Tag Archives: Street Art

Interjection – completing the Melbourne staff work

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Wednesday 4 September 2024 – For subscribers, or those reading through these pages sequentially, this entry will likely cause some confusion and I apologise for that. This page is about our last full day in Melbourne, which I accidentally forgot to write about at the time, possibly in the excitement of discovering the unusual way that Virgin Australia was buggering us about in regard to our forthcoming flight to Tasmania.

One of the great things about our time in Melbourne was – like our plans for Sydney and Brisbane – a chance to catch up with friends whom we hadn’t met for many years. The centre piece of today was A Nice Lunch with Sharon and David, a couple we had met on a walking holiday in Slovenia back in 2016; we had shared a house with them, walks up hill and down dale with them (lots of that in the Julian Alps in Slovenia!) and many laughs over lunch and dinner. We knew they lived in the Melbourne environs and so were delighted that they were prepared to do the slog into the city to share a lunch with us.

The venue was the Flower Drum, in Melbourne’s Chinatown, and a decent walk for us from the hotel. The walk gave us an opportunity to seek out some more of the various bits of street art that can be found in the city streets. On the way, we passed this sign

which might be said to sum up Australia – but only in a lovingly joking manner, you understand.

We revisited Hosier Street

and discovered (as reported earlier) that the painted-over artwork was still surprisingly unredecorated.

There was some grand statuary outside the Grand Hyatt hotel

and we passed the very attractive St. Michael’s Uniting Church.

Jane had discovered other corners to look for murals.

For lunch, we headed into Chinatown

and had a delightful couple of hours with Sharon and David, catching up on the intervening years since we last met. On holiday While travelling, one meets many people, but it’s rare to form a lasting connection with fellow travellers, and it was lovely to find that this connection was still strong.

After lunch we needed to go for a walk. Obviously.  We passed Parliament House

and found many more decorated buildings to gawp and attempt to photograph.

There was some great decor to be admired

and – possibly – a genuine Banksy!

This was alongside some other stencilled-type artwork.

On the way back to the hotel, I managed to get a reasonable photo of St. Paul’s Cathedral,

some nice mosaic artwork by Flinders Street Station

(sadly, the chap wasn’t about to leave; I think he was a bouncer) and some more building decoration on the way back to our apartment.

So ended our last full day in Melbourne, and a very pleasant one it was, too. The plans for the morrow were simply to get to Hobart in Tasmania, which we achieved, but not without, as I’d mentioned earlier, a frisson of frustration courtesy of the Virgin Australia ticketing system. To read all about that, the narrative continues here. Meanwhile, I’ll get back to our time in Brisbane, if that’s all right with you.  Sorry for the interruption of the otherwise smooth flow.

 

 

 

 

Melbourne – Modern and Historic, Handsome and Scruffy

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Monday 2 September – Having escaped satisfactorily from Kangaroo Island, we now had to escape from Adelaide via a flight to Melbourne yesterday. The process of dropping the bags off was trouble-free, but on arrival at the airport security, it looked like it might take us some time.

Appearances were deceptive; the queue moved swiftly and we got through security smoothly. It helped that small liquids and phones could stay in bags and the only things that needed putting in separate trays were laptops and aerosols. Generally, I’ve been impressed with air travel within Australia.  We’ve used Qantas-based flights so far and their online check-in and at-airport bag drop processes have been well-designed and swift.

Our next flight will be Virgin Australia; I will report back on their User Experience.

The weather for the flight was largely cloudy, so there weren’t many aerial photos to be taken.  However, as we approached Melbourne, we got our first glimpse of the city

and I noticed that some areas appeared to be very densely-packed housing; so densely-packed that at first I couldn’t make out whether the objects were parked cars or houses. This, for example, is the Mt Atkinson area west of Melbourne. The houses appear to be really crammed together.

We had arranged to stay at a friend’s airbnb apartment in the Southbank area of the city, and accordingly followed instructions to pick up the keys at a local convenience store. The code number we had been told to provide proved to be “invalid”, and so there was a great deal of to-and-fro and sitting outside cafés drinking coffee whilst we waited for some kind of resolution. There had been a delay in the cleaners dropping off the keys and so we eventually got our hands on them and headed off to the apartment… where the keys we’d been given turned out to be the wrong ones.

Bugger.

To cut a long story short, we ended up staying the night in a hotel, the rather oddly-named but perfectly comfortable Mantra hotel, where we had an apartment. With milk in the fridge and Earl Grey beside the mugs. The fridge thing gave me an idea, so I went out to get some gin and tonic, which was available in a very convenient local grocery store. And so passed our first night in Melbourne.

A word about the weather, here: we had been booked on a “moonlight kayak tour” on the Yarra River which runs through the city. However, as the exceedingly lumpy but nicely-handled landing at Melbourne showed, it was very windy, and we’d received a message apologising for cancelling the kayak tour. As it happened, given the difficulty with the keys, it was just as well.

Yesterday’s kayak tour was supposed to be our first real glimpse of Melbourne, but the weather put the kybosh on that. We had a three-hour small group walking tour of the “Lanes and Arcades” of Melbourne booked for today, so this was now our chance to get a flavour of the place.  We headed to the meeting point in Federation Square,

where it was reasonably easy to find our guide, Isabel, who was wearing a very distinctive yellow beret. Imagine our surprise, however, when the other members of the “small group” turned out to be Stephanie and Garret, an American couple who had been, alongside the Great Danes, our companions on our Kangaroo Island tour! Life is enhanced by such coincidences.

We actually passed some interesting sights en route to the start of our tour;

Striking building exterior

Melbourne Arts Centre

View across the Yarra

Federation Square is just by St. Paul’s Cathedral

and Flinders Street Station, which is an impressive building (more pictures of it later).

There had apparently been a move to replace the clocks in the picture above with something more modern and, well, operational, but the outcry ensured that the classic clocks remain there above the station entrance.

As in Adelaide, there are many handsome buildings in Melbourne, although everything is more densely-packed and the high-rises rise higher and overwhelm the smaller, older buildings more.

Above is the old GPO building, now owned by H&M. Alongside it is a very narrow alley

which even though it’s had eateries added along its length, shows the scrapes of the old horse-drawn carriages along the side and the warnings about the devil motor car.

What has been done well is to keep the facades or exteriors of some of the more notable buildings, such as the old post office building above, and also to keep as much of the interior as makes sense.

Here’s another example.

A mall off to the side of The Block, a very handsome arcade,

features some great mosaic work

and is generally very photogenic.

It features the oldest tea rooms in Melbourne, called The Tea Room 1892. I wonder how old it is, really?

The Block is also home to L’Occitane, which has a wonderful hand-painted ceiling.

Another very handsome arcade is the Royal Arcade.

Isabel also showed us into the Manchester Unity Building, which has a sumptuous interior

and surroundings

including Melbourne’s first-ever escalator, originally installed in 1932 to much excitement and lining up for a ride.

We had a very engaging chocolate tasting in The Block, at a specialist boutique called Mörk (Swedish for “Dark” – the operation has a Swedish connection in its ownership)

which, apart from very delicious hot chocolate drinks, offers some unusual variations on chocolate flavours.

Blue cheese Caramelised Yuzu, apparently

As well as the handsome buildings, many of which could do with a bit of a tidy-up,

Isabel showed us some of the street art. We saw one or two larger installations

and there are many more of these around the city; but we didn’t have and won’t have time to explore these. What we saw was much smaller-scale and very much less formal.

Caught them at it!

It’s difficult to distinguish between what’s art and what’s graffiti, which is why I say it’s informal – we even saw a couple of guys adding their last touches to something or other. One of the best-known streets for art is Hosier Lane, which is either a riot of colour or a complete mess, depending on your point of view.

I’m sorry I couldn’t do more justice to Hosier Lane, but it was hurling down with rain at this point, making photographic essay work somewhat unrewarding.

A side note: we returned here later at night, having met a friend for cocktails, and walked through an after-dark Melbourne to get back to the apartment.  As we walked down Hosier Lane, we were passed by a van with a pressure washing trailer.  We chatted to the two guys operating it, and they had been given the job of removing some of the graffiti towards the bottom of the street. The plan was to paint it over with black, and their view was that it would last maybe a couple of hours before someone started daubing again.

STOP PRESS

The black area is still there. We discovered this on the way to meeting other friends for lunch. We found some more street art en route, and so the complete set of photos of it is on Flickr.

We also saw a couple of inexplicable installations on Russell Street

and some nice brass work in the paving outside city hall.

The after-dark walk enabled a different perspective on Melbourne.  Flinders Street Station’s impressive building

is quite something else when lit up.

Federation Square

and the view over the Yarra

also look very different after sunset, as does the Arts Centre.

Sadly, we’re not likely to get more time to explore Melbourne; I feel we haven’t been able to spend long enough here to get to grips with the place at all. But it has been interesting to see what we have seen, despite some very poor weather. Tomorrow we have an all-day outing, and the day after we have a lunch date with friends, and who knows what state we’ll be in after that. I will, of course, report back, and I hope you’ll visit these pages again to find out how everything unfolded.

 

Off the ship and into Darwin

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Thursday 22 August – Yesterday was a day spent at sea making the transit from the Kimberley to Darwin. The day was therefore spent mainly doing end-of-cruise admin – repacking the suitcases, paying the bills, that kind of thing.  There was one important event to attend, though. Although we’d avoided most of the “social” activities on board the ship, the guides had organised a photo competition, which, of course, is catnip to me. There were four categories in which to submit entries – Landscape, Wildlife, Social and “Wild card” (i.e. anything at al). Unsurprisingly, I had no candidates for the social category, but  I did submit entries for the other three. And, ahem…

(and another photo was a runner up, too, in the wild card category). One lady won two of the categories with a couple of cracking photos, but sadly couldn’t be there to celebrate her success, as she had Covid and was confined to her cabin.

By about 6pm we could see Darwin in the distance, albeit not very clearly. The lack of clarity in the view was almost certainly down to what we think must be a bush fire somewhere in the area.

The smoke gave some nice atmosphere to photos as we approached,

and then we had arrived.

It would have been possible to leave the ship for a wander around, but we expected to do that after we finally disembarked, so we concentrated on having a few final free cocktails….

As is normal with these things, next morning we were flung off the ship in very short order; out of our cabins by 8am and off the boat by 9.

We were staying in the Vibe Waterfront hotel, as were several other passengers, so APT had laid on a coach to take us there from the port – a lengthy drive covering a total distance of about 500m. On the way, though, the driver gave us a couple of useful tips about places to visit and to eat.

It being not long after 9am at this point, our hotel room wasn’t ready for us, of course. So we went for a walk. Obviously.

Darwin’s not a big place, but it has some interesting things to see, which Jane, in her usual organised fashion, had scoped out for us. The hotel itself is in the Waterfront area, a redevelopment, i.e. gentrification. It has its own small but perfectly-formed beach,

which fronts a water park

in an area which seems pretty nice for a leisurely swim., protected from those nasty ocean waves

(though we discovered later that they can turn them on for you if you want).

At the end of the wharf which protects the waterfront area is a uniquely Australian exhibition.

which, although it doesn’t say it on the door, is also dedicated to something that unsurprisingly figures high in the local consciousness:

the wartime bombing of Darwin (February 1942).

We went in to take a general wander round and were immediately bossed about in a very organised way by a lady who was clearly part of The Management; she told us about a simulation of the attack which happened every 20 minutes, as air raid sirens went off, and an immersive screen showed a visualisation of what it might have looked like.

We were then ushered into a small film theatre for two “holograms”: one told the story of the genesis of the Flying Doctor Service, including how it became Royal; the other was the story of an American general on the scene of the bombing – both done really quite well, and very interesting.

The bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942 was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. On that day, 242 Japanese aircraft, in two separate raids, attacked the town, ships in Darwin Harbour, and the town’s two airfields in an attempt to prevent the Allies from using them as bases to contest the invasion of Timor and Java during World War II. Darwin was lightly defended relative to the size of the attack, and the Japanese inflicted heavy losses upon Allied forces at little cost to themselves. No wonder it’s something that still looms large in the folk memory here – although relations with Japan nowadays are cordial.

The centre also has a real Flying Doctor aeroplane there.

There was a VR setup which gave one the chance to see the Flying Doctor service from the point of view of both patient and pilot.

The hologram film gave an excellent overview of the development of the RFDS, starting from its inspiration: the case of someone who had to travel hundreds of kilometres and wait six days for treatment after a major farming accident. This inspired the Reverend John Flynn to look for ways to solve the problem of communicating and delivering medical care across the remoteness of the Australian interior.  The combination of nascent aviation capabilities and a pedal-driven radio proved to be a successful one, allowing the service in time to grow to its current roles: nationwide, the service has over 80 aircraft and includes flying dentistry and flying mental health services alongside emergency and primary medical care.

The Flying Doctor Service was allowed to add “Royal” to its name after HM Elizabeth II visited in 1954; she talked to people over the pedal-driven radio, though I bet someone else did the pedalling.

All in all, it was a very worthwhile and interesting hour spent at the centre.

We went back to the hotel, but our room still wasn’t ready. So, after a coffee, we went for another walk. Obviously.

Downtown Darwin is on a plateau somewhat higher than the Waterfront, and is reached via a lift (well, you can use the steps if you want, but the temperature was around 30°C, so sod that for a game of soldiers).  We passed some handsome buildings, such as Government House,

the oldest colonial building in Darwin,  and the Northern Territory Library, which is a very imposing building.

Outside the library, a group of Masked Lapwings were having a barney

and we saw an Orange-Footed Scrubfowl, scrubbing about very orange-footedly.

We then headed for Austin Street, which is noted for its street art. It is indeed very varied and colourful.

By this stage, the temperature was well into the 30s, and so we headed back towards the hotel. We passed the site of the Darwin Festival, an 18-day event which is due to continue until 25 August,

and the Anglican Cathedral, which is definitely an Interesting Church

albeit a closed one; it was possible to see inside through the front door, though.

Some White Ibis (“Bin Chickens”) were squabbling outside.

Our route back to the hotel also took us near another Darwin unique, the WWII Oil Tunnels. These were tunnels built as underground oil storage tanks, in the aftermath of 1942 Japanese bombing of the above-ground ones that were already there.  The enterprise was a massive engineering undertaking, with many problems and false steps along the way; and it wasn’t a massive success.  11 tunnels were envisaged, and six were completed by the end of the war, and so weren’t needed by that stage, although tunnels 5 & 6 were used for storage of aviation fuel during a confrontation with Indonesia in the 1950s.

Tunnels 5 and 6 are now open to the public. For a fee, of course.

It looks like a tunnel, but actually this is the interior of one of the tanks

This engaging sculpture can be seen at the junction of a couple of the tunnels.

Even after all this peregrination, our hotel room was still not ready, but we sat in the blessed cool of reception for a few minutes and then were at last admitted. Actually, the room is pretty good – plenty of USB charging points, plus a kettle, Earl Grey and milk in the fridge. And face flannels in the bathroom, something that seems to be standard over here, whereas it’s disappointingly lacking in most other countries we’ve visited. Including the UK, I might add.

We had a really very good late lunch/early dinner at a bus-driver-recommended restaurant, Snapper Rocks, just along the way from the hotel and retired to our room to rest and prepare ourselves for the morrow. We are due on an all-day outing to visit Litchfield National Park, which on the face of it offers many diversions, termite mounds, waterfalls and crocodiles among them, so it would seem an interesting day awaits. Let’s see how it turns out.