Melbourne – Revisited

Back in the city after our weekend with Di and Adrian, we check into Kate’s hotel. She has a room booked for the next 4 nights while she is working and she has asked for a twin room, which I can share with her. The gay theme continues as we find that in fact we have a double room. We ask for it to be changed and are given a smaller twin room. We probably should have gone with the flow and stayed with the double.

Melbourne Savoy

Today is the public holiday of Labour Day and we take a walk along the river front and soak up the atmosphere of the annual Moomba Festival. The festival has been running each year on this day since about 1950. Initially there was some religious resistance to the festival, as it is all about having fun and it takes place in Lent. The name was thought to come from an aboriginal word meaning something like, ‘Let’s all have fun together’. Later it was discovered either that the word has no specific meaning, or to have a rather rude connotation relating to a body part. Anyway, whatever the name of the festival, the waterfront promenade is packed with people on this warm holiday Monday and we saunter along stopping to watch the various street performers. There is a particularly good lively group playing South American beats.

Street Performers

Further along there are fun fairs on both sides of the river and on the water itself a wake-boarding competition is taking place. The crowds lounge on the grassy banks to watch as the speed boat, towing its performer, buzzes up and down the river and the commentators exclaim excitedly about the creativity of the competitors: ‘Wowwww, Steve, did you see how he pulled off that  massive 360 fakey scarecrow tailspin?’

Crowds Watching the Wake Boarding Competition

We leave the crowds and the festival behind and continue through the Botanic Gardens and on the way back to the hotel we stop in a supermarket to buy things we can eat as a picnic in our room.

The next morning we have breakfast together and then Kate has to work. I have arranged to meet up with Monica again, for some sightseeing and lunch. We meet in Federation Square and over coffee decide we will go down to a waterfront location, Port Melbourne, that  I haven’t yet visited. This is the original port of the city, but now only cruise liners and the ferry to Tasmania dock here, with the new container port being further round the coast.

Monica at Port Melbourne

Monica describes to me what the place would have been like originally, with railway tracks coming directly to the ships and warehouses set back from the waterfront. Nowadays, like so many such places, the old buildings have made way for modern apartments, shops and cafes. We have a very nice fish and chips lunch on the promenade. There is a choice of fish that I am not familiar with and I choose barramundi, which I enjoy. I am amused by the sign by the tables asking people not to feed to seagulls for the usual reasons, but also because of concern for the birds’ diet.

Fish and Chips

Do not Feed the Gulls

After lunch we wander up the high street which is a mixture of new buildings and protected old ones. There is a lovely parade of shops with their original frontages of green tiles, green glass and copper-edged windows. The streets behind the shops still have many original houses. The style is usually single-storey, with narrow frontages, but extending back a long way, rather like our old terrace houses.

Old Houses

We catch the light rail back to the city – this is a tram, which runs on original train tracks. Then we saunter back along South Bank and shelter from the heat of the sun by sitting in a café. I have enjoyed seeing Monica again and it was really interesting to have her as a local guide.

Me and Monica on South Bank

When Kate has finished work we arrange to meet up. We are both feeling like locals now, as 1 can suggest a meeting place and the other knows where it is. It is such a lovely evening that we want to be outside, rather than in the hotel room. We stop in a small supermarket to buy bits and pieces to eat and sit on a bench by a fountain in a small park to picnic, watching people on their way home and going out for the evening.

Picnic on a Bench

When decide that tomorrow evening we will attempt to cook a meal on one of the public barbecues that we have seen along the river bank. I have a penknife, there are two teaspoons in the room and Kate can get a couple of paper plates from the lunch at work tomorrow, so we can’t see it being a problem. In the morning I set off by tram for Queen Victoria Market to buy fish and vegetables. When I get there the place is deserted and I find out that Wednesday is the only day the market doesn’t run. Consulting my map and guide book I find South Melbourne Market which is on the other side of the river. I work out which tram I need to get and all is going well, until this tram stops and announces that due to some circumstances it will not be going any further and everyone has to get off. I stand by the busy intersection studying my map to try and get my bearings and a friendly lady walking past asks where I want to go. We are going in the same direction and we walk together and she shows me where the market is and where to go to catch a tram back to the city. On the recommendation of the fishmonger, I buy rockling, which is a firm white fish and then choose some vegetables to go with it. I feel quite pleased with the barbecue preparations so far.

In the afternoon I take a train to a suburb called Brighton. There are brightly painted beach huts along the back of the beach.  I have a swim and sit on the beach reading my book.

Beach Huts on Brighton Beach

Later when Kate is back from work we set off with food and our sparse utensils to cook dinner. The barbecues are electric and have a stainless steel hot plate, so it is very easy to cook on them, even with only a teaspoon. The main difficulty comes from  the strong wind which has got up and anything that we don’t hold down blows away across the road.

Barbecue

The meal is fun and successful. By the time we have finished it is dark and as we walk back along the river we enjoy the city lights.

Melbourne at Night

On my last full day in Melbourne the sky is overcast and it has rained during the night. I take a ferry from South Bank to Williamstown.  The journey lasts an hour and it is good to get a slightly different perspective of the city from the water. We journey along the Yarra River and leaving the CBD behind, we pass by the container port before reaching Williamstown, just beyond the mouth of the river.

Ferry Trip through Melbourne

Container Port

Williamstown was settled in 1835 and named after King William IV. It was the original settlement and port and would have been the site of government facilities, but for a lack of fresh water, so instead Melbourne, which was named after the Prime Minister, became the government centre. Williamstown regained its importance as the major port for Victoria during the gold rush of the early 1850s and the Victorian navy, which was the first navy in Australia, was centred here.

The little town looks back across the bay towards Melbourne and retains many of its old buildings and character, as well as hanging on to a modern ship-building industry.

 Williamstown Pier

I collect some useful pamphlets from the information centre and wander around the streets, out to the beach and back through the botanic gardens, before catching the train back to the city. This tower was used for ships to set their chronometers by. The ball is lowered from the top of the tower at 1pm each day.

Timeball Tower

Old Cottages

This evening there is a dinner to mark the end of the course that Kate has been working on. With a borrowed pretty dress from Kate and as her ‘partner’, I shall go to the ball. The meal is in a swanky restaurant belonging to a celebrity chef. There are 16 guests, including Adrian and Di, who we spent last weekend with. Everyone is friendly and chatty and the noise levels go up as the evening progresses and lightning flashes outside.. The food is tasty and interesting and the waiters have to work hard to keep the waves of small dishes coming all evening: dips; crostini; cheese balls; salads; John Dory; cured pork; lamb ribs; followed by 2 puddings.

All Dressed Up

Dinner

Tomorrow night both Kate and I fly from Melbourne airport. Kate is returning  home to Ivybridge, carrying my love to our mutual friends  and I am going back to New Zealand. I have had a great time over the last 10 days and really enjoyed spending time with Kate and getting to know her a little more. I don’t think I can claim to have seen Australia, but I have certainly seen Melbourne.