Melbourne and Bendigo
Day 205 (January 19, 2019) - Melbourne & Bendigo, Australia
After our excellent Canberra visit, it was time to head to Melbourne to visit Nick, Jenny, and their daughter Ada. Tami drove us to the bus station, where we caught a bus to a train. After about 8-9 hours in total we ended up at Southern Cross Station in Melbourne. We took a free tram to Chinatown, where we ate at Shanghai Village Dumpling, a restaurant recommended by Tami. It was BYOB, which we're always up for, so we got a cheap bottle of wine down the street and had a nice meal as we waited for Nick to make it back to his place in Melbourne from Bendigo (where he lives during the week for work).
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| Waiting for our train to Melbourne |
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| Proof we went to Tami's recommended restaurant in Chinatown |
Nick and Jenny live in Fitzroy, a suburb of Melbourne, and as we walked there from Chinatown, there was a nice sunset happening over the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens. While we never made it inside this building during our trip, it looked pretty nice from the outside, and we passed it every day we were in Melbourne. It was undergoing renovations when we were there, but apparently you can normally go up to the top and have great views of the surrounding area.
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| The Royal Exhibition Building at Sunset |
After making it to Nick's place, Nick took us out for a short walking tour of Fitzroy. It gave us some bearings of the town, and we eventually stopped at a bar for a quick beer. The next day Nick and Jenny took us for a walk around Melbourne. We again walked through Carlton Gardens on our way to the State Library of Victoria. The library obviously had books, but a substantial portion of the library was basically a museum and art exhibition center. There was an exhibit on Ned Kelly, a famous Australian outlaw, and included his suit of armor that he was killed in during a shootout with police, as well as his death mask. One of the nicest and most famous rooms in the library is the La Trobe Reading Room. The bottom level of this room looks like a wheel with spokes radiating from a central hub. The hub apparently used to be occupied by a person on the library staff, whose job it was to yell at people they caught sleeping at any of the tables. The upper floors have balconies storing books, as well as a domed roof that makes the room look quite impressive.
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| Walking through Carlton Gardens |
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| Carlton Gardens |
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| La Trobe Reading Room |
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| Dome and balconies of La Trobe Reading Room |
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| Ned Kelly's armor |
From here we walked to the National Gallery of Victoria, where there was a new exhibit on M. C. Escher's art. Well, that cost money, so we didn't do that. But we did wander around the rest of the gallery, which was free. There's a ton of art here, from classic works to modern art. It was a nice way to spend a few hours. One of the more interesting exhibits at the gallery was art by William Wegman focused on dogs, or rather, the specific Weimaraner dog breed. The artist photographed this dog breed in numerous poses and with various costumes, making for an interesting and amusing exhibit.
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| William Wegman dog art. The art of seduction. |
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| William Wegman dog art |
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| William Wegman dog art |
After the National Gallery, we walked to Federation Square, a large open space where they put on various shows or have public events. They had a huge TV set up when we were there showing the Australian Open, which was happening in Melbourne while we were there. While we didn't make it to a game, we did end up watching a few matches on TV when we got to Bali, including the final match between Nadal and Djokovic.
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| Nick and Travis in Federation Square |
After a brief walk through Federation Square, we walked to Hosier Lane, a small alley known for its graffiti. As we were told by Nick and Jenny, there are some sort of rules governing the graffiti, but they aren't at all clear to normal people (non-graffiti artists). For example, some graffiti art is vandalized with spray paint, while other graffiti art is left alone. It seemingly has nothing to do with how good the art is, or who the artist is, it seems more to do with placement, subject matter, and maybe even how long the previous art was left up before the next artist sprayed over it. Anyways, it was interesting to look at, even if we didn't completely understand the rules.
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| Street art on Hosier Lane in Melbourne |
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| More street art |
Graffiti is so prevalent in Melbourne that even an outer wall of Nick and Jenny's place in Fitzroy has it (with their permission). While other graffiti in the area has been sprayed over/vandalized, this one on the outer wall to their house has been left untouched. Apparently the graffiti follows the rules so it stays up.
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| Graffiti on Nick and Jenny's house in Fitzroy |
The next day we went down to St. Kilda, which is on the coast of Port Phillip Bay. I had been here 15 years ago with Tami and I didn't really remember much of it. I just generally remember there being bars, restaurants, and a beach area. In that sense, I guess, it hasn't changed much. We took a walk along the beach, went to a cake shop for a snack on Acland Street (the main street of St. Kilda), and then had a flat white at a coffee shop. We were going to take a walk through Luna Park, a permanent carnival in St. Kilda, but there was an entrance fee, so we decided not to. Finally, we walked through a free art exhibit in St. Kilda that focused on postcard-sized artwork. It was an interesting way to kill an hour.
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| The beach at St. Kilda |
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| Acland Street, the main street of St. Kilda |
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| The cake shop where we had a snack |
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| Postcard exhibit in St. Kilda |
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| Us posing outside the entrance to Luna Park |
After touring St. Kilda, Nick dropped us off at Southbank on the Yarra River so we could have a look around. Southbank is just an area literally on the south bank of the Yarra River that has lots of restaurants and bars, and also is the location of the largest casino complex in the southern hemisphere. Naturally we had to take a look at the casino. It is absolutely massive, with dozens and dozens of slot machines, blackjack tables, roulette tables, and other games we'd never even heard of. We took a quick walk through the casino, then headed to Ponyfish island for a beer. Ponyfish is a small floating bar in the middle of the Yarra River. It was quite crowded when we were there, and it was a unique experience being in the middle of the river.
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| A view of the city from Southbank |
After an action-packed weekend in Melbourne, we took Nick and Jenny up on their offer to visit their place in Bendigo. It was now Sunday, and our flight to Cairns wasn't until Friday, so we had plenty of time for this side trip. Bendigo is about 2 hours northwest of Melbourne, and it's where Nick has a job at a mine. The idea was we'd spend two nights in Bendigo to explore the area, and then we'd take a train back to Melbourne to have a few more days there before we had to leave. We drove out to Bendigo with Nick, Jenny, and Ada on Sunday, but we first stopped for a short hike along the way at a place called Hanging Rock. Hanging Rock is a steep rock formation formed from the cooling of thick, viscous magma.
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| The view from the top of Hanging Rock |
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| Hiking in Hanging Rock |
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| There's lots of farmland surrounding Hanging Rock |
After our hike, we were quite thirsty, so Jenny graciously drove us to several wineries in the area. We went to Hanging Rock Winery, Harcourt Valley Vineyards, and Paramoor Winery. Our favorite by far was the Paramoor Winery, since the person giving the tasting was the master brewer, and he gave lots of good insights into the wine making and blending process. The wines there also tasted the best. The best thing at Harcourt was the hard ginger beer, which we bought a pack of. There wasn't anything special about Hanging Rock Winery, except maybe its convenient location near the rock formation, but we still bought a bottle of white wine there.
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| Hanging Rock Winery |
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| One of the wineries |
Nick and Jenny's house in Bendigo was very nice. It is a bit out of town, but it is quite large and set on a big tract of land. It's surrounded by trees and is very quiet and secluded. It was nice spending two nights there. Both nights we were there we had a barbecue with wine and cheese. It was quite delicious.
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| Mark and our wine and cheese smorgasbord |
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| The property surrounding Nick and Jenny's house at sunset |
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| Nick is in the background barbecuing |
On the full day we had there, Jenny let us borrow her car to head into town. We started out at the Poppet Head Lookout, a tower that used to be used on that site for mining. Nowadays, it just gives great views of Bendigo and the surrounding area. We then walked through Rosalind Park, which is where the tower is located. It was really hot walking around, so we ducked into the air-conditioned Post Office Gallery, housed in the Bendigo Visitor Centre. The Post Office Gallery used to be the Bendigo post office, but now is used for art exhibitions. The exhibition going on while we were there had to do with death. The volunteer who was running the place was an older guy that loved to talk to us. I think he was surprised there was tourists in Bendigo from so far away (Philadelphia), so he talked our ears off. We spent most of the time chatting with him, so we didn't really even look around the museum much.
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| Poppet Head Lookout in Bendigo |
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| The view from Poppet Head Lookout |
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| Walking through Rosalind Park |
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| Skull sculpture outside the Bendigo Art Gallery |
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| Gothic art collection |
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| Gothic art collection |
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| I think this is supposed to be a hearse |
Interestingly, at the Bendigo Art Gallery we also found a large painting of Milford Sound in New Zealand. We had just been there only a few weeks prior, so it was interesting to see this painting of it done in the early 1900s. The view seems to be painted from the area where the ferry terminal is now.
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| Painting of Milford Sound, NZ in the Bendigo Art Gallery |
One of the last things we did on our self-tour of Bendigo was to visit the Sacred Heart Cathedral. Other than being one of the tallest and most recognizable buildings in Bendigo, there wasn't too much special with it. But, it was still nice to see.
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| Sacred Heart Cathedral in Bendigo |
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| Inside the Sacred Heart Cathedral |
Overall, we're really glad we spent a couple nights in Bendigo. The town was much larger and much more happening than I was expecting. I had been to small towns in Australia in the past, which is what I was expecting with Bendigo, so I was pleasantly surprised when it had more than ten buildings along a single main street (Bendigo is actually quite large).
The next day (Tuesday) we took a train back to Melbourne, leaving Nick and Jenny in Bendigo (we would reunite again on Thursday night back in Melbourne). The train actually turned out to be a bus, since they were doing work on the tracks, but it was still a relatively easy journey back to Melbourne.
Back in Melbourne, Mark and I had some errands to run. Mark needed to get some shoes and pants. We were headed to Asia soon, and we thought it might be difficult finding clothing as tall and lanky as Mark is, so we decided to look for it in Australia. We didn't do much else when back in Melbourne, except eat great food and try out a few bars in Fitzroy. One food item I insisted on trying was The Aussie, a burger offered at Hungry Jacks that has both beetroot (pickled beets) and a fried egg on it. McDonald's used to have a very similar burger called the McOz Burger, but for some reason it was discontinued. The McOz used to be my late night go-to burger after a night out at The Rege. The Hungry Jack's version (what Burger King is called in Australia due to a trademark conflict) is pretty similar. You might question why we are eating at Hungry Jacks in Australia when we should be trying local foods. Well, I would argue this is local. You can't get "Hungry Jacks" in the US (even if it is actually a Burger King), and the US certainly doesn't have The Aussie. So there.
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| The Aussie from Hungry Jacks. Nice pickled beetroot. Somewhere in there is an egg. |
Another excellent place we went to twice because it was so good was a Malaysian restaurant called The Malaysian Laksa House. We had their laksa, and it was really good. It was basically a giant bowl of coconut milk curry soup with various veggies and meat/seafood/tofu in it. I think we'd go there again in a heartbeat if we ever make it back to Melbourne. It was so good that Mark tried a laksa dish when we were in Bali, hoping for the same experience. Well, it wasn't as good as the place in Melbourne, mostly because it gave Mark some intestinal issues, so his current policy is to avoid future laksas he may encounter.
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| One of our fabulous laksa meals in Melbourne |
On Thursday night when Nick and Jenny got back to Melbourne, Nick met up with us for a few drinks. We hopped around to a few bars (including our favorite one called Mollie's Bar where they put on drag shows) and then called it a night. Nick drove us to the airport the next day and we were off to Cairns.
Thanks Nick and Jenny for hosting us in both Melbourne and Bendigo and for showing us around Melbourne, we had a great time!
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| I couldn't pick a best photo out of these three blurry options on our last night out in Melbourne, so you got them all. |
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