Melbourne city

“Melbourne. Enriched with street culture, fashion, and quirky urban oddities. Explore. Embrace. Discover.”

So said an obscure poster we saw whilst exploring Melbourne, and embrace and discover we did. Melbourne is a wonderful city: a city we both felt that we could live in.

A blue sky radiated above us on our day in the city as we ambled along the banks of the Yarra, visited the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV: Australia), wandered through the CBD to the State Library Victoria, before exploring Melbourne’s narrow back lanes.

Up early and on the station platform at Yarraville to catch the train: the city centre is an easy 20min away. (Rail travel costs are capped in the state of Victoria, with a full-day capped fare costing $11 - enabling you to go anywhere for no more than £5 (often much less). We found this amazing: it makes public transport really accessible with the potential to travel 160km on one $11 ticket).

Waiting on the platform we chatted to the friendliest and most helpful station officer we’ve ever met. Every morning, Steve Gauci strolls the platform with his microphone, delivering friendly announcements to passengers about the latest travel information. Every Friday (since Covid) he plays upbeat tunes over the tannoy, willingly taking requests, to put a smile on passengers faces. He definitely put a smile on ours.

Coming into the city the train track slides alongside the Yarra River, overlooked by mirrored towers glinting in the sun high above. Flinders Street Station completed our grand city entry.

Australia’s oldest train station, Flinders Street Station has been one of Melbourne's landmarks for well over 150 years. We were fascinated by the series of nine clocks outside, lined up under the main arch. Each clock shows the time of the next train scheduled for each line. Originally, before the clocks were automated, they were each manually adjusted. This means, in an 8-hour shift it was someone’s job to change them 900 times using a long pole. Amanda remembers being told about a whole series of rooms above the station proper, including a grand ballroom used for dances in the 50s and 60 which has since fallen into disrepair.

On our way to the Yarra River we passed Hosier Lane - an alleyway covered in vibrant and ever-changing street art, showcasing murals, graffiti, stencils, and installations by both local and international artists. Interesting things for the eye to fall upon everywhere, it’s visual spectacle is now on the tourist trail and we joined the crowd holding our phones aloft! However, much of the art also holds potent messages about combatting social ills such as cancer, racism, and a very moving ‘She Matters’ memorial. This bears the names, pictures and artistic images of more than 100 Australian women who allegedly died by male violence since 1 January 2024. It is regularly updated, and there is a space held empty “for the women to come!”

Before dropping down to the Yarra to explore the landscaped area called Birrarung Marr to see outdoor artworks, we deliberately included ‘The Test Garden’ on route. Greening a concrete expanse next to a large carpark the diminutive pop-up garden is a test bed for a much larger 18,000 sqm garden planned in the centre of Melbourne. When opened it will be designed to flourish year-round, continually fostering biodiversity and conversations about climate resilience. With challenges faced by the climate crisis, the test garden cultivates plants known to survive in hot, dry conditions and that require minimal intervention and irrigation to flourish, making them adaptable to our changing climate. It was also very beautiful.

From this little succulent pocket we explored green Birrarung Marr (which means ‘river of mists’ in the local aboriginal culture. Nice). With a focus on indigenous culture a winding pathway acknowledges the significance of the eel as a traditional food source and a semicircle of metal shields represents each of the five groups of the Kulin Nation. Other features we enjoyed include Deborah Halpern’s two-headed Angel sculpture (which Amanda remembered from her previous visit) and the Federation Bells, an installation of 39 upturned bells that ring out three times daily with different compositions (sadly we missed these).

We joined a free tour of the NGV: Australia, and our guide was excellent. The gallery is dedicated entirely to the works of Australian artists. Our guide was so knowledgeable about the art and design and gave us insights into aboriginal bark paintings, colonial artworks, and we also explored the artworks in the contemporary galleries. Amanda in particular loved that the aboriginal and non-indigenous art sat side-by-side, reflecting the progressive shift she was sensing in the acceptance and recognition of Aboriginal peoples compared to when she visited nearly 30-years ago. The building is also a treat, with everything thoughtfully designed. The pink and ochre Kimberley sandstone paving for instance was chosen to represent the landscapes of the Australian outback and to symbolize the decentralization of power across the nation.

Before gallery-back-ache struck we were out in the sunshine and wandering Melbourne’s CBD streets up towards the State Library. Like Manchester, Melbourne’s buildings are a wonderful hotch-potch of new and old, two-storey brick and towering glass, delicate carvings and brash neon. Gives the place a real vitality. Loved the old trams. Lilz took Amanda’s photo sitting on the ‘Public Purse’ sculpture to recreate the same instance on her first day in Melbourne all those years ago. We briefly visited the Hello Kitty and Friends cafe: sadly very underwhelmed.

At the Library we joined the 2pm free ‘World of the Book’ tour showcasing 300 rare, remarkable and historically significant items from the State Collection. Afterwards, we took a photo - alongside a multitude of other tourists - of the over-photographed but never-the-less stunning La Trobe Reading Room. We stood in front of Ned Kelly’s cumbersome handmade suit of armour, marvelling at its weight and 18 bullet marks received when the outlaw - one of Australia’s most well-known historical figures - had a final shootout with the police. Also at his photo - such a good looking gent and total hipster.

We also popped our heads into two free exhibitions in the library (there’s a lot going on in this building!) ‘Creative Acts: Artists and their inspirations’ and ‘Make Believe: Encounters with Misinformation’. The latter particularly shocked Amanda in a section on misinformation in the medical world highlighting how badly female anatomy is presented. Female students studying to be a surgeon, speaking today, illuminate the unscientific problem of having no shortage of
information about the uterus (you can be forgiven for believing woman's most important function is our reproductive purpose!), but very little on other female surgical diagrams or procedures. Nothing for instance written about female sexual nerves, and the complete anatomy of the clitoris remained undefined until 1998!

A bit cultured-out we spent the rest of the darkening day wandering through Melbourne’s back lanes, a network of once forgotten service alleys that are now a-buzz with hidden cafes, bars, and street art which pulsed with evening energy and people happily eating and drinking. Feeling hungry seeing all the amazing meals around us we returned to Flinders Street Station and hopped on a train ‘home’ to eat tomato pasta and watch a film.Read more