Friday 8th March 2019 - Melbourne

It felt like there were lots of things to do and see here, yet we only had the one day. As is so often the case with us we decided to walk the city! That way you get a feel for the place, you can wander into less busy areas, detour through a park, and of course stop for coffee! We had picked up some self guided walking tour leaflets yesterday, so took about 5 that looked interesting and that overlapped and made up our own walk!

We decided to get out reasonably early and set off along the south bank of the river Yarra. The Grand Prix is soon in Melbourne and there are notices of road closures that will be happening, but they are are also putting up loads of merchandising stands and Renault were already there with a racing car on display. Further on down we crossed the river to the north to bring us out at Federation Square, a very modern place that is not an open square as we had assumed but a selection of buildings that I can’t decide whether I like or not. All very angular, at different levels, yet loads of people around, relaxing on the steps, in the cafes etc.

This shows just a small part. I will leave you to make your own judgement!

From here we stopped to have a look at St Paul’s Cathedral and then carried on down Flinders Street and then into Hosier Lane with its street art and bars. I quite liked it, but Geoff wasn’t so sure!

Further on along Flinders Lane this time, to Fitzroy Gardens. As always we enjoyed walking through the gardens, looking at the different trees and plants. There are possums in the Park, but we didn’t see any! They are causing damage to trees as there are so many of them so a lot of the trees had wide strips of metal wrapped around their trunks for protection. One of the weird things today was looking at some of the leaves of the trees that are changing their colour and beginning to fall! It is hard to remember that it is early autumn here.

Geoff beside a very large eucalyptus tree! The bark has peeled from this one leaving a diamond-like pattern. I couldn’t get the whole tree into the photo without leaving Geoff all but invisible!!

Once through the park it was onto the walk entitled “Elegant Enclave”. This was in East Melbourne, just the other side of the park, and is an area of classic homes built in the Victorian era. Ian, if you are reading this you would have been in your element, and Geoff has lots of photos for you! This whole area had some really lovely homes, often built on wide, tree-lined streets, and even though we were only 20 minutes walk from the city centre it was so quiet, with few cars on the roads. There was also a decent coffee shop!

Having completed the circuit we found ourselves back in Fitzroy Gardens, so carried on with that, calling in at St Patrick’s Cathedral which is nearby, then through Treasury Gardens, back onto Flinders Lane, where soon after we joined another walking route to the arcades and lanes. This took us to the heart of Melbourne’s cafe culture. So many coffee houses, cafe’s, small restaurants and not a Starbucks, Costa or Cafe Nero in sight! (We have spotted a few McDonalds and Subways!) We had trouble choosing which one to stop at for a bite to eat, but finally found one with a table to spare and that had some light and tempting food on offer.

The lanes began life as the rear entrances to properties on the bigger streets and some of these were later roofed as ‘arcades’ to provide refuge from the weather and space for shops. They were busy! It was lunchtime and there were lots of workers around, and lots of tourists too! The whole place feels as though it is thriving and it is also very friendly. We have had conversations with a number of random strangers who have presumably seen us with maps and have come up to us to see if we need any help, or where we have come from. Even a friendly postman!

Our next port of call was a visit to The Immigration Museum, detailing the different waves of immigrants, the many reasons that caused them to leave their home countries and come here, the impact on the Aboriginal people who were already here, and the issues facing such a multicultural country. There was so much information that there came a point when you felt overloaded! People who live in the State of Victoria come from more than 200 countries, speak 260 languages and follow 135 relegious faiths! And that’s just this one State!

We had now completed 3 of the walks and were finishing off the 4th along the north bank of the river. The 5th walk was the Aboriginal one and this had overlapped all the others, highlighting particular points in the city that held a significance. Some of the places were quite a distance from where we were so we only saw a selection of them, but by now we had walked the better part of 7 or 8 miles. Total steps for today for Geoff are 21,695!

So it was then a meal and time to pack up again ready to move off early tomorrow morning!