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I have photos.
Many, many photos.
So this is exciting to nobody but me. Green Frogs. They're basically an old Aussie bakery specialty: cream insides, icing outsides, on a biscuit/sponge base, with eyes piped on. They're a staple 'treat' of my childhood and I only know of one place in Sydney where you can get them anymore! Luckily it's close enough to go whenever I have a yen for something utterly sugary and totally terrible for me.
Melbourne State Library. No, not the sunken thing, but right outside it. I'm not sure what it's supposed to represent.
St Kilda, Melbourne. When I was a kid, it was known as the 'Kings Cross of Melbourne'. As an adult, I'd say it's more like Newtown: a little hippy, a little dippy, but also kind of trendy and hipster. Quite a few bars and stuff, some nice places to eat, a lot of oddment stores.
With some really ugly monuments:
And a community garden!
Alas, for we arrived about 15 minutes before they closed and I didn't get to drift through the garden at all. But it was the most delightful melange of things growing!
We went to look at St Kilda Beach which was unimpressive compared to any Sydney Beach.
Sorry, Melbourne, but that's not a beach: Manly and Bondi and Palm Beach and Clovelly and Narrabeen and Dee Why and Bronte and Curl-Curl and Coogee are beaches. Yes, the truth hurts...
Went on an Aboriginal Walk in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne and underwent a 'welcome to land' ceremony with Jakobi of a western Victoria people. The local area belonged to a different tribe, but in some of the lands where the Gardens were, it was also a meeting place for tribes. So we were welcomed in under the meeting place rules: to care for the land and respect its history and the people who lived there.
The gardens were magnificent, though. Beautifully kept and lovely to wander through.
One thing that particularly interested me about the Visitor's Centre in Melbourne Botanical Gardens was that there was a cafe with vegetable and fruiting gardens. On the left, that's society garlic (you can eat the leaf and it's pretty much like garlic) grown under a loquat tree. On the right are marigolds, in front of Vietnamese mint, in front of shiso (a kind of spicy-ish leaf for putting in vegetables)
There were also raspberries and citrus and lemongrass and, oh, so many other things growing! It was amazing!
But we'll backtrack a little.
This is me, sitting on the station at 6:15am, anxiously waiting for the train to Melbourne, having driven my sister's car to the station because my mother - who was supposed to drive me to the station to catch the train - didn't turn up. This is my mother, reknowned for being unable to sleep in, who actually managed to sleep in so soundly that it took my stepdad (whom I called because mum wasn't answering and that wasn't like mum) to shake her awake.
There was some last minute shuffling. First I was going to drive my car and leave it at the station for three weeks, then I was going to drive B1's car to the station with the spare key and she was going to pick it up with her regular key and be without a spare for a month, and then I was to lock to spare key in the glovebox and she'd pick it up that evening... It was all quite a bit of stress, not least of which was that I wasn't sure I'd make the train. The train to Melbourne leaves twice a day - once in the morning, once in the evenin. The Melbourne train in the morning leaves at 7:40 and the suburban train I was catching would arrive at 7:25, which basically means I'd have to run straight on... In the end, I did manage to get hold of a latte and made it with a little time to spare.
We've left Melbourne, travelled the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide, and caught the Ghan from Adelaide up to Alice Springs, and in to Darwin. Today is a single day in Darwin before we head for Bali - and arrive just past 12am. That'll be interesting.
Many, many photos.
So this is exciting to nobody but me. Green Frogs. They're basically an old Aussie bakery specialty: cream insides, icing outsides, on a biscuit/sponge base, with eyes piped on. They're a staple 'treat' of my childhood and I only know of one place in Sydney where you can get them anymore! Luckily it's close enough to go whenever I have a yen for something utterly sugary and totally terrible for me.
Melbourne State Library. No, not the sunken thing, but right outside it. I'm not sure what it's supposed to represent.
St Kilda, Melbourne. When I was a kid, it was known as the 'Kings Cross of Melbourne'. As an adult, I'd say it's more like Newtown: a little hippy, a little dippy, but also kind of trendy and hipster. Quite a few bars and stuff, some nice places to eat, a lot of oddment stores.
With some really ugly monuments:
And a community garden!
Alas, for we arrived about 15 minutes before they closed and I didn't get to drift through the garden at all. But it was the most delightful melange of things growing!
We went to look at St Kilda Beach which was unimpressive compared to any Sydney Beach.
Sorry, Melbourne, but that's not a beach: Manly and Bondi and Palm Beach and Clovelly and Narrabeen and Dee Why and Bronte and Curl-Curl and Coogee are beaches. Yes, the truth hurts...
Went on an Aboriginal Walk in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne and underwent a 'welcome to land' ceremony with Jakobi of a western Victoria people. The local area belonged to a different tribe, but in some of the lands where the Gardens were, it was also a meeting place for tribes. So we were welcomed in under the meeting place rules: to care for the land and respect its history and the people who lived there.
The gardens were magnificent, though. Beautifully kept and lovely to wander through.
One thing that particularly interested me about the Visitor's Centre in Melbourne Botanical Gardens was that there was a cafe with vegetable and fruiting gardens. On the left, that's society garlic (you can eat the leaf and it's pretty much like garlic) grown under a loquat tree. On the right are marigolds, in front of Vietnamese mint, in front of shiso (a kind of spicy-ish leaf for putting in vegetables)
There were also raspberries and citrus and lemongrass and, oh, so many other things growing! It was amazing!
But we'll backtrack a little.
This is me, sitting on the station at 6:15am, anxiously waiting for the train to Melbourne, having driven my sister's car to the station because my mother - who was supposed to drive me to the station to catch the train - didn't turn up. This is my mother, reknowned for being unable to sleep in, who actually managed to sleep in so soundly that it took my stepdad (whom I called because mum wasn't answering and that wasn't like mum) to shake her awake.
There was some last minute shuffling. First I was going to drive my car and leave it at the station for three weeks, then I was going to drive B1's car to the station with the spare key and she was going to pick it up with her regular key and be without a spare for a month, and then I was to lock to spare key in the glovebox and she'd pick it up that evening... It was all quite a bit of stress, not least of which was that I wasn't sure I'd make the train. The train to Melbourne leaves twice a day - once in the morning, once in the evenin. The Melbourne train in the morning leaves at 7:40 and the suburban train I was catching would arrive at 7:25, which basically means I'd have to run straight on... In the end, I did manage to get hold of a latte and made it with a little time to spare.
We've left Melbourne, travelled the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide, and caught the Ghan from Adelaide up to Alice Springs, and in to Darwin. Today is a single day in Darwin before we head for Bali - and arrive just past 12am. That'll be interesting.
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And no, St Kilda beach isn't a real beach. It's the place we go to eat fish and chips and sit to watch the sunset. For real beaches, we all go further afield.