In Australia, Melbourne and Sydney have historically competed to be known as the country’s biggest and most important city. Neither has ever really won, and as a result they developed their capitol in between the two, in Canberra. The country has 6 states and 2 territories: New South Wales (Sydney), Victoria (Melbourne), Queensland (Cairns), South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, and Australian Capital Territory (Canberra).
Honestly, I was probably the least excited about visiting Melbourne on this trip, but I tried to keep an open mind. There was no real reason for it; it just doesn’t have any big iconic pull or big adventures; it’s just a city. Of course, I ended up having a really nice time, and the city was actually pretty great. Though I know I will always live in NYC, I’d say that Melbourne is the type of city I’d want to live in – fast-paced with a young and funky edge, while Sydney is the type of city I’d want to visit – lots of activities everywhere and iconic experiences.
From the airport I took a bus transfer to my hostel in the CBD (central business district, used to mean “downtown” in Sydney and Melbourne), and ended up in some pretty nasty traffic. The hostel was much nicer and quieter than the last one, and also bigger with my room on the 11th floor. I headed out that evening for the Queen Victoria Market, a huge covered market that has a big event on Wednesday nights. It sort of reminded me of the Queens Night Market but bigger and indoors. I took the tram there, which is free in the CBD. I got food from a French vendor (potatoes and cheese mmm), got some souvenirs, heard some good music, and had a nice time walking around leisurely after a long few days.
The next morning I joined the masses in the hostel kitchen for the free breakfast, where we could make pancakes. (Last night I had decided to skip the weekly free dinner when I saw the line stretching about 75 people deep.) Now, I’ve been having some issues with coffee on this trip. Much like in parts of Europe, coffee isn’t what we drink in the US. Coffee is an espresso drink, and you need to specify i.e. latte, cappuccino, flat white – an Australian specialty which has no foam. Regular coffee as I know it just doesn’t seem to exist. So in the hostels in both cities, while free coffee was widely advertised, I simply could not figure it out. There were tins of ground coffee but no coffee maker. There was hot water but no filters. I honestly just could not figure it out. In Melbourne when I finally ventured to ask the staff all I got was a point toward the coffee. So I basically gave up and have been buying my “coffee” at the ubiquitous coffee shops.
Melbourne is known for just a few things, it seems: its laneway art and its coffee. I’ll get back to the art, but let me say that the coffee did not disappoint. I took some great recommendations, but even just stumbling in anywhere was excellent. Then again, I know I’m not used to drinking espresso drinks, so I know my judgment might have been a little off. Apparently real Melbournians have a sense for what is good and bad coffee, much like I have for brewed coffee.
Anyway, fully caffeinated I joined a free walking tour. Our tour guide was an urban planner and talked a lot about buildings and culture. I definitely fell victim to some over-dry sarcasm, like when he pointed out a “drop bear” in a tree in the park, which is a koala-looking bear that jumps out of trees onto unsuspecting people and bites them; a repellent is putting vegemite on the back of your ears (the animal was really a possum and drop bears are folklore designed to scare tourists). The tour covered lots of neighborhoods and food/coffee recommendations. There were stories about famous convicts who are held up as town heroes, like the infamous Ned Kelly. We started to explore some of the famous laneway murals that Melbourne is known for, which was really great. The laneways are like alleys that cut through major streets. In New York they would be shady alleys that you don’t walk down alone, but here they are very safe and have entrances to businesses and lots of art adorning them. There were also arcades, which in the non-US refers to mall-like shopping strips. I met some cool people on the tour, including a guy from NYC, some older ladies from Melbourne, and a woman from Israel who was very excited about the Black Friday sales. I also spent a while talking with a girl from Ohio who also works for a nonprofit, who it turned out was doing a very similar itinerary as me – we stayed in the same hostel at the same time in Sydney, almost stayed in the same Melbourne hostel, and then later I even ran into her while exploring a neighborhood a half hour away.
I got lunch in one of the cute laneway cafes, coffee, and then headed out to the beach suburb of St. Kilda to meet up with my friend Megan. Before meeting up, I got tickets for an exhibition called the Rain Room, which has traveled through other cities. The trams, which so far I was happy with, were extremely messed up, the way NYC subways are on the weekends except with poor signage and alternatives. I ended up being late to my timed entry and they gave me trouble, but I got in anyway. It’s basically a dark room and it is pouring rain from the ceiling, and there are sensors so as you walk through it you don’t get wet. It was pretty cool, if quick and somewhat overpriced for what it was. Afterwards I walked along the St. Kilda beach, which was extremely windy and choppy and not the same perfect swim beaches as in Sydney, but still beautiful in its own right. I watched some kite surfers in awe as they flew through the air, and saw some work by the famous dog and rabbit sculpture artists.
I met up with Megan for dinner at a cute pay-what-you-want vegan place. It was so nice to catch up and see a friendly face a week into my solo trip. Megan was a big reason why I worked Melbourne into my itinerary. We met on a Contiki travel tour of Western Europe in 2012 and have stayed in touch; and met up in NYC a few years ago. She recently moved into a nice suburb near St. Kilda called Elwood with her boyfriend, and she is studying law while working for a fashion company. Megan is from Tasmania, and on Saturday we are flying out there together for a quick visit with her family. After dinner we walked around and got dessert, checked out a cute chill street fair, and saw the outside of Luna Park – this is notable for me because Luna Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn (the original) is where my mom and grandmother grew up. There’s also a Luna Park in Sydney which I could see from across the harbor.
On Friday, I slept in and had a slow morning. I did my laundry and Facetimed with my parents and cousins at the Thanksgiving dinner table, which was pretty cool. I also got some really great news about one of my volunteer projects I’ve been working on all year, which has been hard to process from far away, so it was nice for the slower start to the day. I was also starting to feel a little congested. But I headed out around lunchtime, got some good coffee, and did a little browsing in the CBD at Myer department store and some other stores. Then I headed outside of the CBD to check out some of the funkier neighborhoods of Fitzroy and Collingwood. I was mostly here to walk around and check out all the street art, and it was truly excellent. I found a Keith Haring mural from 1984, but it had some construction in front of it. At 6pm I went to a yoga class, for which I used my NYC ClassPass membership. I thought that was pretty cool. It was nice to stretch and move a bit. By then it was raining and I was feeling really congested, so I Ubered back, got some quick food, and went to bed for an early morning flight to Tasmania.
travels.of.tara 