Melby-ville

14th August 2006, Day 146 (Happy Birthday Mum)

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.

Here is a view along Bourke Street. One part of Melbourne CBD is on a hill and there's an excellent tram network around the city that shares the thoroughfare with the cars and pedestrians. As a result, parts of the CBD look a little like San Francisco. It's quite hard to find the shopping areas with familiar chain stores (which are in malls) - there's nothing here like Oxford Street in the West End for instance. I appreciate a few degrees less of intrusive advertising.







This is a view of the south bank of the Yarra river which runs through Melbourne. It wasn't nicest day when I took this and the shot is deceptive. It makes Melbourne look claustrophobic which it most certainly is not. According to Wikipedia:
'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.






Let me talk a little more about St. Kilda. This is a shot of the artificial 'Lady of St. Kilda' wreck on St. Kilda beach, a beach which the locals sneer at. It looks nice enough to me! St. Kilda is based around this beach, which looked like a nice spot to J.B. Were on the day he held a picnic to discuss his interest in the cargo yacht 'the Lady of St. Kilda' in about 1842. The name of the boat stuck and gradually plots of land around the bay were sold off to wealthy Melbournians. It was an exclusive place with churches and sports clubs quickly becoming established. A promenade and amusement ground (Luna Park which you can see in the picutures below) were built, making St. Kilda a magnet for outdoor pleasure. This goldne era didn't last forever, though. During the twenties and thirties this air of decadence spawned brothels and open prostitution, the 'class' of the area was dulled for a long time as a result. As prices dropped, poorer citizens moved into the area. The seedy side of St. Kilda perisisted and only in the 70's did the council confront this with a programme of gentrification. Gradually during the 80's and 90's the social strata changed again as 'polite cosmopolitanism' became the theme for the area. It remains today an area for street-cafes, posh bars and socialites. On the other hand it is home to Melbourne's backpacker community and some excellent gig venues - the most famous of which is the Esplanade Hotel (the Espy), which I expect to become our second home.

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.

Ah! Captain James Cook, I presume. The first European to set foot on Australian soil on 29 April 1770, in the place now known as Botany Bay, NSW. Despite the man's undeniable aptitude and ingenuity in his job, I wonder if colonists such as Cook will always be held in esteem? I don't suppose aboriginals regard him with fondness. This statue is just behind St. Kilda pier, not that he had much to do with Melbourne directly.

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.'

A shot of Luna Park built in 1912, but refurbished recently and still going strong almost a century later. The big gob is a St. Kilda landmark.













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.

The event was organised by Stop the War and some Unions, the format being the usual speeches followed by a march. Afterwards some people argued that the event was hi-jacked by some leftist groups and the Lebanese community when they broke off route and burnt an Israeli flag outside the State Parliament at the end. I can see both sides of the argument on this. The event was supposed to be pushing an anti-war message and this is symbolically contradictory, although it was not a march for pacifism per se. On the other hand there is a direct link between Hiroshima and the Lebanese crisis as the Israeli army are alledgedly in possession of bunker-busting bombs (GBU-28). These bombs contain depleted uranium - a carcinogenic substance that spreads in the form of a toxic and radioactive dust, which enters the lungs and bones and is especially harmful to babies and young children. Therefore whilst their relatives are being massacred by Israeli troops it would be a bit difficult to turn around and exclude Lebanese people from the march and one can understand their fury at the Israeli state's actions (I personally see the burning of the Israeli flag, under these circumstances, as a message against the state, rather than anti-semetic). Regardless the event went off without much further incident, and I was able to chat to the local anarchos and to other groups like Greenpeace, TU's and community groups.
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.

We've done a couple of other things this week such as attending a Neighbours theme night. We went mainly because it was an opportunity to hang out with our house mates and meet one of Thom's friend's Laura. I cannot deny that there was an element of curiosity on behalf having watched the daily Aussie soap continually between the years of 1988 to 1996 or so. I watched it because it is shown on BBC1 at 5.35pm - in other words, during or just before dinner time. It's banal stuff and the standard of acting has been questionable, however I certainly enjoyed watching it at the time. The character I'm pictured with is Jarrod 'Toadfish' Rebecchi. He was the only charater I recognised, so I eagerly got a snap taken. Obviously I was disappointed Harold Bishop didn't put in an appearance as he is still in the soap. The evening was full of British backpackers on a nostalgia trip so it quickly descended into druken nonsense. The main Neighbours related activities included a quiz, and footage of old episodes projected onto the back wall of the venue. It isn't something which will live on in my mind!

Oh, here's another St. Kilda icon. This is just weird. It's a mural of Steve Davis hanging above a video rental shop on Barkly Street, St. Kilda. Look at the eyes and the sucker-like fingers. We think it comes alive at night and haunts the streets.











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.