Chuck Another Brim on the Barbie

Looking back - Exploring

Here is the second part of my recap on my short time in Melbourne. This time I’m going to talk a bit more about the things I have seen whilst here. Once again I have chosen four pictures out of the pile of photos that I have taken (both with my camera and with my phone). I’m likely to be rambling (just like the last post) but it’s Christmas Day and I can’t be bothered to plan out a proper narrative for each post so I’m just going to type words until everything that I wanted to say has been said.

Anyway…

As I said previously, living in Freshwater Place was awesome and one of the reasons for that was that there was always something going on in the courtyard below. I was working one of the weekends in October and on my out to work I notice this:

There was around 20 muscle cars parked outside of the building, with the owners either leaning up against them trying to look cool, furiously polishing them or keeping hawk-like eyes on kids with sticky fingers that came near their treasures.

The muscle cars, as you can imagine, were all pristine and impressive. There were all the old American favourites there; Dodge, Cadillac, Pontiac and other. I’ve never really been into classic cars but this was a rare treat and the first thing that I noticed was just how huge all of these cars were. My first thought was “how the hell do you park these things?” but I imagine ease of parking is the last thing on the minds of the owners when they are thinking about their cars. My favourite was a 50s hotrod with the full “ridiculous flames” paint job. I should have taken a picture of it really but I was already late for work and was in a rush. 

This was just one of the many things that happened outside of Freshwater Place. One of my favourites (that I never got to participate in because of work) was a mini-golf course set up to promote Kinect Sports: Season 2 on the XBox 360. There was also an old woman who took free Tai Chi classes every weekday morning. Little things like this made living at Freshwater Place interesting and you didn’t have to go far to “explore” what Melbourne had to offer.

Halloween was on a Monday this year. Why is this relevant? Well, it means that everyone would be going out for Halloween on the Friday or Saturday as that was the closest weekend to the 31st. I thought that going into the city on the Sunday morning after would be a good idea because it would be nice and quiet as everyone would be hungover and recovering.

When I got into the city (I was pretty much in the same place where the photo of Flinders Station from the last post was taken), I saw some people walking along the street in their Halloween costumes. I thought nothing of it and put it down to “walk of shame”. I look further up the street and see masses of undead looking people and start to wonder if I have drifted into a filming of the Aussie version of I Am Legend. Nope, it was the annual Melbourne Zombie Shuffle. Thousands of people in their Halloween best had shuffled all the way down Swanston Street to Federation Square. I crossed their path just as they were getting to Fed Square and snapped a photo on my phone:

Unfortunately, my picture was hastily taken and doesn’t do the scene justice. Imagine around 3,000 people dressed as zombies walking down a street in the middle of the day chanting:

What do we want? BRAINS! When do we want it? BRAINS!

Amazing. Most of the costumes were really impressive but the best had to be a guy in a full suit of armour, helmet under his arm and his face zombied up. Next year, I am definitely attending!

So far I’ve talked about exploring and have only really mentioned me walking around the city and bumping into things of interest. I did venture out of the city centre, I just spent most of that time getting lost:

My first “big trip” out of the city was to go to the Westfields Shopping Centre in Doncaster (same brand as the UK). The reason for this was that the iPhone 4S was out and I wanted one! I have bought the cheapest pay-as-you-go phone shortly after arriving and was already sick of it. When talking to my Dad on Skype he mentioned that I actually had a worse phone than him. That was the last straw!

The Apple Store in Doncaster opened at 8:00am and was around 90 minutes away by tram + bus. I got up at 6am and went to the tram stop next to my building. This was the first time that I had attempted to catch a tram since getting here and it didn’t go well. I later learned that I was in the wrong place (you essentially wait at a little barrier in the middle of the road). In knowing what my luck was like, I had already planned an alternative route, train + bus. I walked over the bridge to Flinders and grabbed the train to Lilydale and then a bus to Doncaster SC. 7:45, I hope there isn’t a queue! There was, but it wasn’t too big so I jumped on the end. 8:01 and an Apple Store employee comes out and tells us that they don’t have any stock and we should try again another time. I woke up at 6am for nothing! I had a wander around the shops but didn’t want anything else so promptly got a bus back into the city and then walked back to the apartment. What a fail!

I think my initial encounters with Melbourne’s public transport system are reflected in this photo:

What I am trying to say is that the tram is really confusing when you first start using it! The network map is not nice and simple like the London Tube Map but is just a mess of lines that all seem to be the same colour and are never going the way you want to go.

My favourite public transport “chump move” was to get the tram going the wrong way, thus ending up somewhere I didn’t want to be and somewhere much further from where I wanted to be. I did eventually get the iPhone (I reserved it on the internet and then went in to pick it up) and this made things much easier. Maps plus GPS plus MetLink Route Planner equals not getting lost nearly as much.

One of the places that I explored first is Albert Park. If you’re a Formula 1 fan, you’ll know that Albert Park is where the Australia Grand Prix is held. It is also a huge park with a massive lake. I spend a lot of time in Albert Park (playing frisbee, more on that later) and have come to love the place. It is such as nice place to be even when the weather is rubbish. Just to try and give a feel for what the place is like, I have this picture of the lake:

I could probably spend a long time talking about Albert Park (and will spend some more when I talk about frisbee some more) but it would be really boring to do so.

I will say what my favourite thing about this place is: there is so much going on. Most parks are quite quiet and peaceful place. Albert Park has spots like that but is also the hub of recreational sport in Melbourne. I was walking through one day and decided to take note of just how many different sports were being played on one day. The list was huge; soccer, Aussie rules, cricket, rugby, ultimate frisbee (of course), swimming, sailing, gold, rowing, running, cycling, baseball and tennis. I’m sure there were more that I just didn’t see too. Amazing place and I love spending time here.

I can’t write a post about exploring without mentioning the beach. Melbourne has it’s own beach in St. Kilda. To be honest, as beaches go, it isn’t the nicest or the biggest or the best. But it does have the beach and everything that comes with it. St. Kilda is full of interesting stuff and people. There are so many bars and restaurants and even more vintage shops and art galleries. St. Kilda is definitely a young persons place and I can’t think of anywhere better to live in Melbourne (more on that one later too…).

A few honourable mentions of my exploring go to:

• I went surfing for the first time in Torquay (about 1hr 30mins out of Melbourne, you may have noticed that a lot of place names are stolen from the UK). I loved it. The weather was terrible and my surfing skills were non-existent but I loved it all the same
• The various markets. There are a few big markets in Melbourne (Queen Vic, Prahran and South Melbourne are the main ones) and they are all interesting to walk through as you always see something new and there is always somewhere nice to get some coffee of a bit of lunch
• There are also loads of smaller parks and gardens around Melbourne. I’ve been trying to spend as much time outdoors as possible when not working so I can quite often be found in one of these places reading on my iPad and just enjoying life

I did say I’d be rambling didn’t I? I’ll summarise this post now so that I can get on with the next one: Even after 2 and a bit months of living here, I am always finding new things to do, see, eat and drink. It’s strange that London is a much bigger city but doesn’t feel like it has to be explored like Melbourne does. I’ve said this to Mum and Dad recently; at the moment, I can’t imagine me wanting to live anywhere else.