St. Kilda, Melbourne
We've settled in now. The back pack is empty under my bed.
Two shaggy haired, travel-weary fellows arrived in Melbourne just over a week ago on a train from New South Wales, and it didn't take long for Sydney's serene twin to win them over.
When we arrived that night at Southern Cross station on the western edge of Melbourne's rectangular CBD, we traversed it's perimeter to North Melbourne where a YHA hostel was situated. Nice and easy. This is a quiet suburb though not far from town and we happily made our beds for the evening, but with an urge to set-up quickly and find somewhere permanent to live for the next few months. The following day we contacted Jackson Apartments, following yet another fruitful tip-off from our friend Mr. Partington. Jackson have property all over St. Kilda, which is backpacker central. For $120 a week signed up for a decent flat as we were unlikely to strike a superior bargain elsewhere.
A few days have passed, so what do I make of the city? Well it's every bit as beautiful as Sydney in my opinion, although it doesn't have the amazing estuary location and famous landmarks. It's little more subtle than it's sister and you must know the suburbs to know Melbourne; the CBD (whilst not ugly) is rather dull like all CBDs. Socially, instead of hanging out in St. Kilda, I've spent most of my time in Fitzroy and Brunswick where there are a multitude of bustling bars and exciting music.
Some of the nicest buildings in Melbourne include Flinders Street station's Victorian architecture and the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre which is a good example of the tasteful modern architecture dispersed throughout the city. The big recent addition was Federation Square where many notable exhibitions take place with corporate sponsors. I don't know whether I like it or not yet.
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'Melbourne is typical of Australian Capital Cities in that it was built with the underlying notion of a "quarter acre home and garden". As such, much of Metropolitan Melbourne is characterised by low density sprawl.'
The sense of space is instantly appealing.
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One of the best things about St. Kilda from my perspective is Albert Park. This is a fabulous 225 Hectare park with an huge lake in the middle of it for water sports. The park also contains the Sports and Aquatic centre, redeveloped for use in the 2006 Commonwealth Games which were held in March. I found this brochure on Albert Park, which boasts of the wetlands and wildlife contained within the park. On my run this morning it looked every bit a suitable venue for an international sporting tournament. The lake provides you with one of those views of the City and CBD which makes you think of somewhere like Miami or New York; skyscrapers silhouetted against a saphire blue sky. Only today did I find out that this picturesque lake is also home to the Australian Grand Prix, which made me rather sceptical about there supposed commitment to wildlife.
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Here's a little more on the establishment of Melbourne courtesy of Wikipedia:
'The European settlement at Melbourne was founded in 1835 by settlers coming from Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land), where they had difficulty finding available land.
The area was already inhabited by the Kulin people, then indigenous to the area. A transaction was negotiated for 600,000 acres of land from eight Wurundjeri representatives; this was later annulled by the New South Wales government (then governing all of eastern mainland Australia), who compensated the settlers in exchange. Ultimately, settlement continued regardless.It was the capital first of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales and then of the separate colony of Victoria. With the discovery of gold in Victoria in the 1850s, leading to the Victorian gold rush, Melbourne quickly grew as a port and service centre.
Later it became Australia's leading manufacturing centre. During the 1880s, Melbourne was the second largest city in the British Empire, and came to be known as "Marvellous Melbourne". Victorian architecture abounds in Melbourne and today the city is home to the largest number of surviving Victorian era buildings of any city in the world other than London.'
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I mentioned in my last blog that I was looking into the political landscape of Oz. Being aware of the memorial day marking 61 years since the Hiroshima bombings, tied in with an anti-Nuke protest, James and I rolled up outside the State Library. We went to find out the response of Melbourne to the current political crisis in Lebanon.
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Later in the week I attended a local member's Greenpeace meeting, and immediately got my hands dirty by doing the minutes. My political views do not overlap exactly with theirs (which resulted in a full blown discussion-cum-argument in the pub afterwards) but am sure I can campaign with them in the short term, and play a tiny part in helping them to achieve goals which I do support. Their philosophy is based around action, and that is what interests me.
During the best part of this week, I have cast my attention towards finding work. This has mainly involved lengthy dull registration procedures with temping agencies, and personal brain wracking to find something more worthwhile than simply working in an office for 8 weeks. I went for an interview to do some 'frontline' charity work with Greenpeace which would have involved signing up members from the general public. Unfortunately I didn't get the job because I'm not around for long enough. They did offer me the chance to attend a local group meeting (which I just mentioned). Today I finally found some work with a superannuation company. Four weeks of data entry. It won't be much fun, but it is a relief that I'll have a source of income once again.
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One thing I've really kicked myself about is missing the vast majority of the Melbourne Film Festival, which has coincided with our arrival. We've had to be prudent with our cash, but we missed the bulk of it due to forgetting about it when we had time on our hands. Once our good friends Dave and Jodie rolled into town, I decided to make a last ditch attempt to see something on the closing night of the festival. After a hasty taxi journey into town, we managed to see one short and a full-length feature.
The short was entitled On the Other Ocean (Dir. Amiel Courtin-Wilson). This centred around a young woman reflecting back on a doomed childhood visit to the seaside which ended with the family having a car crash. It was beautifully shot and evocative of tender childhood, but it didn't do much more for me than that. The full-length feature was called The Desealer (Dir. James Clayden), which was am interesting look at mental-illness. It was confronted schizophrenia in the context of an intimate relationship between a man and woman. It picked up on how perception of things changes at different times of the day, and how disorientated anyone can feel under the right circumstances. Jodie thought it was a little overlong and indulgent, but I quite enjoyed it. Again I liked the mixture of shots, lighting and textures. These were both films with Melburnian directors, and I'll check out more about the local movie community whilst I'm here.
7 comments:
Thanks Dan. Will let you know how it went.
Your sister will be thrilled to see the photo of the Neighbours guy. My office colleagues were very impressed, especially by your new hair style.
That photo of steve davis is almost enough to give me nightmares, in the same league as that Ed Gein film, or Sunderland losing to Plymouth.
BTW, did you know the centre of that recently thwarted terrorist plot was Bucks? High Wycombe to be exact.
It's really amazing how you just ingratiate yourself (seemingly) so easy to each country's society. I mean, taking the minutes at a Melbourne Greenpeace Society's meeting a few days after you've arrived! I cannot fathom this outgoing, social knack you've obviously got.
Jen - Looking pathetic to get people to take pity on you helps.
Mum - That's not my new haircut, I had to get it cut for work :(
Rob - did your house get searched for Cold War paraphanalia?
bon bon hola morton san. smells like fun where you are. have been following each step of your progress with great interest tinged with plain old fashioned envy at your stig-stained adventures. XX rachel
Cheers Rach. Good to hear from you. I have avoided Stingrays, which killed the King of Australia today: Steve Irwin. I heard the only man who died from a stingray in Oz was in St. Kilda! Gadzooks!
Hey Dan, I'm another random Dan. I stayed in St Kilda a few years ago and am now back in the UK. Yesterday I was trying to describe the deformed Steve Davis on the snooker hall in St Kilda to my family.
I googled "Steve Davis St Kilda" and lo and behold, your blog came up containing a photo of the very same deformed mural of said snooker legend! So just wanted to say thanks for capturing it.
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