I walked Melbourne

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

I saw this passage by TS Eliot on a banner at the State Library's Mirror of the World exhibition this afternoon after I finally finished my self-guided Walking Melbourne tour, and I thought it was apt. I have now visited and photographed every single one of the 235 significant buildings and landmarks in the National Trust guide, which also means I get to cross something else off my 101 Things To Do list.

The final section of the tour took me to the north-west corner of the CBD, the area I had been working in until last Friday, so I now know the history of some of the old buildings I had previously admired and photographed.

That part of the city has some of the city's oldest buildings, including St James Old Cathedral which is the oldest building in Melbourne (not imported from overseas). Construction began in 1839, although it was moved from its original location to a site opposite Flagstaff Gardens in 1913.

There's also this little house and shop on the corner of King and La Trobe Streets, which is one of only a few pre-gold rush buildings left in the city.

  

After I finished my walking tour I popped in to visit the State Library (if you've never been, this is truly one of Melbourne's best hidden gems. Go!). I admired the wonderful domed reading room and also visited the smallest book and the largest book on display in the Mirror of the World exhibition. I always look at them when I go there.  

The smallest book is the Midget Encyclopedia, a collection of tiny books smaller than matchboxes which are accompanied by a weeny magnifying glass. Today it was open to Q for quagga. The largest book is the awesome Birds of America by renowned naturalist John James Audubon. It's massive and open to a different page every time I go. (According to the State Library website, its copy is one of only 120 known copies in the world.)

The dome

I also visted the Cowen Gallery at the library. I'm not sure if they were there when I visited last, but the gallery has on display the last notes written by Burke and Wills before they died.

As well as looking at significant buildings, I also lurked about city laneways taking photos during which I saw three different renderings of the Rolling Stones tongue motif in two different alleys (probably all by the same person) - on the same day that I was to see Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones (which was great, although Mick Jagger's er...pantal region was distracting). 

Walking into the city beside the river this morning I saw a bird pecking at something on the path. I thought it was a large beetle at first but when the bird took flight at my approach, I bent down to have a look and it was a tiny crab. It saw me looking at it and it adopted a fighting pose with its little claws thrust up at me. Feisty!

My Girl in Melbourne photo blog has 49 followers. Thanks guys! One more for the half century...

And that's it for day 1 of NaBloPoMo.

Men of Letters, crepes, music binge

Today I went to the inaugural Men of Letters, an event at which a very impressive line up of Australian creative types including Bob Ellis, Paul Kelly, Eddie Perfect and Tim Rogers, read out letters they had penned to women who changed their lives. 

It was a perfect mix of humourous, heartfelt and  poetic letters, and also a few songs. All this as well as yummy mini cupcakes served to our table by co-curator Marieke Hardy in the fabulous Thornbury Theatre.

Crepey

My friend Luke and I had brunch before the show at a nearby cafe - I had a delicious crepe filled with summer fruit and topped with honey and yogurt. Who knew brunch could be so tasty without any bacon in it?

My music binge continues

I've been downloading heaps of music lately. My latest 'discovery', thanks to the iTunes 'listeners also bought' feature, is Fabienne Delsol, a Frenchwoman  living in England, who sings catchy retro ye-ye style pop songs - some in French, some in English, and several covers of Serge Gainsbourg songs from the 60s like this one: Vilaine fille, Mauvais garçon (Naughty Girls and Bad Boys).  

Coincidentally, Fabienne Desol is signed to the same label as Holly Golightly and Ludella Black whose albums I've also bought in the past few months, but I came across Fabienne when I was downloading a song by Lisa Mitchell. It's like the internet knows me.

I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO WORK TOMORROW!  I haven't really planned anything except going to see Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones with a friend tomorrow night.  I want to finally complete my self-guided Walking Melbourne tour either tomorrow or Tuesday too (what horse race?).

Walking Melbourne...again

It's been a while since I dragged out my Walking Melbourne guided tour book and set off the the city, but that's what I did today and I'm almost finished. I've now visited 207 of the 235 buildings and landmarks listed.

I should have it knocked over in just one more afternoon (or perhaps a few lunchtimes, since the section I've yet to cover is near where I work) and then I'll be able to cross it off my list of 101 Things to do Before I'm 40.

Today I discovered:

* 'Commit No Nuisance', which appears on restored 19th century signs on the side of the Methodist Mission in Chinatown is a euphemism for 'do not urinate'!

* Celestial Lane in Chinatown is so named because in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the white population used to call the Chinese "Celestials", from "subjects of His Celestial Majesty".

* Behind the 1970s aluminium facade of the Target building on Bourke Street is the fantastic facade of Hoyts De Luxe, Melbourne's first 'luxury' cinema, which was built in 1915. It's a shame it's covered over with something so bland and unremarkable, but at least it wasn't demolished. (I can't find a decent picture of the facade online, but if you click here, and scroll down to the picture of Foy & Gibson Department Store, the Hoyts De Luxe is the building just to the right of Foys.)

* Before 1901, there were no public toilets for women in the city, but there were urinals for men. Looks like the inadequate provision of facilities for women has a long history... The first public toilet for women was built underground in the middle of Russell Street - only part of the railing at street level remains.

* In 1900 "arguably the world's first full-length narrative moving picture" Soldiers of the Cross was produced by the Salvation Army at the Limelight Studios on the rooftop of its headquarters on Bourke Street (now undergoing refurbishment).

* My best discovery was this well-preserved three room cottage at 17 Casselden Place - in the area once known as Little Lon, which in the late 1800s was the dodgy part of town, home to the poor, prostitutes, petty criminals and opium dens.

The cottage is the only one remaining of a terrace of six built in the 1870s. You can still see traces of the adjoining terrace house.

It's so well tucked away, I had no idea it was there...or maybe I did, but I forgot. There was an archaeological dig in this area in the late 1980s before the construction of a large office building. More than 17,000 items were removed from the site and they are now held by the Museum of Victoria. No doubt these were among the artifacts I saw at the Museum's Melbourne Story exhibition last year.  

According to my guide, it's the last remaining dwelling in the area (near the corner of Spring Street and Little Lonsdale) and it was built by John Casselden, who was a shoemaker and developer.
 

I walked 12 kilometres on my wanderings and made a pit-stop at Brunetti's at City Square for a hot chocolate and baci biscuit before heading home well worn out.

What I did on my long weekend

Alas, my four-day long weekend is drawing to a close. It's been great.

On Saturday I had brunch (though it was actually lunchtime - gotta love all day brekkie) with a friend from my uni days whom I haven't seen at all this year. We had a really good natter over eggs and toast and hot chocolate, which made us both realise how much we've missed catching up with each other. We have vowed to try harder to see each other more often. (She has two small children and does freelance work at home, but I have no excuse for my poor efforts at keeping in touch.)

Saturday night I went to the movies with another friend from uni. We saw the comedy I Love You, Man which I probably wouldn't have seen had she not suggested it, but I chuckled my head off. Very amusing.

Sunday I had a big sleep in and then went to the gym. I was feeling a little bit excited all day for that night I was going to see Wagons (yes, them again) launch their new album at the Corner Hotel. I couldn't wait.

It was a sold out show - packed to the mirror balls - and Wagons rocked their hometown crowd. There was a lot of mutual love in the room. Frontman Henry Wagons entertained us with his dry humour as always. My crush on him grows unabated. It's really quite embarrassing.

On Monday I had another big sleep in and then went into the city to squeeze in a bit more of my Walking Melbourne tour. It was 2.00 pm by the time I got there, so I only traversed a few blocks from the corner of Collins and Exhibition Streets, down to the centre of the CBD, including the Bourke Street Mall. I incorporated a pitstop at The Chokolait Hub for a very tangy lemon cheesecake and a Belgian hot chocolate. Yum.

The tour included one of my favourite buildings in the CBD, the one on the corner of Elizabeth and Little Collins Streets which looks like it's out of a spooky old movie. I love the description of it in the Walking Melbourne guide too: "this wild confection displays the taste for the picturesque in commercial buildings in 'Marvellous' Melbourne". Hehe. Wild confection.

It was built in the late 1880s to house the City of Melbourne Building Society and it bore the name of the society on the facade. But if you have a look at it today, the facade says only City of Melbourne. That's because the Society went bust in the crash of the 1890s and the word 'Society' was removed!

My tour also took in the Athenaeum Club on Collins Street - another snooty men's club - but this one has a swimming pool in the basement. How cool is that? Not that I will ever get to see it, but I like just knowing that its there.

I also like knowing that inside the fairly unremarkable exterior of Capitol House on Swanston Street lies the gloriously ornate Capitol Theatre, which my guide describes as "extraordinary...truly one of Australia's internationally significant places". If you haven't been inside, go.

Capitol Theatre is another one of Melbourne's treasures which had a close brush with demolition in the 1960s. Can you believe it? It's astounding. I don't know what were they thinking.

The impending dark and chilly air forced me to head for home, with a brief stop at Federation Square where the annual Light in Winter festival is illuminating the chilly winter days and nights. The most eyecatching of the 13 art installations that form part of the festival is Volume, a series of light columns that respond to human movement, set to a instrumental soundtrack. It's quite fetching on a frigid winter's eve.

Today I stayed inside for most of the day, enjoying the rain outside, and then headed into the city in the late afternoon. The rain and clouds had cleared before I left home and the river was silvery in the sun and everything else looked green and glowy. I took plenty of photos. I'm finding it hard to dislike winter - I love the sight of bare branches against cloudy skies and reflections on wet ground.

I went to my pilates class - I'm the only person in the class, which is a bit weird but also good because it's all about meeeeeeeeee! Me and my sore back, sore shoulder and dodgy hip, to be precise. We balanced on Swiss balls which was great fun (even the falling off bit) and a good ab workout. On top of an hour of pilates, today I walked about 11 kms and did an hour of light cardio at the gym. I feel pleasantly worn out.

I walked home from the gym in the dark and, as I neared home I enjoyed the ghostly and cool sight of bare trees silhouetted against the clouds, lit from behind by a full moon. Ooooooh, spoooooky!

And now to bed. It's just started raining again. Aaaah.

Fountain of glee...and a gay time

My heart leapt with glee today when I saw that the fountain in the Carlton Gardens was spouting water. Hurrah! The water spurting and sparkling in the sun was a beautiful sight as I walked up a shady avenue towards the Exhibition Building.

The last few times I've visited the gardens, the fountain has been a still, murky puddle due to the ongoing drought and water restrictions. I don't know what's changed, but today its was back to being a glorious fountain, not just a wonderful piece of sculpture. It made me so happy. (According to one website, the fountain only operates five hours a day - maybe I've just never been there are the right time before).

The Exhibition Building (the first building in Australia to be World Heritage-listed, in 2004) and the fountain were built for the International Exhibition in 1880. I love the platypuses and frogs around the edges of the second and third tiers of the fountain (and I love the word platypuses, even though platypus is an acceptable plural).

I was at the Exhibition Building as part of my continuing self-guided Walking Melbourne tour. I did manage to get out of bed in time to wander the streets, but I've still only visited and photographed about 60 of the 235 buildings/landmarks.

I also visited the City Baths, which the Walking Mebourne guide describes as an "exuberant and much-loved Edwardian structure" with (I love this bit) a "riot of turrets and domes". As the name suggests, the building was once a public bath house but it's now home to a modern fitness centre, of which I am a very lazy member. I like its riot of turrets, but it makes me feel guilty looking at it.

I had a Golden Gaytime icecream on my way home. Mmmm, biscuit bits. Remember Golden Gaytimes, Aussie readers? Can you believe they still make them? And that Streets hasn't relaunched the product with a different name? They're like the icecream equivalent of the Pollywaffle chocolate bar or Sunshine Pine soft drink. Which is, of course, partly why I like them.

Tourist in my own town - part two

I did the touristy thing again today. I threw my camera and a copy of Walking Melbourne (The National Trust's guide to Melbourne's historic and architectural landmarks) in my bag and off I went to explore.

I managed to visit close to 50 landmarks (of the 250 or so in the book) and took photos of each. Some are well-known stops on the tourist trail - like Flinders Street Station, St Paul's Cathedral and the Fitzroy Gardens - while many others are less grand and well-known - the type of buildings which tend to merge into the streetscape. It was great to find out more about them and their historical significance.

There was one prominent and grand building I visited for the first time and that was St Patrick's Cathedral, Victoria's largest church (above). Regardless of your religious bent (or lack thereof) it's a very impressive and imposing structure, and the gardens are pretty and peaceful, with lavendar and rose beds. (I was too scared to venture inside in case they have some sort of heathen detector that would smite me dead).

It's also the first time I have taken a photo of a public toilet (below)! Did you know Melbourne has the world's second most extensive set of cast iron urinals after Amsterdam? No? Well, now we all do! Can't recall seeing that boast on the That's Melbourne website!

I finished the day with a disgustingly decadent chocolate overload at Chokolait while I relaxed and read the paper.

Yep, I admit it was a little too much chocolate