Melbourne - First Impressions

I arrive at Melbourne International Airport at 11pm, after a four hour flight from Christchurch. I take the shuttle bus the 24km into the city and get dropped off at a railway station. In the station entrance 4 police officers are talking quietly to a man, who is standing with take away food wrappers in the ground around him. I get a taxi ride to my hostel and chat with the Indian driver.  It is strange to be in a big city again and be amongst high-rise buildings. The streets are wide and quiet at this time of night.  Tramlines run down the middle of the streets, but no trams are running now. The taxi makes a right turn, but Melbourne has a strange rule that the vehicles pull over to the left of the road to wait to turn right.  When I arrive at the hostel there is a group of people smoking outside the front door and still quite a few people up and about– not like the New Zealand hostels where I have stayed, where everyone is pretty much tucked up by about 10 o’clock. The hostel is in an atmospheric old building that was once a nunnery. It has high ceilings, stained glass and wonky stairs and the people working here refer to themselves as ‘The Nuns’. I am staying in the smaller guest house annex where there is a pleasantly shady back yard, paved with bricks.

The Nunnery

Courtyard

In the morning I go out to see what Melbourne is all about. Trams rumble and clang down the middle of the wide streets. Some of them are ultra-modern and bendy and others are old and quirky, with wooden loovers on the windows and leather straps hanging from the ceiling.

Modern Tram

Old Tram

I walk the streets and also hop and off the free tram which makes a circuit of the city and a free tourist shuttle bus, both of which have helpful commentaries.

It is a pleasantly warm sunny day and it is obviously the beginning of autumn here, as some leaves are beginning to fall from the trees and lie on the grass in the parks. In one park Captain Cook’s parents’ cottage stands, having been transported from England and rebuilt here to commemorate the centenary of European settlement in Melbourne in 1935.

Cook’s Cottage

Many trees in the parks, including an avenue of English elms, are protected with metal sleeves around their trunks in an attempt to stop possums climbing up and damaging them.  Possums are protected as an indigenous species, but they cause no end of damage to vegetation.

English Elms

A tree stump in a park has been carved with fairy and Australian animals.

Fairy Tree

Canna Lillies in the Royal Botanic Garden

Grand old buildings from the Victorian and Edwardian eras stand in juxtaposition with the modern high-rise blocks of the CBD.  Some streets have beautiful old terrace houses with ornate ironwork balconies. Some are shabby and other are beautifully maintained. There is no end of art and culture here, with many galleries, museums and theatres. Street art decorates the sides of buildings and the alleyways.

Exhibition Hall

Parliament Building

Ironwork Decoration on an old House

Old and New Buildings

CBD Skyline

Flinders Street Station from Federation Square

Street Art

Hiding between the main wide streets there are narrow lanes, which were laid out originally as service lanes and then took on a life of their own, with shops, arcades, cafes and bars. China Town inhabits one set of lanes.

Dumpling Restaurant in China Town

I pass a group of nurses protesting at a busy intersection. I ask them what the issues are and they explain that government cuts have reduced the staff/patient ratios and unqualified staff will now be undertaking jobs, under supervision of nurses. The atmosphere is jolly and the passing traffic toots their horns in support.

Nurses Protest

In a busy shopping street a quiet group of people hold up anti-Afghan war banners and offer leaflets to passers-by.

Anti- Afghan War Protest

The city is very cycle-friendly and people cycle to and from work and chain their bikes to railings. There is also a city bike scheme, and the blue bicycles are available from racks on the pavement.

City Bike Scheme

I visit Queen Victoria Market, which has dozens of meat, fish, fruit and vegetable stalls, as well as delicatessen shops and the usual clothes and household items for sale. The food is top quality and the atmosphere lively, with traders completing by calling out their deals of the day. I buy lamb chops and vegetables to cook later for dinner.

Queen Victoria Market

I walk past a couple of policemen talking to a pair of drunks who are begging on the steps of a building in a busy shopping street and in another part of the city a man sleeps on church steps covered with a blanket. There are a lot of students and young people sitting on the grass in the sunshine  outside the library at lunch time. Groups of smartly uniformed secondary school children wander around, taking part in their experiential curriculum. At the end of the working day the smartly dressed city workers stream out of their buildings and stride along the pavements towards the trams, trains and buses to take them home.

Outside the Library at Lunch Time

Students Photographing a Building

In the late afternoon there is a lot of rowing activity on the Yarra River. I think it is preparation for a race or event, but find out is it just the daily training routine.

Daily Rowing Training on the Yarra River

By the end of the day I feel as if I have got my bearings. I like the city. It is clean, modern, relaxed and cosmopolitan. I feel that I could almost be anywhere in the world. I am not sure what, if anything, there is here that says , ‘this is Australia’.