Returning to New Zealand and Christchurch Cathedral

By a happy coincidence Kate and I both have flights from Melbourne on the same day as each other and almost exactly at the same time. What is not so good is that they aren’t until midnight. Kate finishes work at 3.30pm and we have both rather run out of energy and enthusiasm for more sightseeing, so we have rather a lot of time to kill. We both agree that when it is time to leave, we just want to leave. Fortunately we are both quite patient waiters and we mix it up a bit by sitting in various different places. First we sit in a café; then on the free city circle tram; a park bench; and a bus to the airport. When we arrive at the airport we find out that Kate’s flight is delayed 2 hours, to 2am. That’s not the best way to start a 24 hour plus journey. Kate is given a meal voucher as compensation, so we then use an hour sitting in a restaurant; followed by various lounge locations in departures. We form a mutual appreciation society as I tell her that I have really enjoyed my time with her and Kate is kind enough to say that her time here was also enhanced by my company. Then finally it is time for me to board my flight. It feels a bit odd, but not exactly sad, that Kate is flying back home and I am returning to New Zealand; but I am glad that she will carry my love back home to our mutual friends.  

It is very early morning and still dark when I arrive back in Christchurch, but it feels like the middle of the night to me, and as I haven’t slept, I snuggle into my sleeping bag in the back of Josephine. I am woken a few hours later by the heat of the sun on the van.  It is a beautiful day and summer seems to have returned to New Zealand while I have been away.

I want to gather some information to help me plan my next few weeks and also make a dental appointment to repair a broken tooth, so I head first to the information centre. Since the earthquakes, many things in Christchurch are not in their original location, so the first challenge is to find out where they have moved to. The information centre is now in a portacabin by the main park. Just as I left for Melbourne I heard on the news that the decision had finally been taken to demolish the cathedral. While I am browsing in the information centre I hear that this weekend and next it is possible to view the damaged cathedral.  A walkway has been constructed from the temporary portacabin shopping centre to the main city square, which is inside the square mile fenced off ‘red zone’.

A couple of security guards supervise the walkway entrance and  there are two large notices attached to the fence advising people of the dangers of entering the ‘red zone’. The first two points on one of the notices state:

1 This space is still dangerous

2 If there is an earthquake or other event you may be seriously injured or may not survive

I join the people filing into the wire fenced walkway and walk the 400m or so to the main square, looking at the devastation all around. The streets are deserted and in the distance there are the sounds of demolition.

Walking into the ‘Red Zone’

'Red Zone' Street

The walkway ends in the main square opposite the cathedral. The front of the building looks as if it has been wrenched off and what remains is propped up with huge girders. The top of the main tower is missing. Hundreds of people are gathered here; some stand quietly and others chat, but the overall atmosphere is muted and quite subdued. I overhear people sharing memories of the city as it used to be. I talk to a woman of about my age and her mother and they point out to me which of the tall buildings will be demolished and which will remain. The daughter tells me she walked past the cathedral 10 minutes before the tower fell. The mother says that she can’t remember what buildings used to occupy the now empty spaces.

People in the Square

Christchurch Cathedral

Within the crowd a woman is collecting signatures for a petition asking for a reconsideration of the decision to demolish the cathedral. A lone woman holds up a sign which says:

Our cathedral, Our city, Our choice, Our democratic right to decide

A female security guard is talking quietly to her, telling her that she can’t demonstrate here. Another security guard stands behind her, looking perplexed. Then a male security guard comes and takes her sign off her and says, ‘Come with me’, but she bravely stands her ground and with her voice breaking with emotion, she shouts out her democratic right to demonstrate. People in the crowd watch, quite shocked at her treatment, but not there are only a few muttered commnets of support. One woman chips in that the demonstration is spoiling her right to observe the cathedral in peace.

Demonstrator

On the way out of the walkway I stop to read a hand-written sign attached to the wire fence.

Message on the Fence

I feel as if I have been present at an important moment in history.

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.

Melbourne – A weekend in the Country

Today I am meeting up with my friend Kate from Ivybridge. She is doing some work in Australia and has 4 days’ break between jobs. I sit on a walk in Federation Square, watching the people coming and going and keeping a look-out for her. Suddenly there she is and we have a big hug and say how amazing it is to meet on the other side of the world. We sit for a while in the deckchairs in the square and chat to catch up with each other. While travelling almost all relationships start from scratch and it is very nice to be with someone I already know and only have 6 months' catching up to do.

Deckchairs in Federation Square

Work colleagues and friends of Kate, Di and Adrian, have kindly invited us to join them at their weekend home, which is about an hour and a half north west of the city. This is the Labour Day long weekend holiday, which celebrates the unions’ fight for an 8 hour working day. We are meeting Di at the Children’s Hospital , where she and Adrian work and we struggle onto the crowded tram with our luggage. Along the short journey and man sitting near us keeps up a grumbling commentary to himself, ‘There’s too many people on this tram; it’s always like this on a Friday, they should put more trams on; why have we stopped now?’ etc etc. We meet up with Di and we join the many other motorists on the highway who are also leaving the city for the weekend. The countryside is not so very different from England. We pass through a farming landscape dotted with trees, with large grass fields that are perhaps a little browner than at home.  Then we are off the highway and passing through pleasant small towns. The last couple of miles is on an orange-coloured dirt road and then we pull into their property. As soon as we get out of the car the smell of eucalyptus fills the air and I can feel that I am in Australia, more than I felt when I was in the city. The house is a lovely single-storey wooden building, with an open-plan living room, dining room and kitchen and a veranda that looks out across the back garden to the paddock and the forest beyond.

Di and Adrian’s Weekend House

Garden

Di shows us around the house and garden and we admire the vegetable patch, where the aubergine and cucumber plants are having a prolific harvest.

Vegetable Harvest

We walk through the grass field to the pond and as we go we can see kangaroo poo on the grass and a kookaburra sings its harsh laughing song in a nearby tree.

Di is an amazing cook and hostess and she sets to work in the kitchen and by the time Adrian has also arrived from work, she has created a delicious vegetarian curry, which is the first of many culinary delights we experience over the weekend (many of which include aubergine!)

Di making Pizzas in the Kitchen

Kate in the Lounge

The next day Kate and I take a bike ride into the nearby town of Daylesford.  As we cycle along the quiet country roads parrots and large white cockatoos fly between the trees. The town has an alternative lifestyle vibe and at the moment there is a gay festival going on and the town is full and jolly. There is already a gay theme to this weekend, as Kate and I are sharing a double bed, so we giggle that we should feel quite at home in the town. We have a cup of coffee in a nice lively café in the main street.

Coffee

Then we cycle to explore the nearby natural mineral springs. The water is pumped by hand out of a bore hole and it is naturally carbonated and tastes slightly eggy and metallic.

Mineral Spring

On Sunday morning all four of us go to a nearby café for breakfast. The menu has a range of interesting and tasty breakfast choices and we all choose something different.

Sunday Breakfast

After breakfast Di and Adrian take us for some locl sightseeing and we visit a nearby lake for a walk and Kate and I are delighted as an echidna waddles across the path in front of us. As we get closer, it tucks its head and snot under its spiny body. Kate and I are pleased to see this one, as we saw a dead one by the side of the road yesterday.

Echidna

Our next visit is to a lavender farm, which has lovely gardens and an original restored farm house.

Me and Kate at the Lavender Farm

After our outing we return to the house and have a lazy afternoon. Adrian potters in his shed,  takes some stuff to the dump, Kate finishes her book in the garden, I write up my blog and then Di shows me how to make homemade pasta, which we have later for dinner.

Homemade Pasta

Kate and I enjoy our last morning in the country by taking a walk along the road from Di and Adrian’s house. It is a beautiful day; the air feels clean and fresh and the blue sky seems very high above us. We walk along the country road, passing the occasional house. There are fields on either side of us; some with sheep grazing on the rather dry-looking brown grass. The view is wide and expansive, across slightly rolling fields to low hills in the distance.

Walk along a Country Road

4 rosellas land in a eucalyptus tree beside us. They are parrot-like birds with bright red breasts and blue wings.

Rosella

Further along there is a flock of white birds in the road. They are cockatoos and as we approach they take off and fly chaotically in all directions, making their strange cockatoo call. The bird-life here seems out-of-place in the open air, as if they have escaped from a pet shop. It is a shame that we haven’t seen more of a kangaroo than its poo.

Back at the house Di and Adrian are ready to leave to go back to the city. We have had a lovely weekend here with them and I feel very lucky to have been included. They have been the most amazing hosts – relaxed, generous, kind and good fun.

Melbourne – Hospitality

My good friend Helen Brown has friends, Monica and Bill, who live in Melbourne and she gave me their e mail address and instructions to get in touch with them. I sent an e mail to Monica to introduce myself and I got a reply straight back saying that they would love to meet me and would I like to come to dinner? They live in Blackburn, a suburb of Melbourne and I join the commuters on the early evening train to get there. Bill and his little dog meet me at the station and we drive the short distance to their house, a 1960s bungalow, where Monica is waiting. Delicious smells come from the kitchen and over a glass of cold white wine we swap stories of how we each know Helen.  Teaching is the common link. Monica did a teacher exchange and taught for a year at the same school as Helen in Sheffield in 1990. Helen and I shared the same class at Newton Ferrers Primary towards the end of the 90s.

While we chat, Bill drifts in and out, cooking the meat for dinner on the barbecue on the deck outside the lounge window. We move into the dining room for dinner. We have a delicious home-made pumpkin soup, followed by the barbecued mea,t with roasted vegetables and salad, washed down with lovely red wine. Dessert is fresh fruit salad, ice-cream and cream so thick it could almost be clotted. We talk about all sorts of things: our mutual friend; their memories of their time in England; my travels; their plans to visit Spain on their motorbike; things Australian….

After dinner we move back to the sofas in the lounge and we have several attempts to take a timed photograph of the 3 of us and the dog, who doesn’t want to co-operate, having been woken from his bed. The wine is to blame for how difficult I find it to capture the scene.  Bill suggests it is time for him to retire to bed  - he is the only one having to go to work in the morning. Monica drives me back into the city and drops me right at my hostel.

It has been a lovely evening for me and I feel overwhelmed by their kindness, friendliness and generosity by welcoming me into their home. I know that Helen will be pleased that we got together. I hope that I will be able to return the favour if they come to England again.

In the morning I have a small hang over.

Me, Monica and Bill

Melbourne – St Kilda

On my second day I take a tram ride outside the city to the beach resort of St Kilda. This was Melbourne’s original 19^th century playground, where city residents came to stroll along the palm tree-lined esplanade and take the sea air on the pier. I get off the tram at the end of the line and walk along Acland Street, which has funky cafes, hippy shops and patisseries with glass shelves in the windows crammed with yummy cakes.

Acland Street Sculture

Patissierie Window

By the seafront there is an old fairground called Luna Park, named after the original park in Coney Island, New York. The wooden rollercoaster was built in 1912 by the same people who built the American version. Unfortunately the park is only open for school groups today, so I can’t ride it, but I can hear the shrill screams from the youngsters inside and can watch the rollercoaster car trundle along the top of the wooden structure.

Luna Park Entrance

Rollercoaster

Today is windy on the seafront and being a weekday there is nobody much about. There is a definite end-of-season feeling about the place.  I walk out along the pier with a view across the marina to the Melbourne skyline. Fisherman cast their lines into the harbour from the breakwater, but I don’t see them catch anything. The building at the end is a café and was rebuilt in its original style after it burned down. This pier has been used as the gateway to Melbourne for visiting dignitaries and royalty.

End of the Pier

Marina and Melbourne Skyline

On the way back to the city, a woman of about my age gets on to the tram. She is tall and holds herself elegantly, but the skin on her face has the coarseness of an alcoholic and her nails are filthy. She wears an ankle-length boot on one foot and her other foot is bare. She carries on a lively chatty conversation in a low voice; but she is talking to no-one.