Lost in the Laneways

I suppose once you've been somewhere for a while, you have to look a bit further for new and exciting things.  Carol and I spend plenty of time in the Brisbane CBD and inner suburbs throughout the week and on the weekend.  We have our favorite cafes, favorite places to lay in the grass on the weekend and favorite place to watch the footy, through we aren't compelled to always go to the same places.  We decided it was time to take a long weekend trip to get away from Brisbane for a bit and see a bit more of a city we've been wanting to get to know - Melbourne.

We wanted enough time to get a feel for the city, rather than just enough time to see a few museums.  It's one thing to be familiar with a city, it's another to get to know it, as if meeting a new friend.  The English language allows us to be quite verbose, but I find Spanish does a wonderful job of separating two different concepts - having awareness of topic or concept versus being acquainted with a person.  The verb 'saber' means to know, as in knowing right from wrong.  But the verb 'conocer' is used to indicate knowing or meeting a person.  So taking my cue from the Spanish, this trip was our opportunity to 'conocer' Melbourne.

Domestic flights are easy and relatively inexpensive in Australia.  Carol and I have both done Qantas and the low cost carriers several times and have found each get you to your destination quickly and comfortably.  Qantas usually has a few more inclusions, while the discount carriers are fully a la carte (have to pay for that ginger ale) and often have more families.  If you prefer to swing with the business crowd and avoid having twenty children and two crying babies on your flight, I'd recommend paying a little more to fly Qantas.  One more twist I wish they'd bring to the US - the discount carriers board from the front and the back.  If you're in the back half of the plane, you have to go down to the tarmac and climb the stairs to board from the rear.  I actually love it - reminds me of flying in little regional planes as a kid.

Arriving in Melbourne, we had four days to conquer the city.  I won't claim we did everything, but we hit many of the highlights and recommendations from friends.  Our first day was a Friday and we got started with a walk around the CBD.  My first impression: Melburnians love their coffee.  There is honestly a coffee shop every block, sometimes two or three.  And, the coffee is great.  None of that percolated, granulated, or artificially caffeinated stuff.  Having heard great things about the laneways, we quickly started exploring the area around Bourke and Collins.  Laneways are the roads between buildings, what Americans would refer to as alleys.  Some time ago, shops started popping up in the streets between the major roads running through the CBD.  These streets often take on the name of the major road next to them, for example Little Collins is next to Collins Street and Flinders Lane is next to Flinders Street.  Between these parallel streets are the laneways.  Rather than being filled with rubbish bins (garbage cans), rats and vagrants, they have cafes, boutique clothing stores and rather inspired looking graffiti.  It gives wonderful character to the city and is a much better use of the space.

Carol and I found our way to a cafe just off Little Collins on a particular laneway, Block Place, that we ended up revisiting several times.  The chairs from the cafes spill out onto the tight laneway, competing for the crammed space between the buildings and giving the area all the more character.  Thinking about it now, we never once looked up to see what buildings were there - everything interesting going on was all down at the pedestrian level.  Not much light gets down between the tall buildings, which made the laneways a bit dark, though something is really enjoyable about ducking into a dark cafe on a rainy day and sitting down for a coffee, displaced enough from the main roads to avoid the honking horns.

Once we fueled up on coffee and breakfast, we toured the city for a few hours before heading to the Taste of Melbourne.  Held at the historic Royal Exhibition Building just on the north side of the CBD, the Taste of Melbourne was much like any other food festival.  It showcased fine restaurants, wines, cheeses and desserts.  There were a few corporate tents but most of the exhibitors were local.  The food was great and we attended a few presentations from a French chef and the head cheesemaker of a nearby cheese farm.  If there was one dish that stood out from the taste it may have been the beef cheeks - it was the second time we'd had beef cheeks in a few weeks and both times it was just amazingly tender.  I understand its a tough piece of meat if cooked quickly, but when slow cooked for 10+ hours, it doesn't need a knife.

We met up with a local friend that afternoon who took us around a few of the northern neighborhoods and brought us to one of his favorite local cafes up on Brunswick street.  After yet another delicious, filling meal (too much food!!) we headed off to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG or the 'G') to watch a finals game (playoffs that is, not the championship game) between the Hawthorne Hawks and Sydney Swans.  The stadium seats about 95,000 in a big bowl.  We enjoyed the atmosphere, though the stadium was about a third empty.  For some reason there were seagulls all over the field the entire time, moving around when the players came near.  We later found out they brought in two eagles for the next match to scare off the seagulls.

Saturday had an open itinerary, so we spent time checking out St Kilda, one of the suburbs south of the city.  We heard a lot of hype about St. Kilda before going there, though I found it to be somewhat similar to most of the areas we visited around Melbourne.  There is a beach there facing into Port Phillip Bay, which I can't imagine gets much use most of the year due to the weather.  Again, fun little cafes and boutiques abound in the area.  We sat in some wicker egg chairs at a place on the beach and killed a few hours and few glasses of wine.  On the way back to the city we elected to spend some time walking around the botanic gardens at the south end of the city.  Whereas the Sydney botanic gardens have large open lawns, the Melbourne gardens are a bit more compact and hilly.  You can almost get a feel for Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne just from walking around their botanic gardens - Sydney's is grand and is oriented towards the harbor, Melbourne's is hilly cordoning off little areas of similar character and Brisbane's city garden incorporates the river and is a bit more utilitarian.  We spent the evening at the James Squire brewery, trying various pints of the local brew.

Sunday was like Christmas for Carol.  We took a day trip down to Phillip Island, about two hours south of Melbourne.  The island is known for its fairy penguins, the smallest of the thirteen penguin species.  Carol has always had a love for penguins and this was her first real chance to see them in the wild.  On our way out of Melbourne we stopped at the Queen Victoria Markets to pick up a few nuts and snacks for the day.  The market is quite good, though you have to sort through a lot of knick-knacks to find anything.  The penguin 'show' starts at dusk so we decided to stop at a winery on Phillip Island for a few hours.  They had some sweeter cool climate reds and some tasty whites.  We took a quick trip to the end of the island, called the Nobbies, where there are an outcropping of rocks home to many seabirds and large colony of seals.

There are several packages available to see the penguins.  We elected to get one of the deluxe packages, which includes a private guide and special seats.  The event itself is to watch the penguins coming in from the water, crossing the beach and heading for their nests for the night.  We got kitted up with our beach seats, our headsets, lanyards, binoculars and plenty of cool weather gear.  We certainly didn't look fashionable, but we knew we had the best seats for the big event.  The guide gave us all the info we could want and answered our questions as we made our way to the beach.  We sat down near one of the paths where we would have penguins crossing right in front of us.  After a few minutes, we could see them swimming in the water, getting ready to come to shore.  They came in to shore in small groups, gathering together just at the edge of the water.  By this time the light is getting very dim.  The penguins naturally wait until dark, when predators are less likely to spot them.  It must have taken at least ten minutes for the first group of penguins to finally get the courage to get completely out of the waves and make a break across land.  It's quite a funny site - they all look like little commandos with the heads down and arms out wide.  Over the next half hour or so we saw many groups go past, some only a few feet away from us.  Carol could barely contain her excitement!  We spent a bit more time walking around and seeing the penguins heading to their nests and listened to their chirps as we returned to the car and drove home.

Monday gave us a chance to head back to our favorite laneway and spend a bit more time around the city before heading back.  It ended up being a great trip.  I think we would really enjoy living in Melbourne - it's a city with character and plenty to do.  Sometimes our whole experience living in Australia feels like a vacation, but it was nice to take a few days away from work and our usual places to see somewhere a bit different.