The City of Melborune
I was flying to Melbourne, a city that was settled twice, in two different decades, in two separate locations, by two different groups of people. The first attempt took place in late 1803 and was a spectacular failure. Led by a man named Lieutenant-Governor David Collins, a British army officer, colonial administrator and newly appointed Governor of the intended settlement, the expedition set sail from England on 27 April 1803 aboard the HMS Calcutta. The purpose of the trip was to establish a penal colony and secure the southern coastline of Australia for the British, before the French laid claim to it. Accompanying Lieutenant Collins in his wee fleet was a dozen Civil officers and administrators, 50 Royal Marines, 50 free settlers and their families, 300 male convicts and around 16 convict wives who had come along for the ride.
The party arrived at the chosen site of Sullivan Bay on the Mornington Peninsula in late October 1803 and set about clearing land, constructing shelters, storehouses, developing a parade ground and completing other tasks vital to their survival. However, within a month it became clear the site was poorly chosen at best. The sandy soil was difficult to work with, there was a lack of fresh water, the timber unusable for building, crops struggled and morale quickly dipped. By January they’d decided to abandon the settlement and in February the expedition packed-up and sailed for Van Diemen’s Land, landing on the banks of the Derwent River – thus establishing what is now known as the city of Hobart. The entire experiment had lasted 14 weeks and was a complete failure in establishing a British presence on the intended coastline.
Thirty years later, in June 1835 colonial settler and part time explorer John Batman returned to Van Diemen’s Land, having completed what can only be described as a short, brief trip. Traveling with a group of likeminded Tasmanian settlers, they’d been tasked with looking for new land, suitable for grazing and one of the areas they explored was beyond the abandoned Sullivan Bay site in a place called Port Phillip. Here Batman claimed to have negotiated a treaty with local Aboriginal and recorded in his diary: “This will be the place for a village.” It was by no-means a long, drawn-out expedition. Batman had crossed Bass Strait, explored quickly, made his claim, and returned within a month.
Things progressed quickly! In August settlers arrived on the banks of the Yarra River and began establishing a permanent camp – a mere 60 kilometres from the original 1803 site. Unlike the attempt made by Collins, the northern banks of the Yarra River proved much more suitable. It supplied a reliable source of fresh water, better soil, shelter and was much more practical. From there, the settlement took off with surprising speed. Within a year rough streets were beginning to form, basic buildings replaced tents and the population had grown to some 200 people. By 1837 land sales had begun, the population had sprung to nearly 1000 people and the location was officially given the name – Melbourne.
Queen Victoria Market
When one of Melbourne’s founding father’s, John Batman died in May of 1839, he was 38 years old and buried in the Old Melbourne Cemetery. While his name would forever be linked with founding the city of Melbourne, his death wasn’t so heroic. In fact, it was rather tragic. Having contracted syphilis, the disease quickly took over his body, he became disfigured, crippled and in the final months of his life, the disease was so advanced that his nose had rotted away, he became incapacitated and had to be pushed around in a wicker carriage. He died in debt, estranged from his wife and alone. His funeral was a modest, yet well attended affair, after which he was buried in the Old Melbourne Cemetery. In the coming years he would be joined by merchants, Ministers and many other of the city’s earliest settlers until the cemetery was closed for burials in 1854.
Throughout this time, Melbourne grew at a lively pace and small wholesale and retail markets started popping up to serve the rapidly growing population. One of which surrounded the Old Melbourne Cemetery. As the market encroached on the cemetery, the public outcry became furious and proved unpopular with market gardeners and traders who refused to use the space – fearing disease and the disrespect of selling food over graves.
That was until 1876 when everything changed. The Victorian Government passed an Act officially gazetting the Old Melbourne Cemetery site as land to be reserved and developed into markets. A year later as bodies and skeletons were exhumed and re-interred at the Melbourne General Cemetery – things got a little messy. You see, back in 1864, a fire at the lodge belonging to the Old Melbourne Cemetery gatekeeper destroyed most of the burial registers. This meant when it became time to exhume most of the bodies, officials had absolutely no idea who was buried and where. So while identified graves were shifted, some 6,000 to 9,000 graves remained buried as the new market space was developed and officially opened as The Queen Victoria Market on the 20th March, 1878.
Centre Place Lane
I left the market and caught a tram into the heart of Melbourne’s CBD. After a short journey I alighted at a stop that read “Bourke Street Mall” and walked a block or two until I found myself outside St Paul’s Cathedral on what was called Swanson Street.
It was then that I suddenly realized I was rather hungry and so went looking for a place to eat – a job that you might expect to be relatively easy in a place widely considered the culinary capital of Australia. But that’s the thing about Melbourne: the city wants you to eat out as soon as you get there, launching an assault on your senses that only the very strongest of wills can resist. This is due in no small part to the fact that the city is home to more than 3,500 restaurants and cafes serving cuisines from over 70 different countries. Take Lygon Street in Carlton as an example; this “Little Italy” precinct boasts approximately 100 restaurants, cafes, and bars alone – and that’s just one street.
Consequently, choosing a place to eat becomes insanely difficult, mainly owing to the fact that there are so many options. Give me a choice between seafood and Italian and I can usually manage, add Indian, Chinese, Greek and a range of Lebanese and Asian influences to the mix and things start to get complicated. But multiply those choices by a thousand and you have a situation that is frankly alarming.
Walk down any central Melbourne street and you’ll find long queues to establishments that are now city institutions. But that doesn’t matter because you can always duck down an alleyway or side street and find a cafe that is impossibly small and roughly the same size as your living room, squeezed between two equally small eateries that nevertheless welcome you like a long lost friend, which is what I did now.
From Swanson Street I turned into Flinders Lane and then again into a small alleyway not more than 2 metres wide and 50 metres long called Centre Place.
Centre Place was transformed from a neglected service alley into a revitalised laneway by the City of Melbourne and the Victorian State Government in the 1980s, and they’ve done it exceedingly well. The alleyway is tiny, yet it holds upwards of 20 small scale cafes, sushi bars and eateries and is as much a tourist destination as it is a venue, and choosing a place to eat can be quite an overwhelming task. Fortunately the job is made easier by a series of maître d’s eagerly enticing you in.
I was on my second lap down the lane when I must have said out loud “ooh Eggs Benedict” as no sooner had the words left my mouth than a pretty young waitress dressed all in black and clothing that left little to the imagination stepped forward and pointed out they also do a New York version featuring a beef brisket. Well, before I knew what was happening I was seated, had ordered and a glass of coke was being placed in front of me by a young man in equally tight clothing and a multitude of piercings that frankly looked like they’d be both painful and annoying. From my vantage point at a table that was placed where a window once sat, I watched the comings and goings of a busy lane in the heart of Melbourne. It really was quite fascinating to watch the people drift by, and for a cafe that couldn’t have been more than 50 square metres, the food was exceedingly good.
Satisfied and full, I paid by waving my phone at a machine on the counter, a neat trick I’d recently been taught by both my wife and daughter a few nights earlier, and stepped out into the throng of foot traffic to consider my next options.
Southern Cross Railway Station
I set out in the morning with what felt like a very clear plan, tested and approved by someone far more organised than me. Walk to Newmarket Railway Station, catch the City Loop to Flagstaff Station, change trains, continue through to Southern Cross Railway Station. From there, board the train to Yarragon. Straightforward enough on the App.
Somewhere along the way, things began to loosen slightly.
At Flagstaff, the trains moved with a kind of quiet efficiency that suggested everything was working exactly as it should. There’s a certain confidence to a train arriving on time, doors opening in precisely the right place, people stepping on and off without hesitation. I, on the other hand, hovered just far enough back to suggest I was observing rather than participating, quietly double-checking that I was still following the right version of the plan.
By the time I reached Southern Cross, the plan had unravelled just enough to become interesting. Power lines had been damaged somewhere further along the line, and the train to Yarragon had been quietly replaced with a coach departing from bay 54. There was something mildly disappointing about it, though no one seemed particularly surprised. It had the feel of a well-practised disruption, as if this sort of thing happened often enough that it barely registered.
The coach made its way out to Pakenham, where we were funnelled back onto a train that carried on as if nothing had happened. No announcements, no grand explanation, just a seamless return to the original script.
Luna Park
I spent the morning riding free trams around Melbourne and, with absolutely no plans for the day beyond having to be in the suburb of Brunswick late in the afternoon, I decided to get on a tram that said it was going to St Kilda. Not having the faintest idea what was in St Kilda, or how long it would take to get there, I settled in for a leisurely ride across Melbourne as the tram rattled from side to side, and some time later, after the property prices had clearly taken a substantial leap skyward, I decided I must have arrived.
On the way, as the scenery passed, I noticed a sign advertising ‘Luna Park’. This I found curious, as I thought Luna Park was only a Sydney thing. However, it turns out I was wrong. The clue was the giant, toothy grimace of the Mr Moon entrance to the park that left me wondering if he was welcoming me or considering having me for lunch. It’s a face that has seen a lot of things since 1912, even if it is a slightly unsettling smile.
The origin of Melbourne’s iconic Mr Moon entrance face traces back to the shores of New York, when a handful of ambitious showmen designed the concept of entering a theme park through a giant gaping mouth. It was pioneered at Luna Park on Coney Island, New York, which opened in 1903, and the creators of Melbourne’s park wanted to replicate the wild success of the New York original.
When the Melbourne version was built in 1912, it was thought of as “illusionistic” architecture, and the giant face was designed to immediately transport visitors out of their everyday lives and into a world of fantasy, nonsense, and fun.
Australian Museum of Performing Arts
While riding the trams across the city of Melbourne, on more than one occasion I’d seen a poster advertising something called the ‘Diva Exhibition’. Not at all sure what it was, I’d discovered through a bit of research that it was a collection of famous dresses and costumes worn by some of the most famous women in the world from throughout history – accompanied with photos and information from their performances. Well, all I can say is that curiosity got the better of me and thinking it might give me an opportunity to play with a few new settings I’d recently discovered on my iPhone camera, I decided to take a look.
Knowing this wasn’t my usual area of expertise, I nervously shuffled in behind a gaggle of ladies and spent the next 45 minutes making my way through a series of darkened rooms feeling quite bewildered. There were names I recognised, like Olivia Newton-John, (featuring a custom-made, rhinestone-clad biker jacket for her “Summer Nights” Las Vegas residency,) and Kylie Minogue, (with the bright red outfit from her Padam Padam video with a skin-tight bodysuit, a flowing cape, and thigh-high boots.) all of which I really didn’t know anything about.
The deeper I went, the more elaborate things became. There were pieces worn by Marilyn Monroe, Shirley Bassey, and Elton John. The names kept coming, from Maria Callas, Judy Garland, Cher and Lady Gaga through to Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Billie Eilish. Without knowing who wore what or why it mattered, I wandered around waiting for large groups of ladies to finish standing in elaborate poses next to each garment before I could read the extremely helpful information boards, which without, I would have been quite lost. For example, without them, I couldn’t tell you that the outfit worn by Rihanna at the 2018 Met Gala was designed by John Galliano for Maison Margiela. It featured layers of fabric, metal, and crystals, all put together with a level of precision and expertise that really was quite startling. What struck me most, beyond the incredibly thin waistlines some of these ladies had, was that I’d never once thought about the meaning behind these outfits. Walking through the exhibition, it became clear that they’re something else entirely: storytelling, identity and statements.
Later on that evening I was to discover that not only are Rihanna and Beyoncé two different people but the outfit Rihanna wore at the 2018 Met Gala was groundbreaking. It challenged symbols of ancient, masculine power and reinterpreted them through the lens of a modern woman and is considered a defining moment. I then typed into Google “What is the Met Gala?”