any good road-trip can start, one must have a good, filling breakfast, and Caitlyn was back on top of things and we found ourselves the next morning having an amazing breakfast at The Hardware Sociéte where I wish I could remember what I had for brekkie because it was to die for! And Caitlyn was in Heaven, too, snapping photos of the light and cheerful café before heading back to the hostel one last time to pick up our bags and then it was off to pick up the rental car for our journey along the Great Ocean Road!
The Platinum of Salvo Property Group is an architecture with meaning – a building that makes a solid statement, both to City Road and the landscape of Melbourne. To know the the Platinum project, watch video here: Salvo Property Group.
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