Good to Know About Melbourne

01 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by winifredcreamer in Australia, Melbourne

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Melbourne proved easy to live in, another testament to Jonathan’s Airbnb research skills. We were walking distance from the beach, very handy on hot days, and also close to public transport. We drove into the center of the city on our first day to go to my eye doctor appointment and it was as nightmarish as in any big city. So was the price of parking. We learned the bus, tram, train system immediately, and had no trouble getting around in the city subsequently. In fact, there is virtually no down side to Melbourne apart from the big issue–it is difficult to emigrate. We met lots of young people from all around the world in Australia for a year or two, including a woman who arrived from England the day before, and a young man returning to France next month after two years working and traveling here. None knew of a legal way to emigrate apart from marrying an Australian. The young Frenchman said, “Yes, I could, but I am here with my girlfriend and she would object.”…..

Our half of a duplex.

Airbnb: Airbnb is legal here despite the scarcity of housing across Australia. We found lots of choice, though it was not inexpensive. The neighborhood we lived in, Elwood, was a good balance of proximity to the city and also the beach. Our Aribnb was a duplex that shared a wall with neighbors, though we rarely heard them. I liked having the chance to live in one of these older houses. Ours had been thoroughly renovated, so none of the Edwardian inconveniences remained.

Bus, tram, train: Melbourne has an integrated transit system that allows you to use one pass (Myki card, $6) to get around. A genius policy decision provides free transit in the heart of downtown for everyone, card or not. The system is not inexpensive, but there is a cap on the fare you pay each day at $8.80, a full fare round trip. When we went to the Botanical Garden in the evening to see a play, my tram ride was free because I’d been in and out of the city during the day. To pay, you scan your card on a device in the station or onboard, and you scan again when you get off. In the month of our visit, only one time did a conductor pass along the aisle of the train double-checking tickets. These checks are random and the fines are high, so people pay up.

Markets: So much shopping, so little time! The Queen Victoria market is probably the best known of the Melbourne markets, and it was full of delicious goods, but so is the South Melbourne market, which we hadn’t even heard of. There’s an equally large market in Footscray, just across from the railroad station. We are visiting during the summer and that means there are weekend markets in many neighborhoods. We went to a good sized spread at the Elwood elementary school, just two blocks from our house. There are more specialized markets that lean toward artisan items on Saturdays, Sundays (St. Kilda), monthly dates, and special events including the St. Kilda Festival, the Bright’n Sandy Festival (Brighton), and many others.

Parking: This is one reason people travel by public transport. We paid $16/hour in the city center, comparable to any other world city (and less than Chicago). Parking at the beach was $5.70/hour and the price per day is capped at the three hour price, so it isn’t bad for a full day outing. Beach-hopping is a bit pricey–not that it stopped us. It is always possible to look for free parking in the neighborhoods across from the beach, but some of these areas are now posted for residents-only parking.

People: We found people in and around Melbourne to be friendly and helpful. People were easy to talk to and we often ended up in conversation on the beach, in the store, anywhere we happened to be. We got our recommendations on where to stop along the Great Ocean Road from a couple we sat next to at Mozart by Moonlight. We felt very comfortable here.

Phone: We use the Optus phone service we began in Tasmania, and renew automatically every 28 days ($30). The pay as you go service is heavy on data. Apparently people who use this tend to watch video on their phone. The good news is this means we’ll never run out of data and can look up directions constantly. The phone battery runs down long before the data runs out.

Weather: Welcome to global warming. Some days it was 95, others topped out in the high 60s. I don’t think this is unusual anymore–call it the new normal. It can be difficult to have the right clothes at the right time. Dress for something between sunbathing and cross-country skiing. We tried, and mostly succeeded.

Places we visited and recommend:

Food/Shopping

Lune Croissanterie, Fitzroy
South Melbourne Market
Queen Victoria Market
Wineries, Mornington Peninsula, Yarra Valley
St. Kilda farmer’s market
Elwood school weekend market
Melbourne arcades and laneways

Outdoors–

Any beach around Melbourne Bay (St. Kilda, Elwood, Frankston, Hampton, Mentone, Mornington, Mt. Eliza, Rye, Sandringham)
Beaches on the ocean: St. Andrews, Torquay, Bell’s Beach
Royal Botanical Garden–see an evening performance in the garden
Walking the laneways and shopping arcades of downtown Melbourne
Walking in any older neighborhood
Brighton Bathing Boxes
Healesville Sanctuary
Great Ocean Road, Koala cafe stop is a short bird/koala walk
Yarra Bend Park
Lake Connewarra

Indoor–

Federation Square, Australian Center for the Moving Image
Melbourne Museum
Heide Museum
The National Opal Collection (store/museum, with a very pleasant, informative salesman who didn’t push us to buy)

Melbourne Architecture

27 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by winifredcreamer in Australia, Melbourne

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Architecture

Looking at buildings gives me a sense of the age of a place, style, and how lively and economically vibrant it is. You won’t see construction cranes on the horizon if people aren’t doing well. Melbourne is very dynamic, with a skyline full of cranes, new buildings pushing out the old. The skyline is developing a panorama of very new, very tall structures. “Melbourne style” consists of angular multi-story buildings patterned with color. There are apartments that look like stacks of cubes and buildings decorated with lego-like designs and dramatic geometric patterns.

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The skyline is filling with tall structures and continues to expand. It certainly impressed us when we arrived. Contemporary architecture is entering the neighborhoods, too. It can be jarring to see it run into the older building styles when angular contemporary homes fill lots created by the demolition of older homes gradually transforming neighborhoods.

The other interesting architecture harks way back–Victorian/Edwardian cottages decorated with elaborate cast iron railings or complex wooden barge boards and gingerbread trim, beautiful and intriguing. These are often quite small, 1000-1800 sq ft, with a tiny garden front and back. Many were designed and built as single story duplexes, sharing a center wall.

Fans of Phryne Fisher will recognize the older buildings and some of the more ornate civic structures that display decorative circular towers, balconies, and niches. The covered shopping arcades also reflect turn-of-the-century style. The Flinders St. train station is a stately and highly decorative central place. In addition to all its flourishes, it apparently hides a ballroom on the top floor that is only open once a year for visits by architecture aficionados.

Above: Flinders St. Station

Left: Shopping Arcade Below: Mosaic floor detail

While I like the old style, a brick cottage has limited space and light. Upkeep on all that gorgeous decorative trim…. I was unable to find any evidence of historic districts in residential areas. This may not be a concept that is applied in Australia. Without one, though, the charming cottages of the older neighborhoods will be gone sooner rather than later as the city expands upward.

Summer in Ellwood

11 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by winifredcreamer in Australia, Melbourne

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Architecture, Neighborhoods

We’ve been following summer around the world for five years, and I enjoy summer in every locality. Now that we’ve been in Melbourne for a week, I’m getting a sense of what summer is like right here. Our neighborhood is Ellwood, a close-in suburb of Melbourne. For Chicagoans, it’s like living in Evanston near the lake. I can walk to the beach in ten minutes, while ten minutes the other direction takes me to the tram or the train into the city center.

The city influence means there is a good bakery just blocks away despite our street being a leafy residential zone. The cafe right at the beach does good business all day long. I see all kinds of people there, moms and small children, older couples having lunch, individuals reading on their phones. There are always at least a few people on the beach, and on the hot, hot Saturday there must have been 300 people there.

A cool Monday

A hot Saturday

I take different routes to and from the beach, watching the construction of new houses and renovations of older ones. There seems to be a tendency to build ever higher walls along the street. I see the upper fringe of detail on a house and am unable to take a photo that does it justice because of a brick or concrete wall that covers most of the facade. Duplexes are quite common here, and halves of houses are bought and sold independently. With high walls proliferating, the best picture I have of a traditional duplex shows that sometimes one owner is more diligent at upkeep than another. Many neighborhoods of Melbourne hold lovely old houses in a variety of styles. There’s a “Southwest style” house, others with elaborate exterior trim or fencing, and even a few Art Deco.

Many older houses have lovely beveled glass windows. Our front door has some. I saw a creative newspaper box on my walk, too.

Occasionally, though, duplex life produces some pretty uncomfortable architecture. The most extreme I’ve seen is a traditional house on one side, single story with a low peaked roof, with a two-story contemporary on the other half. Possibly the only original part of the newer half is the connecting wall between them. The two houses below really share a center wall.

There are lots of apartment buildings throughout Ellwood, but most are no more than two stories tall and fit into the neighborhood easily. In this way the area holds enough population to support urban services like public transportation. Melbourne’s system is easy to use, one card for bus, tram, and train.

My walk generated a moment of nostalgia when I saw a four-drawer file cabinet on the sidewalk with a couple of other items marked “free.” About 40 years ago, Jonathan rescued a similar cabinet from the sidewalk in Manhattan. It moved around the country with him. I met up with it when we got married and lived in Denver, and from there we went to Santa Fe and Chicago. We finally donated our file cabinet to Goodwill when we downsized. I hope the cabinet on the sidewalk in Ellwood gets as good a run as ours did.

One of life’s pleasures is feeling like you belong somewhere and however fleeting, I feel this way about Ellwood. I could live here happily, even though we’ll be moving on at the end of the month. Something about the settled neighborhood, the weekly market at the school at the end of the block, access to other areas of the city, and friendly neighbors makes it feel like it could realistically be home. It’s a very warm feeling that I enjoy every day.

Out of the Frying Pan….

04 Monday Feb 2019

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Architecture

We left Hobart under a cloud of cold smoke, with the temperature around 60°. We arrived in Melbourne in similar weather but without the smoke. The coming days are forecast to be in the 90°s. Rolling blackouts in Melbourne last week ended with a lot of finger-pointing. I’m waiting to see what happens during our stay. Will the AC work? Will there be blackouts?

After a month in farmland, Melbourne looms as a gigantic city full of contemporary architecture. I feel like the country mouse newly arrived in the city.

Sure enough, the day after we arrived was a scorcher, and it was even hotter on Sunday. The beach was packed both days, and I didn’t go until late in the afternoon to avoid the worst of the heat (over 100°).We braved the heat in the morning when we found out that the route of the Melbourne Midsumma Pride March was relatively near us. The parade was a wholly upbeat event, mostly people with rainbow umbrellas and enthusiasm, many friends and family of LGBTQIA marching and watching. There were a few people dressed in fabulous outfits, and a few barely dressed. The mood was celebration rather than hookup, and we enjoyed it all. Why go to a pride parade? General support for the idea that people can be whoever they decide they are, and the possibility of seeing something fun and a little outrageous. We did well on both counts.