Melbourne (Part 1)

We have just returned from a one week trip to Melbourne, the first time either of us have been there.  We had really high expectations of Melbourne before going as everyone told us that we would really love the city with its great culture and dining, and its uniqueness from any other major Australian city.  Melbourne is Australia's second largest city with a population of about 4 million people.  It was the first capital city of Australia and is the capital of the state of Victoria.  It is the home of the annual Australian Open Tennis tournament, a Formula 1 car race, and numerous other sporting and cultural events.  To the north and south are world class wine regions (Yarra Valley and Morningside Peninsula), and to the west is the iconic Great Ocean Road.

Clock Tower at the Flinders Street Train Station

Our thoughts are Melbourne really does have a different, more "European" feel than the other Australian cities that we have visited.  It is a very walkable city and has the most amazing art gallery that we have seen outside of Europe (the National Gallery of Victoria, International).  The food scene is incredibly rich and diverse and there is a real appreciation for both atmosphere and service in restaurants.  It took us a couple of days to get ourselves sorted out while finding our way through all the laneways.  After a week, the one thing that we were sure of is that we were lucky if we even found 1% of the laneways and there was no way that we could cover off a sample of every major restaurant type in a week.  Chinatown in massive, as is the long Little Italy, Melbourne is home to the largest urban Greek population outside of Athens, and there are culinary representations for practically every other European, Asian, South American and North American restaurant you can think of (although no Canadian restaurants we found...these people are missing out on the magic that is Bison...maybe we'll give up our day jobs and move there to open a Canadian Bistro...or maybe not!)

St. Patrick's Cathedral and a very wide street

Melbourne has a very user-friendly grid system for the streets, and very wide streets with two lanes of traffic and two tram lines running down the middle of most major streets in the CBD.  We learned that the Melbourne city planners wanted to ensure that no citizen would be more than a 15 minute walk from a park (hence the many large and wonderful parks) and all streets should be wide enough for a carriage to execute a U turn without unhitching the horses.  This led to the very wide streets and, possibly, to a very quirky driving law.  When driving on a CBD street (or possibly any street) in order to make a turn across traffic, the driver pulls into the outside lane, waits for all of the traffic on the inside lane and oncoming traffic to clear, and then turns.  It is sort of like going around an invisible round-about, but more confusing.  Good thing we were only walking!

Random

Almost every time we go out for a walk or to any significant place, we take a camera.  We have literally hundreds of photos that we have taken over the last 18 months.  Some of them are scenic, some are historic and some are just plain weird.  We don't really have a story that stitches all of the strangest photos together, but they certainly warrant publication.

We really enjoy going to Sydney and everytime we go, we try to visit the Art Gallery of NSW.  It is full of classic paintings, art from indigenous people, art from the Orient and modern art.  No matter how much time we have we always go to the modern section.  We have seen some of the most disturbing art there.  Not grotesque, not shocking, just disturbing, as it seems to speak to our inner frightened children.

Hairy Child, cuddling a dolly that is actually a giant hand with a mouth in the middle

The Hairy Child fascinates both of us.  It is incredibly realistic and, in it's own unsettling way, quite sweet.  But it is a girl covered in hair, cuddling a doll that is a hand with a mouth in the middle.

This, however, isn't what keeps us up at night...it is the clown.  The clown of nightmares, with his big belly and hairy chest.  Everytime we see him we expect him to open his eyes and ask for a beer!

The Clown!

We only wish that we could have the self satisfaction of the Satyr in Sydney's Botanic Gardens.  Every once in a while, when everything goes right, we think of this guy and know how he feels.

Satyr

 
And finally, when we are done walking around, we look up.  And what do we see?  Blue sky?  Clouds?  Birds?  Nope.  Bats!  Hundreds of them in the trees, all day long, just thinking their bat-thoughts.  We were happier when we thought they slept in caves during the day.
 

Basts, hanging like fruit

Lazy Weekend

We are only a couple of weeks away from our trip to Melbourne and we are both feeling like the vacation needs to start RIGHT NOW.  It might be the weather, as it is either raining and hot, or dry and hot...both with high humidity.  Both situations make it very easy to stay inside or just sit in a cafe all day, so we have had to really push ourselves to get out and about on the weekend.

When we first moved here we took the City Cat (the public transit service that runs along the river) all the way down the line.  We passed the Portside area, where cruise ships dock, but have never gone back.  We decided to walk through the neighbourhoods that are close to Portside and see a new part of Brisbane.  The neighbourhoods were lovely but most impressive part of the day was seeing the ferry terminal.  The ships that dock here are enormous!  We have no idea how big the ship is, where it was going or from where it came, but there seemed to be literally a couple thousand people milling about.  If we ever need to catch an ocean liner, now we know where to go.

Passenger ferry docked at Portside

We also try to visit the weekend markets whenever we can.  These markets pop up all over the CBD and suburbs and they are incredibly popular.  It is pretty easy on a sunny Sunday to wander through the markets and browse the day away, and clearly there were quite a few people with the same thing in mind.

Sunday Market

The most interesting part of the weekend was a lucky educational moment that we had while cutting through the Science Centre (it's shady, air-conditioned and right on the way home...what more could we ask for?)  We learned that the gender of turtles is determined not when the egg is fertilized but by the temperature the egg is at while buried in the sand.  For eggs up to 28.6ºC, the turtles will be born males, for eggs in nests that are at temperatures over 33ºC, the turtles will be born female and for the temperature range in between, anything goes (maybe little turtles with alternative lifestyles).  There are upper and lower limits to the temperatures, of course.  It pays to take short cuts through museums!