Living Dreams Books

Nature Does Christmas

2009-12-23T16:08:00.000-08:00

It’s hot. Thirty degrees when I got up at seven this morning and windy. Everyone has been telling me that I should go and see the Christmas lights on The Boulevard, seeing as it is just around the corner. Last night then we headed out after dark hoping it might have cooled down a fraction but unfortunately not and joined the throng on the Christmas twinkle trail.

There were not as many houses lit up as on Franklin Road in Auckland but those that entered the spirit were definitely visible from space. I swear that it must have been a degree hotter on this stretch of road than elsewhere in Melbourne due to the radiation of millions of tiny twinkle lights and the greenhouse gases spewing from the snake of cars inching along the street.

“Are the lights worth it?” someone leaned out of a car going nowhere in the jam to ask me.

“Well yes they are worth a walk.”

And I thought people might be having an eco-Christmas this year but no they still went for the showy lights and tacky themes that I half expected to see the Virgin birth in animated lights watched by Rudolph the Red Nosed Pug dog and the three wise possums – “ooh a star, let’s follow the light.”

To me though, nature won the prize last night for being the most festive. A lone cicada serenaded the gathering buzzing a monotonous Christmas song and the brown moths illuminated fluttering in the light of the streetlamps took the prize over the twinkling Las Vegas lights.

Have I mentioned it’s hot? Thoughts of snow, sleigh bells and chestnuts roasting couldn’t be further from my mind. Apparently the fish shops are doing a roaring trade today. Shrimps to throw on the barbie will be heard sizzling tomorrow no doubt and that crack you hear is not a Christmas cracker but the spine of a tasty crustacean. This is Christmas in Australia.

A Batswing and Bottlebrush Christmas

2009-12-20T16:18:00.000-08:00

Last night, in the balmy glow of a twilight warmed by a day of cloudless blue, I witnessed an incredible sight. Hundreds of black shapes took to the sky's fading light in elegant leisurely wing. I watched in awe as they soared above the trees on the banks of the Yarra River. The Yarra Boulevard is a popular drive the road twisting and wending its way up hill through a bushy park. It boasts some of the city's biggest mansions, overlooking stunning views and yet these millionaires share their park with the humble darkness creatures of black nightmares. Bats. The captivating display of winged symphony I was watching was hundreds of bats, trained to relocate their home from the Botanic Gardens where they were stripping trees bare, to the Yarra Parklands. And they are quite simply beautiful in flight. I'm not saying that I'm keen to meet one close up but then I dare say that they think the same was about me, freaky human that I am. In the sky however, sweeping overhead, I can appreciate how exotically awesome they are.

This has become my new reality adapting to life in a strange land with insects, creatures and weather phenomena my sheltered previous existence has only read about and promptly blocked out in terror. A storm in Melbourne is not done by half measures either. The other day the temperature climbed with the promised liquid blessing predicted to follow and eagerly anticipated. It held off till nightfall when sitting in the living room with the door open letting in the evening cool the atmospheric tension broke and the deluge descended.

Through the screen door I watched the air crackle with electricity cutting the night like a knife. With so much usual dry a storm sweeps through with spectacular display of sheet lightning and long, low rumbles of thunder. The rain hits at the end of the light show, hard and heavy for just a few minutes. The next moment it is all over and the temperature has cooled, the air is light and smells of fragrant tropical flowers. This is a bacteria I am told, triggered by the rain into releasing a lovely floral scent.

And speaking of flowers, the Bottlebrush and Wattle bush are in bloom as I hanker for the brilliant red of the Pohutukawa, in season at home for a Kiwi Christmas. The Aussie Christmas decorations are up in Melbourne City though not many houses around town have outdoor themed light displays, a sign maybe of people concerned about conservation. Even the big tree in Cathedral Square is not ostentatiously lit and the stars across the main streets are designed to reflect light rather than requiring power to shine. We are having a subdued eco-Christmas this year. The splash of red on the Bottlebrush reminds me that Christmas is this Friday and it will be the first I spend away from the traditions I have known. It is time for me to make new traditions and I look forward to the opportunity. The holiday season also is approaching and I am looking forward to a few days break. But despite all that, I do miss the Pohutukawa among other things.

The incense of Eucalytpus leaves drying in the sun infusing the warm air with a pervasive healing fragrance has infiltrated my new Christmas memories as has the eardrum piercing drone of giant green cicadas. I know which one I prefer. The birds in the trees are making themselves more known as the summer warms up. Pink Galahs and Crimson Rosellas sing their own carols overhead as they gather to roost while the sun goes down. Wattlebirds are not as pretty or colourful but they have a familiar song. The northern hemisphere images of snow on fir trees and heavy winter dinners of plum pudding and turkey seem even more incongruous in the Australian dry, dust bowl heat. A cold picnic of refreshing sparkling mineral water or a glass of wine, french bread smeared with creamy brie, pear and crisp celery with blue cheese on a blanket under a tree features in my plan for a new tradition. Whatever I do, I will finally this year get to achieve my dream of having a quiet, peaceful Christmas with no rushing about, no over-eating, just a restful holiday from the usual busyness of life and a true sense of goodwill to all man. Merry Christmas everyone.

Welcome to the Apocalyse

2009-11-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

There has been much hooplah in the news lately about Australia's lack of leadership with a commitment to the environment as the climate summit at Copenhagen approaches. Brown coal, the exclusion of farming from carbon trading and water catchments that remain painfully dry in a weekend of rare Melbourne downpours have me spreading my arms and welcoming my friends to the apocalyptic weather becoming our reality. Seriously people if you want proof that global warping (no that was not a typo) is happening then come to Australia where spring heat waves are already plunging three states into hellfire.

It's only November, keep that firmly in your mind as you read on. Last February fires devastated the state and Victorians are collectively holding their breath as reports of flames spreading through the Blue Mountains in NSW send shivers down the spines of the population. There's still three longs months stretching between where we currently stand, having just seen two weeks in the mid-30s, and a time looked forward to as, 'over the worst'.

Let me tell you what it is like for a newcomer to experience the start of Melbourne's summer. My first thirty degree day I thought I had stepped into an oven and felt immediate sympathy for roasting chickens. Breathing was a struggle but I was reassured that come fifteen degrees hotter, I would actually continue to breathe it would just seem like my lungs were burning. This, was nothing – yet.

By the next 30+ day about a week later I had already acclimatised to expect air like dragon's breath and surprisingly this time it was not so bad. Dry heat is more bearable than the debilitating humidity I am used to in Auckland. Nothing decays into rot the way it does when you add moisture. It just fossilises into crumbling dust powder. Strange but true however this scary weather continues to astound me almost every day. As the heat wave continues day after day night time can't cool enough to allow the temperature to drop and so the next day starts off hotter than the last already. Twenty degrees at 7.00am rises a further two degrees within the hour. If you do the math the prediction for the day seems frightening.

Imagine if you will midday mercury climbing to thirty-eight, a searing dry heat, eerily still and silent. The next minute a wind sweeps through whipping dust and parchment leaves from the gutters to circle the air. I look up at the noise of what incredibly, sounds like rain and find that it is...followed closely by thunder. The heavens open and bellow dirty rain onto the gasping ground and the temperature instantly drops at least ten degrees. Just astounding! The following morning I blinked several times only to discover that the cataract-like haze before my eyes was in fact a humid cloud clinging to the tops of roofs and tall buildings of the city. By the afternoon it was raining and children splashed joyfully in puddles as their parents watched without censure. It was so rare that passers-by paused to smile. For the first time in months I fell asleep to the sound of rain rather than an oscillating fan by the bed. During the night I heard its familiar lull and in the morning the sky was darker than usual because it..was..still..raining. The radio DJ's children have never seen what she terms “old-fashioned rain”, rain that reminded her for childhood downpours lasting days. They are too young to know what I take for granted. Tomorrow's generation is already forgetting or worse, oblivious to the joy of water.

It's drier than I ever imagined here and this is the city, it's not the Outback cliché of the movies. Driving between Melbourne and Wagga Wagga the other weekend I witnessed more shame. Lake Eildon, famed site of Bonnie Doon in the iconic film “The Castle”, is so dry that not even a trickle flows under the bridge that used to span one of the major water supplies to the Goulburn Valley. In the movie they fish and blat about on speed boats on Lake Eildon. Today you can drive your car off the long concrete boat ramp straight into the hollow should be under water. A rabbit dashes in front of the car. The city rain has just stopped after two days of consistent falling and the 6 o'clock news describes it as torrential. Okay so it was steady but nowhere near that exaggeration. Have Victorians really forgotten what torrential looks like? Still we bless the rains down in Victoria until the weather reporter shakes his head answering the question on everyone's lips at the slightest spattering. Despite flooding in parts of the city, a city so unused to water that it has forgotten how to cope with more than a millimetre, it failed to raise the total catchment capacity above its current 38%. The best the weatherman could offer was that the addition has postponed the lake levels dropping further for a couple of days. Clearly they are in the wrong place to benefit from the preciously sparse rainfall and yet the solution offered by authorities is not to build more or shift the catchments but to de-salinate the bay! And what is the response? Blame it on the weatherman.

They Must Be Giants

2009-11-19T17:57:00.000-08:00

I have come not to the Land not of Oz but of Lilliputt where I feel dwarfed by the insects. I kid ye not, the creepy crawlies in this town are Big Mothers and the folk ‘round these parts simply shrug at my squeamishness and say, “just be grateful you ain’t in Queensland darl. That’s where the real nasty buggers hang out.” Oh gee, thanks for the reassuring comfort.

Met me a Red Back spider the other day and while it didn’t look all that large, I hear that they are sneaky sods and – yeah reasonably poisonous. I mean, apparently they won’t kill ya, not unless you are a cat or allergic to them but still, a nip from one of these purdy critters will I’m told, make you mighty sick for a few days.

The harmless arachnid type that I did meet not that long ago was a Huntsman. Well two actually. The first was just a baby but in my mind it was still big to eat a hamster. Now, I am arachnophobic but I can handle the creepy crawlie as long as I can trap it in a glass and release it into the wild where let’s face it, it belonged in the first place! So this ‘baby’, yeah it technically came under that heading. Its big brother, rudely not formally introduced to me in the toilet one morning not so long after was a different story. The size of my fist I’m looking at it looking back at me with multiple beady eyes and my mind starts screaming…I don’t have a glass big enough for this one. If I’d met Big Daddy I’m assured, a pint beer glass would not have contained the body let alone the legs jammed under the rim. But they are harmless friendly spiders. Yeah right! They can scare small children with a cocky three-eyed wink but they will not kill ya.

Ants…twice the size of Kiwi cousins and the bigguns will nip you if you let ‘em. Beetles…big as bottle tops or a fifty cent piece without the bevelled edges. Cicadas…I haven’t actually seen one but I’ve heard them in the trees and they sound like they would definitely get stuck in a bird’s throat. Maybe that explains the mean look in the raven’s eye and the squawking caw they make. All in all, a land of giants.

That's Entertainment

2009-10-21T15:25:00.000-07:00

There's been a few festivals on lately and as is my habit, I went to some of the offerings. This year however, rather than making my choice based on reading the programme with price at the forefront (I was economising last year), my selection was made on Triple R interviews. Yes folks, I am a supporter of the Melbourne community radio station Triple R and it is the most fabulous thing since sliced bread as far as I am concerned. My morning begins with the Breakfasters gently shaking me awake before the real alarm barks at me to stop lazing around and get up. Saturday morning eases into activity with the eclectic mix of music on Vital Bits and Sunday lazes around till midday with information by osmosis on Radio Marinara, Radio Therapy and Einstein A-go-go. Thanks to The Breakfasters too I can while away a rather dull double train ride with information of things to fill my spare time and enrich my life, like...

Philip Escoffey's Six Impossible Things Before Dinner at the Melbourne Fringe Festival. It was very entertaining I have to say and just the ticket to cheer us up in a trying week of freezing cold and no electrons in the house. It's a long story but the power accidentally got cut off in the coldest week of Spring. Anyway, Philip Escoffey does not claim to read minds but he does do some pretty wicked tricks that suggest to his audience he does. And I was one of the audience members to have my mind read...well sort of, it was a trick after all because if he had been reading my mind, he would have seen only blank space between these blonde ears. It was however very entertaining and clever and his show gets my recommendation.

Second Triple R recommendation for something to do on a Sunday night was Mal Webb and Adam Page's musical gymnastics with loopback machines and more instruments than two people should be able to play in a million years. Yes, these two were completely, spontaneously impressive on trombone, saxophone, paper fan, nose flute and tin whistle to name but a few. Mal's vocal ability with sound effects was also pretty impressive as they jammed for two and a half hours. Mal's songs too were very funny and acrobatic with words.

Triple R also offered a Black Cab performance in their performance space which as a new subscriber, I was welcome to on my own merits rather than as an invited plus one. Yay, for my Radiothon inspired subscription.

On Sunday afternoon Lauren and I wandered down to Federation Square for a dose of Melbourne Arts Festival with Living Room on the big screen. It featured photos people had sent in of them at home in their living spaces. It was pretty cool to recognise all the neighbourhoods featured now that I am a local and I thought that my living room photo could easily have featured alongside the rest. My living room would have fitted in perfectly.

The big show of the week however was Debbie and me going to 'Chicago' at Her Majesty's Theatre. I was captivated. It was a truly great show, better than Wicked and all it had was one set and one costume each. Pretty low budget on effects but it made up for it with big voices and big acting to keep me spellbound. All in all, well worthwhile arty couple of weeks.

Things that sneak up on you

2009-09-27T16:27:00.000-07:00

I met my first unfriendly Aussie the other morning. A Huntsman spider stalked me from the corner of the ceiling in the kitchen. It was black and all legs, as big as the average Avondale arachnid.

“Ah, there's a big black thing in the kitchen. Do something,” I commanded Roger.

“Like what? It's a spider,” he answered inexplicably nonchalantly.

Yes, that's right, it is a spider and that should be enough don't you think? He was showing a distinct lack of seriousness for the situation I thought so I reluctantly spelled it out.

“Like get rid of it. I don't care how, I don't like spiders.”

The unspoken look on his face indicated that he thought I was in the wrong country then but humouring me he went into the kitchen to check it out.

“Oh it's only a baby,” I heard his disembodied voice announce and considered his joke to be in very poor taste.

“Well it's bigger than I've ever seen. I'm from New Zealand, we don't have beasts that can eat you in one swallow.”

What happened next made me squeal like a girl's blouse. He picked it up in his hand and let it sit on his arm while walking the thing to the door. Eee-yew.

“No seriously it's just a baby,” he said as cool as a cucumber icy pole. “Wait till you see what it grows up to be.”

“Ah, yeah, I'm good with not thank you.”

A few days later I spotted a book in the library called 'Melbourne's Wildlife'. Melbourne mind, not Victoria, not Australia's wildlife – just Melbourne and it was still the size and thickness of the complete Oxford dictionary! I look up Huntsman because I had a ghoulish curiosity. Yep, pretty frigging huge, Roger was not joking.

“Of course,” remarked my Queensland colleague. “They get bigger than that in Brisbane.”

Placing her fingers and thumbs together to make a circle she showed me a shape the size of, oh – I'm thinking a hamster! Remembering the comment of the old guy on Brighton Beach about it being too cold in Melbourne for most beasts, I knew there was a reason I chose Victoria over Queensland, the most deadliest place on the planet it would seem. Queensland boasts one of the only two animals in the world to hunt humans for fun. That would be the 'Salty' or saltwater crocodile. The other is a polar bear but thankfully Melbourne is not quite cold enough to attract them either.

Anyway back to my friend the Huntsman spider because the story doesn't end there. Saturday morning, bleary-eyed, grumbling about having to get up at 7.00am, I stagger into the toilet. It's a gloomy day so I turn on the light and as I look up – Ah! Harry the Huntsman's big brother Everett (as in Peter 'Spider' Everett the local sportsman) is looking down at me. Little Harry was more like Dirty Harry setting his older, hairier sibling on to me. Well I was not feeling very lucky punk so yet again Rog the disposal expert is called in only this time I'm not prepared to watch him bare-hand the beermat sized creature. I retreat to the bathroom to shower away my shattered nerves, making sure of course that I check every ceiling crevice first.

Far out, I'm still having palpitations thinking about the thing. The good news – they are apparently friendly spiders by comparison. Comparison to what!?! Black Widows? Darth Vadar? But yes it's true, the Huntsman is not a venomous arachnid and they don't nest, hunt in packs or curl up in shoes, clothes or bedding, unlike the White Tail, Funnel Web or Red Back. Except that they are all Australian crawlies too! Huntsmen, or so I am reassured and I hope that they're not just being kind, only like to hang out in ceiling corners so while they can be pretty much the size of small rodents, they don't come near humans much.

In fact Harry and Everett were as scared of me as I was of them - apparently. So while I'm screaming at Harry, Harry was not taking any of his eight beady eyes off me in terrified fear that he might lose track of the human and not know which part of the house I might be lurking in. “Ah, a girl,” would no doubt have been the shaky words on his fangs if a spider's mandibles had the ability to form words. Okay look I'm trying but Roger's advice to shake my irrational fear by thinking of the poor spider and giving is a name to become it's friend is just not working when every time I close my eyes I see an image of it having four times as many eyes and legs as me. I don't think Harry, Everett and I will ever be enjoying tea together unfortunately but if this beast meeting carries on, I might have to see a therapist.

Oh and by the way, book on 'Melbourne's Wildlife'. I don't care if you decide to call it a 'legless lizard', I'm afraid it's still a goddam snake.

Doggies canned in Pies

2009-09-20T16:14:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are again nearing the end of another AFL season, the Grand Final looming next weekend. It's a menagerie fight between Cats and Dogs over a bunch of Magpies and Crows it would seem with Geelong, Collingwood, St Kilda and Footscray the prominent teams hanging in there in the finals. Oh, and the Adelaide crows are there too but we don't talk much about them 'cos they are not a Victorian team. It seems that there are still the diehards that believe the uniquely strange game that started as the VFL (Victorian Football League) should never have gone national. They take comfort in the knowledge that the Sydney Swans migrated from South Melbourne and that Brisbane's team is Fitzroy in disguise. I know diddly-squat about footy but I can't help overhearing the passionate conversations. Even those who support other sports as far removed as motorsport and yachting still know the names of the Victorian teams at the very least. It's a Melbourne thing and you can't call yourself a true local until you know a war cry or two.

I once asked why Australians couldn't just play rugby like everyone else and be happy with international competitions. The indignant answer came back; “we had to have an identity, a sport that belongs just to us. The U.S. has grid iron, there's Pacific Cricket and Canada is pretty much the only country to go nuts over ice hockey. Ergo we invent a wacky way to play football so that it will be neither soccer football nor rugby football. And it shall be known hence forth as footy.”

So how do you support footy? Well apparently you pick a team based not on form but on prejudice. You are completely within your rights to pledge allegiance using whatever criteria you wish as long as once pledged, you are a supporter for life. There's no option to change without very scary things happening to you. Your choice might have been based on lineage, who your father, grandfather, etc supported. It might have been a whimsical youthful rebellion against afore mentioned paternal influence. It might have been a team chosen in direct opposition to your husband just to piss him off and create healthy competition within the marriage. Support divides families when Mum and Dad barrack for different teams. Parent's openly vie with bribery and corruption for their children's loyalty. It's important to catch 'em while they are young and impressionable because remember, membership is FOR LIFE!

So if you are a team and your supporters have nothing to do with playing form, the idea is to get yourself a raucously wicked war cry that will attract the masses. Hence “Go the Doggies” for the Western Bulldogs and “Carn the Pies” to mimic the call of the Collingwood Magpies. This team would better get my allegiance if said pies were actually handed out free at games but apparently it's not what the cry means. That's all it takes apparently, a cry that sounds fantastic when bellowed at the top of cigarette graveled lungs.

So who does this fresh blood new Melbourne immigrant barrack for? Well I give as much toss about it as I do the back end of a rat which means that my allegiance is up for grabs based purely on the best pie deal. Yes that is correct, I am corruptible and my support is for sale. But remember folks, I'm a vego and have yet to be offered a really good, innovative pastry meal so you will need a sophisticated pie offer to tempt me to your team.

Train of thought

2009-09-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

There are of course times when public transportation can raise a smile or our sense of community spirit to the best of humanity. Sitting on a Craigieburn train one day (not in any particular hurry so therefore not stressed), it came to a halt. There we remained, trapped so to speak in our capsule, unable to get off, unable to get on with things. It was a nice day, the train was not full so the feeling of claustrophobia was nowhere in my sight. I was simply resigned to waiting...as were the other passengers obviously.

Two minutes...five minutes...ten...and an announcement from a less than impressed weary train driver...”I'm sorry passengers it would appear that there is only one platform in operation at North Melbourne Station today and that every other train in the city is being allowed on ahead of us. I do apologise.” I looked at the girl opposite me who had looked up from her mobile phone at the sound of the disembodied voice and our eyes met in mutual amusement. Even train drivers have bad days.

My regular line has been subjected to dastardly track works. This means that anyone leaving the city after 7.30pm gets off-loaded at Clifton Hill and squashed on to a connecting bus. This adds its own special adventure to the journey. It's pitch black outside the bus and there are so many bodies crammed on that you couldn't see where you are even if you had night vision goggles. Intelligent drivers then who announce the stations so you don't have to count them off on the unfamiliar road trip, are really appreciated. One such journey where the stops were not being announced led to confusion and subsequent uprising. One passenger started loudly announcing the stations for the driver. We had a very nervous old Japanese man with a bicycle sharing the bus who was anxious not to miss his stop. Why he didn't ride his bike instead of adding it to the cramped space was beyond me but no one seemed that fussed by the inconvenience of accommodating it. This is what I mean about the best of humanity. Take us off the impersonal train and we become people again, able to talk to and help each other out. People talk on the trams and buses, it just seems to be trains that turns us into ice sculptures.

On another bus replacement night we passengers were left standing in the freezing cold, stormy dark waiting for a late connection. Did we grumble? Did we complain? No, we chatted and got to know each other. We stamped our feet to keep warm and compared climates from our originating homes. We reminisced about holidays in the sun. We laughed and made the time pass quickly by betting on which one of us would not last and opt for the gathering taxis. “Ah, where's your balls mate, are you man or mouse?” to the businessman opting out and heading for the cab. You meet some nice people at the bus stop. You meet no one on the train.

Points however for the funniest announcement I've heard so far goes to the driver watching over the cctv, a smart arse school boy force the doors and leap on at the last minute as the train started to pull away. “Would the passenger who just forced the door please note that this is a very dangerous practise. Falling between the train and track could cause death and at the very least the rest of us wouldn't enjoy watching you lose a leg. So don't be an idiot.”

Train of Fools

2009-08-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

I am often gobsmacked at the behaviour on the trains I am now travelling as a big city commuter. I'm certainly not in Kansas any more l'il girl. My lines are mostly Glen Waverley and Hurstbridge and occasionally Pakenham and Craigieburn. While the lyrical names of the passing suburbs never ceases to bring a smile to my face, and the now familiar beauty of the scenery pleases my soul, the interior of the carriages often disturbs. Sarah once had a whole day ruined by sitting on a piece of chewing gum stuck to a tram seat and at the time I laughed. Who's laughing now though, certainly not me. Eating and making a mess in the enclosed space of public transport is commonplace and disgusting. Call me old fashioned but I believe that there should still be places in this world where it is not culturally acceptable to eat. Have we become so dependent on food that we cannot wait twenty minutes or so to stuff our faces? Or do we need to slow our lives down to allow time to eat properly? It can't be good for anyone's system to scoff stinky fast food from a paper bag on a jiggling train. I know it's not good for mine to witness it.

But it's not necessarily the state of the trains I am talking about here though they are not obviously pleasant but the way the passengers treat each other and their temporary environment. Here's a tip, don't even think about catching a train on a Saturday afternoon around the time of an AFL game unless you like the smell of vomit or watching a trail of piss slowly trickle down the aisle towards your feet. I kid ye not, I got on a full-ish train once and wondered why there were some empty seats up one end. Discovered why when the smell reached my nostrils. The 20mins to Ivanhoe never went so slowly. Mind you, yours truly has been guilty of having a discreet puke into a library membership bag when a migraine struck on my first day at work. Trapped on a train knowing that I would be better getting to somewhere I could safely pass out rather than get off in the middle of nowhere , there was no stopping the chuck when it knocked at the door. Hoo-boy the motion of the not so smooth tracks did not help much.

Anyway, in the morning between Hurstbridge and the city a full train is expected. Apart from the lovely names of the suburbs, it is by far the worst line. They desperately need more trains running because the Epping and Hurstbridge services share a track north from the city to Clifton Hill then split. This means that at ten minute intervals leaving Flinders Street mine only runs every second time. You really don't want to miss it then if the next one will be along in – oh only twenty minutes if you're lucky and its not late. I spend my life waiting for late trains, trams and buses at the moment. There's the time to be eating!

Sometimes enjoying the ride though is a real stretch of the Pollyanna 'glad game'. It's raining this morning so already everything is unpleasantly wet and steamy on board. Today's Glen Waverley vehicle is an ancient dunger of a carriage with graffiti on every surface, vertical and horizontal. Jaggered indecipherable letters are scratched into the windows, penned in black on the walls, floor and even the distinctive blue geometrically patterned seats. I share the morning train with the kids from St Kevin's College. Their not bad dressed in the crest embossed blazers and striped ties but they are typical teenage boys, popping gum, talking about girls and swearing. However I much prefer their irritating adolescence to the Broadie Bogans on the Craigieburn and the middle class suburban young Rebels without a Clue on the Hurstbridge.

The Hurstbridge youth are utterly appalling. Cheap imitations of Paris Hilton with screechingly loud Down Under twangs at its almost worst, tits and bits hanging out of teensy outfits that cost more per square inch of fabric than the national debt of Japan. And the boys are just as bad. Drunk and obnoxious at ten on a Sunday morning they look about twelve to me and no matter what they think...THEY ARE NOT FUNNY...not even in a pitiful way! Put these two sexes together, add a year of maturity and what do you get?! A self-absorbed young couple glued together with suction sound effects all the way to Heidelberg. “It's another full tram guys, excuse me,” I want to say, “but it is really uncomfortable for the people sitting next to you to be elbowed by limbs greedy to be fondling each other.” But of course I don't because the most adhered to unspoken rule of train travel is that you never react to the other beings around you. Stare straight ahead and ignore whatever is going on. Eavesdropping is permitted and if you don't have small buds of music connected by dental floss to your pocket attached to your ears, positively unavoidable however under no circumstances must you react. Getting involved is worse by a thousand times than the obnoxious behaviour and that is because everyone is afraid that speaking up won't make the situation better or go away, it will only make it unbearably worse. What have we become?

Three months on and seeds begin to take root...

2009-06-03T20:03:00.000-07:00

Well, after three months of being a gypsy in Melbourne, I am setting down a few roots. My Nunnery room mate Sarah, began putting the seed into my head months ago, that if I like it here so much to return after only four months away, then maybe I should think about staying. Okay, fair enough I thought, good point and well raised. Apparently Mum back in Auckland had been thinking something similar. It honestly hadn't occurred to me but then sometimes it takes an external viewpoint to see the obvious. What can be clear as the nose on a face to someone else can sometimes be missed by the eyes just above the nose.

So I started to just, oh what the hell, apply for jobs here and there. I got more Dear Louise...letters than I did interviews but it only takes one to get a job. And what a job. I get to be a team leader in a community library. Something tells me that my library career so far has been preparing me for this step. It's a step that if you asked me some years back when I was a wee young library assistant, if I would want to take, I would have told you, no, not for me, I'm not a manager. Apparently though I am, because not only have I had a taste of it recently being in charge of libraries as a casual librarian, but my interview answers genuinely took me by surprised and woke me up to the fact that I have matured into the role. Oh no, now I will have to start looking and acting like a bit of a grown up, :-). Not to worry, I am up for the challenge.

So, I have a job, a tax file number, and have plans afoot to get myself a place to live. Gee, it looks as if I am settling down here in Melbourne. The gypsy hours are passing with the shortening of the days and the falling of the autumn leaves. I am preparing to nest for the winter.

Nesting however will not mean hibernating. Certainly not when the days are crisp and light with hazy sun, no rain. They may get cold but making the most of the good weather is what I plan to do in the next few months of exploring my new home.

On Saturday then, Roger took me up to Kinglake for a first excursion further afield. It is somewhere he has visited often but not since the fires so he was understandably affected by the change in the landscape. I didn't know what it looked like before February but seeing the damage like a freshly logged forestry road as we climbed up into the hills, I recognised devastation. Kinglake I believe, was where the summer fires started. It used to look like the Dandenongs covered in fern trees, smelling dank and earthy. Where once the winding, twisting roads presented drivers and riders with visibility challenges through dense canopy, now the view between burnt out stalks of trees, is clear. The yellow speed signs seem redundant given how far through the scorched valleys you can now see. Four months on and the smell of fire still clings to the blackened grass and stumps of trunks and lingers in the air as a haze. A house here, a business there, those belonging to the lucky, stand from before, little patches of sanctuary in the devastation. Just the other side of the road is a vacant piece of land that Roger tells me was the pizza shop. Brick chimneys stand like ghost town remains, the rest of the house having exploded in the heat of the fire. The occasional gate across a path that leads nowhere in particular these days. Elsewhere however, are signs of new growth, seeds spreading now that the temperature is dropping and moisture returns. Some of the trees have sprouted new leaves on blackened bark. Temporary dwellings, prefabricated sheds, and caravans dot the landscape. The land is cleared of the old, dead wood and being replaced with foundations for new houses. These people are starting new lives too, it seems that winter in Melbourne is a good season to be entering for more than one of us.

Sux, Drugs, and Fush and Chups

2009-05-19T22:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, so apparently I have a bit of an accent. Well, at least I am being teased about it these days. In an effort to “feet-een” (yeah, right pull your head in), I have occasionally managed to collect one particular Auss-ism, “no worries” where we in Kiwiland would use “no problems”, or more likely “sweet as”. The Aussies I have mentioned this to, reckon they actually prefer “sweet as” because it has a positive take.

I must admit to not noticing the Aussie accent most of the time any more unless is it the really Bogan variety which believe it or not, actually comes out with “growse” on occasion. Yep, that was “growse” you just read, it is not just put on for the telly, some people here really do use it. Or should that be “youse” as in “youse Kiwis have strange accents”.

“Darl” is another one, applied mostly by cute young shop assistants inquiring “how you doing there darl?” They are not as pushy as the Kiwi variety of shop assistant. The Aussie breed take the hint to leave you be for a moment or two but keep an eye out in case you want them to come back. Try shooing a Kiwi shop assistant away and she retreats in a huff never to be seen again, a sale lost on her. Incidentally, I have found the way to cope with the overwhelming onslaught of shopping malls – headphones playing soothing music of my choice. The raucous screaming of kids still “reeally does get een” but at least their nasal noise is masked by lulling tones.

These days too, I sit on the train or tram and not only do I recognise the names of the places I am passing but I now know how to pronounce them in 'Stryne. Moorabbin, Nunawading, Kooyong, Tooronga, Maribynong, these are all loosely Aborigine words pronounced by the Europeans as they are written. The curious ones are the English names based on people or places in England where the Aussies say it differently to us Kiwis. For instance Northcote is Northc'te, Darebin is said Dara-bin and then there are the just plain odd suburbs called Rosanna, Dennis, Merri, Moonee Ponds, and Darling. I want to live in a place I can call Darling, I think. It would be great to say that your home was just Darling, wouldn't it?

I am being re-educated apparently like some sort of mind control. My diet lately has been Aussie Melbourne music, namely Paul Kelly's early hits hankering for St Kilda while in Kings Cross and the marvellous song “To her door” which, wah-hey, mentions the no-hoper husband staying at The Nunnery while he sobers up. Yay, Go The Nunnery!

I've also been put on a nutrition plan of Aussie TV shows like “The Games”. Yeah right, who are you kidding, the main actor is John Clarke who must I remind everyone was Fred Dagg when he started out in New Zealand. Even the film “Death in Brunswick” which was set just up the road from me, stars John Clarke again and – Sam Neill! Don't even think about claiming our Sam you wicked Roos or you will have My Mum to reckon with!

This one goes out to the CFA

2009-04-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

Easter has been and gone and I had a lovely celebration in my home away from home. On Good Friday the cell mates in dorm 12 spent the day in quiet contemplation, well, by which I mean, we wondered what we as unemployed bums could get up to on a public holiday when the rest of the world had either shut down or gone away to their holiday homes. They all have 'normal' lives, we are the oddities. Anyway, feeling a little bit lost without the usual weekend hub-bub then, we formed our own family celebration and took ourselves off the movies – ooh that was a real treat, lunch at Brunettis and hot cross buns. There was adventure in even that minor celebration. To start with the Loose-enders (kind of like the Eastenders without the drama and the horrendous accents), decided that we were bored enough to go to an early movie at Nova in Lygon Street, having chosen a French comedy called 'Pain in the Ass'. It was in hindsight, a bit of a mistake as by three in the afternoon, we were again – hmm, bored. The movie was over, we'd had our coffee and lunch at Brunettis already and all that was left to tick off on our Good Friday list, was the hot cross buns.

Down then to the hostel kitchen it was for the very first time. After sterilising everything we needed to touch, oh yes, believe me it is necessary, we cut the buns in half and stuffed them into the toaster. Here we have an exercise in the careful toasting of buns not exactly designed as toaster shape so are squashed up to the element. I have already had a ride in an ambulance and I was not particularly looking to add the fire service to my list of emergency services. But never fear, we were up to the task and enjoyed our Easter fare. Margaret bought a wee packet of Easter eggs to share over the weekend but we decided that we could resist the temptation for one more day. The hostel incidentally put on an Easter egg hunt starting at 10.00am but they hid the eggs too early. When I got up at eight to use the bathroom, I saw some coloured foil peering sneakily out from strategic places. Five minutes later returning to the dorm, they had already been scavenged. People are hopelessly greedy I tell you.

On Sunday then I had a great treat of going with my new friend Roger out to the Yarra Valley to the Rocheford Winery concert that had a line up of The Audreys, Tim Freedman, Missy Higgins and The Cat Empire. It was the usual picnic on the lawn in front of the stage affair and it was great to kick back and listen to more Aussie grown music. I made the comment that I had thought Missy Higgins to be Canadian because of her accent and Roger rather rudely pointed out that the Aussies only steal Kiwi bands, they don't plunder the rest of the world. All the bands were good although I have to say I probably enjoyed the Audrey's Celtic sound the best. Roger pointed out that even at a distance the lead singer was sexy and I could see his point, she could probably make cleaning the toilet look sensual, there is something very elegant in the way she moves.

All up the day was terrific, cruising through the very green Dandenong Ranges with the fragrant smell of eucalyptus in the high ups and the dank, earthy smell of fern tree forests in the valleys. The latter was a smell that reminded me of home. We tried spotting koalas but nothing doing however the drive, the concert and the beautiful Indian Summer, made up for the lack of wildlife.

Music to my ears

2009-03-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

I've sampled some of Melbourne's music scene at long last. I have always been keen to do this but was quite frankly daunted by the choice. I mean it's like being a kid in a candy shop.

“Okay dear, what would you like? The strawberry lollipop or the jersey caramels?”

Um – um, can I have it all? Not on your budget remember, Louise. It's important to be selective with your entertainment allowance and choose wisely. Ah, but the difficulty with that is that when there are so many different groups and acts that are completely alien to me, what is a gal supposed to do? Stick a pin blindfold into the map? Well it worked for exploring Melbourne on the trams so why not. Fortunately I know people now who know more about the places to go than a pincushion. It's the old – not what you know but who syndrome.

Okay, so the other Thursday night my new 'wedding singer' pal took me to Manchester Lane. He suggested the notorious Espy Hotel in St Kilda but my involuntary shudder must have alerted him to my reluctance to ever set foot in that joint ever again. Manchester Lane was more my scene. A quiet, well, on a Thursday night anyway, cabaret club. On this particular night we only just caught the end of Fats Wah-Wah, having spent a bit more time chatting over supper than anticipated – hey, anyone that knows me will not be surprised that I talked for too long. Fats Wah-Wah was fronted by a skinny dude, with bright pink hat covering his dreadlocks, singing like Joe Cocker.

The next Tuesday I took my room mate Lauren back to Manchester Lane to hear the resident act, The Gabriel Lynch Band. First up though we were treated to the dolce tones of Just Desserts, a sweet, clean-cut duo in the vein of The Carpenters. We also met the Just Desserts fan club, Faezeh, Amman, Adeline, and Messel. Meeting new and interesting people made the night.

Sunday night this week, I was very lucky to have the opportunity to see a couple of hot acts at The Corner Hotel in Swan Street. My friend Roger had won tickets to see the Adelaide act Sia, a singer who reminded me of Debbie Harry in her early career. I knew nothing about the singer but couldn't really pass up the opportunity of sharing Roger's lucky win now could I, so off we went. I have always said that the best experiences are not sought and totally unexpected so not knowing anything about Sia meant that I had a lovely surprise. She has apparently made it quite big in the UK but was relatively unknown in her home town, Australia. Her Australian career has recently started taking off in a big way which was obvious by the sellout concerts greeting her in Melbourne. The warm up act was also interestingly called, Bridezilla. Four young girls with classical training have turned their violin, saxophone, and guitars to Gothic Celtic. They pulled it off by looking like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths.

So there you go, I've been induced into the Melbourne music culture but there is still a long way to go. My other room mate Sarah is keen to go to Wicked but the only affordable way to get there would be to put our names into a draw two and a half hours before every performance and then hang around waiting till show time. A bit of a waste of time if you ask me.

Weekend Watermelon Weather

2009-03-22T18:18:00.001-07:00

Rose Street Market in Fitzroy is one of the many craft and artist markets in Melbourne. I went there this Saturday with friends Debbie and Zanetta. It was stinking hot, 33 C with a wind to sweeten the bargain but not however, a refreshing one. Rivers of sweat trickle down my back between t-shirt and pack as we walk. It's dry heat though, not debilitating humid blah, and I have the energy still to make the most of the day rather than wanting just to lie in bed with my head the freezer. Take a shower in this climate and realising as you reach around the shower door to grab the towel that you have left it in your room, is not a big deal. Your arm is dry already anyway and like some futuristic scanner-towel, your body soon follows. By the time you step out of the shower box to hunt down a flannel or t-shirt to wipe yourself with, you're dry anyway. Great! Saves on laundry!

“It should be cooling down by now,” Debbie complains. “It's March for godsake. About seven degrees less would be nice.”

Deb is not really a sun bunny. When she moved over to Melbourne last year, she was dreading the promised 40 temperature over New Years and so when the mercury topped at 47.5 I was wondering how she was coping. Actually I half expected her to decide that a Christmas Antarctic cruise was a fine sounding option but no, she was here, sweltering. When we caught up at the weekend, I asked her how she had weathered the heat and was surprised to see her shrug as if the painful memory, like childbirth, was one best forgotten so it could be repeated.

“I just stayed at home lying in the coolest part of the flat,” she said.

The image in my mind was of her lying spread-eagled on her back in the middle of the living room floor, dressed in swimsuit, ice packs surrounding her, moaning. That may have been the case but her shrug wasn't admitting it.

So we sweated our way around the market on the fine Saturday afternoon. It's watermelon weather and speaking of which, a nice, ice cold watermelon granita would not go amiss right about now but a cup of zuppa inglese gelato was next best thing. Mmmm.

Ha, finally I have found the cure for the affliction I had last sojourn of, feeling like an outcast Nigel No-friends at the weekends. On my last visit, I had been happy as Larry, amusing myself and fruitfully occupying my time during the week when I had writing and exploring to do. It was at the weekends however, when the rest of the world was out bonding with family and such, that I felt the lack of community being here solo. This time...wait for it...I have friends to hang out with. Wahoo! Debbie and Zanetta to go to the market, Lauren, Margaret and Sarah out finding Lauren a flat, it's wonderful. Melbourne is really a lovely city for getting to know people. I've been told that it is so friendly, in comparison to Sydney where people move away if the random stranger lady starts talking to them. I'm glad then that I am here and not in Sydney then. However it is poetic justice that I come to Melbourne to hang out with an Aucklander and a Hamilton girl. It really is a small world.

My dormies and other animals

2009-03-16T21:31:00.001-07:00

A word on hostel living. It's not for the faint hearted but it is full of adventure. You meet the most interesting and infuriating people and...you have to share a room with them. So far on my two trips to Melbourne I have stayed at four hostels, The Nunnery in Carlton, Victoria Hall and The Greenhouse both in the CBD and Collingwood Backpackers, no surprise for guessing where...in Collingwood. My pick? Well for friendly, welcoming character and atmosphere, it would have to be The Nunnery. It is run efficiently by The Nuns and Brother Francis the cat and if you live by the convent rules, it is easy to stay for long enough that it becomes like home away from home.

I believe that The Nunnery was originally built for a doctor but it has definitely done its time as a nun run hostel for single females in the 50s and in the 70s, a refuge for Vietnamese refugees. Religious icons fill its high studded rooms and a comforting fire burns in the fireplace throughout the winter. It is really handy to town and in the most beautiful tree-lined neighbourhood that has become my favourite part of town.

So my worst pick thus far? Would have to be the squalid Collingwood deal. Oh, I could list the multiple ways that this place scored a 'boggie' well under the golfer's par but if I did, my mother would be on the phone straight away begging me to come home. Never fear mama, I'm outta there and well shot of the place. I have to say though that the reception I received from the anaemic-spirited manager, was the worst example of customer service I think I have ever come across.

The moral of the story is that when you share a room you either bond with, or want to strangle your room mates, especially if their nightly snoring registers on the Richter scale. So far I have not had any occasion to throttle the people I have intimately shared a six-bed dorm with but there have been times of isolation and indifference experienced immersed in a strange culture. Last time I bunked with a chaotic model, a down to earth and warm-hearted nurse, a sweet Taiwanese girl who called Melbourne “Morabin”, and some ever-so English backpackers. This time I have made friends with a lass from home. To quote an old Scottish granny, “she's from Hamilton but she's quite nice considering.” Funny how you can cross an entire ocean just to hang out with the girl next door. Other dorm inhabs (or should that be cell mates) include a Tasmanian with a colourful (I'm talking rainbow here) past, and a doctor from the north of England with pastie winter legs that should be left inside trousers until they have learned how to be sociably acceptable. I have not yet been quick enough at looking away to miss the sight each morning of nightie and pants descending on me from the bunk above. She needs some sort of landing warning siren considering the number of times she has fallen yelping from above.

But all in all, times in the hostels have been full of – okay I admit it, material for my books. Oh, the stories I could and will eventually tell, thinly disguised as fictional characters. Watch this space.

Songs about love and rain

2009-03-11T21:05:00.000-07:00

So many songs have been written for the love of rain. Raindrops keep falling on my head, Rainy days and Mondays, It's raining men. Well okay fair enough about the last one on that list, but heavens praised, the deluge is upon us at long last. It began last night with a sudden opening of the heavens. The downpour splashing large 'v's on the lane, lasted only fifteen minutes that time but freshened an afternoon air that had been unusually humid and uncomfortable. Melbourne is not as accustomed to the humidity as the girl from Auckland so there were many bitter complaints about what I considered to be quite mild. Still, when the sky released its first brief purge of wet, it was welcomed by all. Welcomed by not exactly enjoyed. Out came the umbrellas, mad dashes to doorways, sheltering under eaves and verandahs. It has been so long coming, predicted day after hopeful day, that a collective sigh of relief could be heard breaking the routine bustle of the city but nevertheless they accepted this strange new sensation as inevitable. The rain would happen everyone had to believe to survive, so when it did, it came as no surprise. What has happened to our appreciation of the wonders of the planet that we do not savour the prayed for blessing when it arrives?

Sisto was the first to relish the rain with enormous appreciation. As soon as he saw it, he stepped from the open side door of the cafe into the laneway, raising his arms to the sky, praising above with outstretched hands. He promised his wife that if it rained he would take his shirt off and dance in it like a crazy romantic. He didn't quite go as far as au naturale in the middle of the street but his smile spread wider than usual and it was so wonderful to watch him delight in getting absolutely wet that I could not myself resist. Rain is not such a novelty to an Aucklander but I love it when the leisure to enjoy the sensation of water on my skin is there. Now was the time to completely immerse and absorb the liquid and so in my light summer dress, I joined my friend in the street. A couple of ladies sitting in the window of cafe within arms reach smiled, content to watch us from their position of dry. They were laughing with us not at us Singin' in the rain.

It was quite possibly the most delicious water I have experienced. I have to admit that I envisaged a more dramatic response from the general populace when the drought finally broke. I expected the city to come to a halt and for there to be joyous dancing in the streets as Sisto and I were doing but life went on as usual, the theatrics left to the last of the true romantics. This morning the rain continues, set in hopefully for the day. It is heavy but I am still declining an umbrella purchase to avoid chasing it away. I am happy to walk uncovered in the rain, it freshens me as well as the streets and already that is apparent. Last night's hot wet produced the smell of oil on tar, this morning's fresh has brought out the long forgotten scent of leaves and grass. On the street I breathe in Eucalyptus and lavender, fragrances touched and released by nature. A colourful array of umbrellas have opened, an unusual sight this sea of spreading cover over heads used to being bare. There is one sound however that does not bring cheer, the sound of sirens as emergency services race to accidents on roads coated heavily in oil and now slick in the wet. Drivers have forgotten how to cope with slippery driving.

This morning I sit with the old regulars at Tiamo in Lygon Street. The talk, usually centred around the AFL trials and first games of the season, today is all about the weather. It should continue like this for a month, they plead with smiles wide on their faces. Then we would be saved. If only it was that simple fellas. It had stopped by midday and the sun came out again to evaporate the results.

Blessed drops of Liquid Rain

2009-03-05T19:42:00.000-08:00

I have brought with me from Auckland bottled rain, but no one here is complaining, rather regarding me as some sort of Angel of Blessed Relief to souls in Need. Call me superstition but I even announced that I would not buy an umbrella but walk instead in the rain to ensure that I do not chase the liquid love from the sky away. The temperature today has dropped to 19 degrees and not expecting this, Melbournians have reached to the back of their wardrobes for their winter wear. The fashion on the street today is last season's unprepared and therefore still crumpled trenches and parkas. (Do parkas even still exist or am I showing my age?) Anyway they brace themselves against the weather with hunched shoulders and grumble about how freezing it is. I raise disbelieving eyebrows in response. Freezing? Last week the wail was that it was unbearably hot? Weather is a curious thing that it affects folk so. I am still happily wandering around in my short sleeves and simply enjoying a walk in rain that will not frizz my hair into a humid bird's nest. My eyes are raised and my face pringles with as soft drops of liquid love hit my skin. There is mercy in the universe after all.

A wind from the furnace of Hell

2009-03-03T16:34:00.000-08:00

I am sad. People have been pouring out their hearts to me with stories about the Victorian fires and although I intended to come here to bring them freshness and cheer, I have been already been touched and by their sadness. I sense their need to release some sorrow and am therefore glad to be a shoulder for them to come to but I feel the weight. There is an atmosphere of dampened spirits and strain to my dear Melbourne friends as I listen and watch their ashen faces tell of how the tragedy has affected the whole state.

Flying in over the territory it was difficult to decipher obvious fire damage from above. The landscape appeared ochre as usual, a dry dust bowl without a blade of grass showing, drier than I remember it only a few months earlier but not scorched as I expected. The very distant hills were shrouded in a haze like the mists of Avalon, jagged outlines revealed in staggered gradients of colour as the hills appeared through the smoke.

I had been told that I might be able to smell lingering smoke even in the city but have not found that to be the case. Melbourne City, apart from the emotional damage, is untouched and life continues as normal despite a collective look of disbelief on the faces around the streets. My friends have described, each in their own words yet strikingly similar, what the 47 degree temperature of Black Sunday felt like. This was the day that melted power lines and started some of the fires. The wind that carried the waves of heat straight off the desert, directly up from Hell's furnace, was the agent required to spread the destruction. One friend talked about standing on Bourke Street that day with mouth open, and feeling a force that was like holding a hair drier in his mouth. I imagined a scene from a disaster movie where a wave of nuclear explosion rips through a city melting everything in its path. It might sound dramatic but this it becoming the reality of the global climates.

Today Victoria is a desert environment. The state and the city, has been in drought for ten years with no sign that it will change any time soon yet everyone still prays for rain as if it is their only saviour. In reality the inhabitants are adapting as humans do to their new environment. A new coping mechanism appears, regulatory SMS are sent to 5 million cell phones, warning of strong winds that will further fan the lingering flames and dangers to avoid. The fears do not eventuate, instead a slight overnight rain brings a degree of relief and the collective held breath is released with a sigh. The city is eerily calm when reports are coming in of strong wind in the suburbs congesting roads. Panic is imagined rather than real but how much more tension can people take?

The answer? Life goes on. In reality the inhabitants are adapting as humans do, to their new environment and already the recovery is happening with charity concerts being orgainsed to raise money to help the victims of the fires and plans to rebuild smarter houses that will cope with the next fires because...no one believes that this is the end, only the beginning of a new landscape. And still they pray for rain.

Encore et toujours

2009-03-01T17:32:00.000-08:00

Here I am, once again, standing on another precipice... So I begin with a line from a new song still mulling through my head. I'm at Auckland Airport again, about to return to Melbourne, the place from where all my adventures seem to stem. This time I recognise the process. I have been here enough times to know how it works and even the people closest to me are blasé about my going this time that there is little anxiety, no tears, just the briefest of hugs and a cheerio wave. And yet there are still those touched by my leaving just as there will be others affected by my return – I hope.

It is only at the airport then that I see the faces of strangers going through the mixed emotions of farewells with tear stained faces, red and streaked, supported by familial hugs. Are these people going further afield than across The Ditch? Will they be away for a longer time? This particular jaunt, I fly at four in the afternoon, a considerably more civilised hour and consequently there have been more offers to see me off than when I leave on a 7.00am flight. But here I sit now alone, two hours before my flight, surrounded by complete strangers shedding tears.

I have become a totally independent traveller. I pack my bags so that I can carry the total without assistance. I pay my own way, I make my own fortune but I understand too that I am not an island and the importance of offering and accepting help and sometimes even asking for it if it is appropriate. I have grown so much since starting out on my writing journey in August last year. I have remembered that the best company in the world is mine. I have known the splendour and serenity of solitude. I have discovered that despite being by myself, I am never alone because the world is full of strangers who are simply friends I have yet to meet.

At the airport there are oh, about a dozen flights all leaving at the same time and so the queue through security zigzags for what seems like an age. People jostle and vie for position and some have more reason to be anxious than others. Airport staff trickle down the line calling for passengers for Apia as they are holding the plane up. The Melbourne and Sydney flights are also receiving their final calls. Oh, wait, that Melbourne flight is mine and I am still in the queue being frequently nudged from behind by a girl who doesn't know how not to invade my personal space. A question that has been on my mind a fair amount lately pops into my brain. What's the hurry? Doesn't anybody know the virtue of patience any more? Are we obsessed with it all being about “ME” and regarding ourselves as more important than anyone and everyone else? Several people have already managed to work their way further up the queue by simply disregarding the presence of other people and I watch them all with irritated interest. There is a common look of arrogance on each of their faces. On the whole however, tempers and temperaments are more easygoing than they are in the midnight hour snake lines through customs. At that o'clock, after even just a short flight, people tend to look like their passport photos, drained, creased and ten years older. Trinny and Susannah need to invent a remedy for 'Airport Wretchedness'.

Eventually on the other side of the metal detectors, which surprisingly I made it through despite having a skirt held together by sequins, I can gather my possessions off the conveyor belt and walk briskly to the gate. Along the way I meet a woman heaving and sweating under the weight of three, obviously more than 7kg, bags. Earlier I saw her happy and smiling, draped with multiple, multi-coloured lai garlands of chocolates and lollies. Now they were stuffed into a bag, lugged desperately to her departing plane. As I approached her she whimpered a pitiful plea for help.

“Are you okay?” I asked fearing a heartache judging by the beads of perspiration trickling down her forehead.

“Pleese,” was all she had words for so I instead read her need from the strain on her face and relieved her of the least valuable looking of her bags. It happened to be the one with the lolly lais.

“Are you going to Melbourne?”

She shook her head.

“Oh where, where do I go for Apia plane, pleese?”

I had no idea but telling her to follow me brought a look of grateful relief so that was what I did. I walked her to the sign allocating gate numbers and pointed to her flight and gate number. Fortunately it was the one before mine so with a bit of juggling, we managed to get on the escalator (there was no way I could see her navigating the stairs without catastrophe) and the gate.

“God bless you,” she said as I handed back the bag.

I was having a conversation in the car on the way to the airport about the presence of Guardian Angels. My belief system recognises a spirit of guardianship and acknowledges that it is often channelled through the kindness of strangers. Okay, so I've done my Guardian bit for the day then.

Ritorna-me

2008-10-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

I am in the final hours of my sojourn in Melbourne where I have learned so much about myself, fallen for this magical place and discovered a great deal that is mysterious and strange about the power of Melbourne as a city. I believe there to be places in this world that issue vibrations which attract brilliance. New Zealand is an entire country with this quality. You only have to look at the number of talented and genius minds to issue from such a small population to recognise this. Melbourne I believe is too. This is what has enticed and inspired so many immigrants to uproot their lives and come here for the adventure it offers. There is an aura about this city, a spirit in the Earth if you like, that attracts artists and those who appreciate art. I have felt the pull of Melbourne on my soul and have been accepted by the city and it's people. Everyone has welcomed me and my project with enthusiastic interest and support.

It took me a while however to truly recognise this. My chronicles of traveling to every corner in search of a place where I fitted in and belonged have been told here in this story. I stayed for a time in the proper suburb of Elwood and became a 'Desperate Housewife'. It was too comfortable to inspire truly great writing but it provided much needed rest and an easy transition from New Zealand to Melbourne. I have fellow kiwi Debbie to thank very much for that. Time spent in her company was much appreciated.

When I left Debbie's care I stayed in the flamboyant artistic quarter of Fitzroy where every day was filled with other people's dramas buzzing around me like a nest of bees. I had originally thought that I might belong with this crowd as I had heard so much about the Melbourne arts scene but it was manic. They were crazy people living insane lives. Brilliant character material but too much to live with all the time.

Next I visited the city where my energy levels and funds were sucked like the life out of me on an unsustainable daily basis. That time in the CBD was all about spending money, vacuous passtimes, looking constantly to be entertained. The one glimmer of hope, I discovered on my first night before being seduced by the old life of retail therapy.

After a week of funds falling at an alarming rate, I moved to the strange world of the student backpackers. This is a very itinerant existence filled with travelers, seekers like me, sometimes of thrills, of life, of love, or sometimes of escape. The girls are incredible, beautiful, vibrant, interesting, eyes and minds wide open to adventure. Thank heaven then for the likes of darling Taiwanese friends Tina and Sandy, English roses Paula and Louise, Finnish Jenny and the lovely Danish nurse Annette. Some of the boys however are unfathomable, traveling to drink the night through and sleep the day away. At the end of their trip they wonder what Melbourne is like having seen so little of it. Keep up lads because the girls are running rings around you and you risk missing the boat.

It wasn't however until I discovered a very special Melbourne community that I began to feel accepted, appreciated and at home. Some of my time has been spent exploring the various communities, the Greek, the Italian, the Middle Eastern, the Asian. They received me with mixed responses but each one was eye-opening and fascinating. My search for community eventually led me to a resting place within a family of incomparable union. I use the term family because they nurture, encourage and accept unconditionally the minds and hearts of the unusual, the flamboyant, the unfathomable and mysteriosa.

I found Pellegrini's and the magnificent hearts that reside there. This is my Melbourne family whether they like it or not because in welcoming me into their hearts and minds as they have done, they will never be far from me. I believe that you must give the gifts you possess and enrich the world. If done with passion it creates a balance. I have given music, poetry, song, image and my heart to my Melbourne family and in return they have fed my body and soul with food so rich it will last forever through famine or feast in years to come.

To all those who have touched my life in the last ten weeks I thank you and send my love,
Louise.

The adventure continues...we have only just begun.

Sports Groundhog Day

2008-10-24T22:47:00.000-07:00

I have left till last the sports theme tour because it is not my cup of tea but it is Melbourne's. Melburnians pride themselves at being the only city in the world that can host an Olympic Games with only one months notice. Now that is impressive. They are also quite chuffed at the fact that their sports parks are close enough to the CBD that business workers still dressed in suits and ties, can catch a game of something on the way home from work.

The two parks, Yarra and Melbourne on opposite sides of the river around the East Melbourne suburb, contain eight venues, the MCG, the Rod Laver Arena, the Olympic Park, The Oval, The Old Scotch Oval, the Vodafone Arena, the Hisense Arena and the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Centre. In addition to these a new soccer and rugby park is due by opened in 2009. Again I say, impressive in an impassive tone of voice.

I took a walk from Federation Square around this expansive area, choosing not to do any of the stadium tours. I think I've pretty much finished with the guided tour thing. Some of them have been interesting but on the whole it doesn't really float my boat to be taken on a photo highlights tour. I want the juicy stuff. I do however keep meeting what seems like the same bus load of Indian tourists everywhere. I think this nationality has replaced the Japanese as the number one camera carrying day trippers.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground is truly hallowed. The first recorded game of Australian Rules was held in Yarra Park just in front of the modern stadium. That was back in August 1858 when Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar Schools played for three days straight before declaring the match a draw. You would also think that they would declare the game unsuccessful and do something to improve the rules but no, the Aussies believe in sticking at these things and – well you can tell by the popularity of the game today that they finally got a hang of the rules, even if the rest of the world remains mystified.

Actually I believe that the Aborigines should be credited with inventing Australian football as they were kicking around stuffed possums well before the white man arrived. They called their game marn-gook though and I guess the name was not as catchy.

Still you have to admit that with AFL, cricket, horse racing and tennis, Melbourne has to be considered to be sports mad. After all they are the only place in the world where a horse race is marked by a public holiday.

"Sons of the Mighty West"

2008-10-23T16:43:00.001-07:00

Footscray. This western suburb of inner Melbourne behind the business end of the port, has a surprisingly strong sense of community for one that is best known as a point of arrival for many immigrants. Newcomers, often refugees, live in Footscray as their first home, some stay for good. It is this feeling of displacement and relief to come home that has created an essential community bond where Africans mix with Asians as they all become Australian. The cultural melting pot then is quite diverse but the stand out flavours are Vietnamese and Sudanese. Footscray provided sanctuary to the infamous boat people who risked everything coming to Australia in the 1970s. It has since sheltered people escaping conflict in Sudan and I get the sense that the Footscray community is responsible for healing many war scars.

I took a tour of this intriguing suburb with the 'GO Show' bus as my Arts Festival programme selection. Beyond the fact that I was getting on a bus to do a road trip, I didn't know what to expect and I have to say that it was quite an unusual experience. Four bus loads of people tripped around the suburb on a mid-week evening. On our first leg we were greeted by Larry a local Aborigine who welcomed us with tales of his Kulin Nation and his own story of the rights fought for here in Footscray to give him citizenship to the country in which he was born. That only happened in the 1960s, prior to that more immigrants had citizenship than Aborigines.

Our first bus stop was the Teddy Whitten Oval, home to the Western Bulldogs, Footscray's beloved AFL team. The community seems to be footy mad judging by the performances experienced here tonight. We participated in some role playing footy practise with 'the Coach' and 'Mullet', our team member who has had a few too many blows to the head. We were rallied by the passionate and dedicated Doggies cheer squad and given party pies on the balcony as we watched Mullet kicked for goal. In between we heard the team song, 'Sons of the Mighty West' and had pompoms waved at us in the team colours of red, white and blue. Everyone in Footscray seems to be able to sing the 'Go Doggies' song. Back on the bus local sports writer Steve quizzed us on footy trivia and it was at this moment that I realised I was surrounded by locals with a passion for Footscray.

The second stop was Madden Square to discover the many ways in which this precinct centre is utilised by the community. We interacted with buskers, poetry readings, rock concerts, Tai Chi practisers, clean air protests, taggers, street artists, substance abusers, hip-hoppers and rappers. The square is Footscray's focal point for outdoor activity.

Back on the bus again for a Sudanese song by Theresa relating war and homeland before arriving at the Footscray Community Arts Centre for the final performance of the tour. This leg contained an eclectic mix of performances from the young people of the community featuring dance, rap, gospel choir, word definition ballet and cheerleading. It was an interesting evening and I came away with a better understanding of what makes up Footscray.

"Dwellers of the Shipwreck Coast"

2008-10-19T15:59:00.001-07:00

These are words from a poem by Suzanne Howard describing the treacherous area of the Great Ocean Road around the Twelve Apostles. I needed to see green. I needed to see countryside and I needed to get out of the city so I took a bus tour to the Great Ocean Road today. I have to say that it was an expensive way to see New Zealand countryside because that is what this stretch of coast reminded me of, only with flies – lots of sticky flies.

The bus picked me up at 7.30am. What? I had gotten used to being on holiday time, this is a ridiculous hour! Oh the sacrifices we must make. Our guide who I will call Fred because I can't remember his actual name, started the commentary at West Gate Bridge even before we left the city. The day started with a tale of this bridge collapsing in 1970 and ended with another London Bridge, at the other end of the line.

The section of the Great Ocean Road we traversed stretches from Torquay to Warrnambool but the whole road measures a winding 270kms and was carved by hand with the pick and shovel of 3,000 unemployed servicemen after WWI. It was thought that this would be a useful way to rehabilitate and reintroduce them to the real world. It just looks like bloody hard work to me but there was the odd perk of a shipwrecked cargo of beer to sweeten the toil. The Memorial Arch that spans the road just outside Airey's Inlet is the third erected to commemorated this engineering feat.

The first photo opportunity in this day of constructed stops, was Bell's Beach and Apollo Bay, known as the home of surfing. The tiny town of Angelsea was where the three world surf gear giants Quiksilver, Rip Curl and Billabong began. It was also the area where Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze's crew went in Point Break to catch the legendary and completely fake, 50 year storm that produced the equally as imaginary giant waves. The surf along this coast is certainly impressive. It was a glorious and relatively calm day here but still I could see the cockatoo's plume of spray streaming off the back of the waves. They apparently get up to eight metre swells here. I have to marvel at the originality with which the Aussies name places. Here we have the famous “House on a pole” and “Big Hill”. Direct rather than poetic.

The next stop is the Kennet Koala park to see some bear bums in the wild. I have to say that I have been often unimpressed with these little icons. They hide high up in gum trees sleeping lazily all day so all you get is neck strain viewing a distant rear end. But it was mandatory to take a photo – of the tourists taking photos.

As we continued the drive after stopping for lunch, I noticed eleven out of the seventeen on board missed the stunning scenery as their full stomachs convinced them to study the inside of their eyelids instead. One of the girls even brought her book along mistaking this expensive - er – sightseeing tour for a commute to work. What is with that?

The Otways National Park is famous for dinosaur skeletons having been found there in 1968 and it is here that we take a brief bush walk through Mountain Ash trees. These enormous beasts are often hollow at the base so in the days when convicts were being transported were put to use as temporary prison cells. The prisoners were made to carry their own makeshift cell door so they could be locked in at night.

Further around is the legendary Twelve Apostle rock formations, the Loch Ard Gorge, scene of many shipwrecks and the London Bridge where the day's sights end. The landbridge across from the coast to the outcrop collapsed in 1990 completing the day's tales of broken bridges. I enjoyed the sun, the scenery and the taste of home but I have to say that bus tours are not for me.

Of ceilings and Sylphs

2008-10-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

I have been very remiss. Every day while I resided at The Nunnery I looked out the window and saw the elegant and stately Royal Exhibition building, built in 1881 for the first great international exhibition to reach Melbourne. Every day my eyes were blessed waking to see the vision of gold cresting the dome atop the Classically cruciform building, yet another example of extravagant Victorian architecture that built this city of dreams. Every day I told myself I would see inside it, soon. This is how remiss I have been. My stay in Melbourne is in its ninth week and as some will already know, the novel is finished though the book is still being written and I am preparing to come home. The chapter that created the novel is complete but the adventure continues as life always seems to find new ways to delight and inspire me even at this hour.

So it is late in the piece that I finally find the time for the feast I promised myself so early on, the Royal Exhibition Building. Melbourne was still finding its feet in the early 1880s. By this stage there was plenty of gold wealth funding projects to improve its standing in the world. Money bought artists, musicians, gardeners, architects, those who added beauty and culture. And money also sponsored events such as the two international exhibitions that launched Melbourne into the world of great cities. The Royal Exhibition of 1881 showcased everything new and great from around the world and you saw it here first folks, in Carlton.

When it was built the Exhibition hall was the tallest and grandest building in Melbourne.. From the balcony at the top of the dome the world could be surveyed in every direction, una bella vista. The highest point of the gilded dome stands 64m high above the city. The neighbouring Melbourne Museum was designed more than a century later to mirror the shape and literally reflect the original building in its exterior bringing the two together in a harmony of old and new. It is a striking effect. I do not care much for the look of museum building myself but when I see facets of the other reflected in its frontage, I appreciate it more.

Over the years the Royal Exhibition hall has served the city and people in many ways. A second exhibition took place in its cavernous spaces in 1888 and then in 1901 it was refurbished for the opening of the Federal Parliament by the visiting Duke of Cornwall and York. One of the state landaus transported over from England for the occasion can be seen on the tour of the building. During an early twentieth century conservative refurbishment artworks were covered up with the usual lack of care when bygone beauty is deemed old fashioned. A prime example of this are the Sylphs. These very Victorian paintings were eight panels of classical female characters depicting night and day, truth, justice and the four seasons. They are reputed to bear the faces of eight ethnic races and were originally nude but Edwardian modesty required gauzy coverings to be painted in.

During the 1918 flu epidemic brought back by returning service men and women, the hall was sadly put to use to quarantine the sick. A convenient underground passage removed the dead to the morgue in nearby St Vincent's Hospital. Some twenty years later in WWII it was again commandeered this time as a base for the RAAF. The doors of the hall are so expansive that they could drive small airplanes right inside to work on. The building has also been often hired for private use with one of the most notable occasions in 1930 when philanthropist Sidney Myer hosted a huge Christmas dinner for those struck by the Depression. Incidentally Sidney also donated the Music Bowl outdoor venue in the King's Domain to the city in the 1950s. Later in that same decade in 1956 the Royal Exhibition Hall was again host to a huge civic event. That was another year when Melbourne burst on to the world stage hosting the Olympic Games. The fencing, wrestling and basketball events were held in the hall. I'm imagining looking up whilst lying on a mat in a half Nelson head lock and seeing the Teutonic Romantic ceiling towering above me. How incongruous, my neck feels stiff just thinking about it!

The interior of the building was surprisingly Germanic given the Classical exterior. Returning to the antique, the forecourt houses Colonial Square, a tumbled display of Arcadian ruins much like those in the park at the top of Ponsonby Road. These are the remains of the Colonial Mutual Life Building preserved now as works of art and archaeology.

Ashes to Dust

2008-10-15T00:04:00.000-07:00

I'm a little bit behind on my blog postings as there has not been that much to write about in the last few days. I have been asked about last minute tickets to shows, especially Wicked but with my budget living, a show at $90 for the cheap seats has not been on my agenda so unfortunately I don't know. I gulp at paying $25 for a night out. I believe that Wicked is very popular and especially since the sad news of dear Rob Guest's death, tickets will be even more sought after. In the midst of life we are in death et cetera. The only help I can be is to recall an overheard conversation at the Windsor Hotel that tickets are still available if you have the right connections and money, I guess. Sorry. Anyway, on with the late blog post.

It's Sunday and I have been inspired by all of the incredible religious architecture to attend a church service to see whether the ceremony of the service lives up to the promise of the buildings.

I chose St Patrick's for a number of reasons. One, I am familiar with the Catholic service. It is surprising how easily I slip into mumbling all the old prayers I learned as a kid. When I realise that I am doing this, I stop myself because I consider it hypocritical for me to be reciting a creed I do not subscribe to. The other reasons I chose St Pat's are because it has the most impressive architecture of the churches and because it has choral performance. It was a close call however because St Paul's Anglican does the evensong peel of bells, however I have taken them in as a incidental to being in Fed Square at the time on many occasions. As it turns out today's choral pieces at St Pat's include one of my all time favourite, 'For the Beauty of the Earth' by John Rutter. Good call then on the Micks over the Proddies.

I am late for church as I took too long wandering around the market for breakfast. Church services are around 11 o'clock here and I am out of the hostel every morning by 8.30 so there is a long time in between of which to lose track. When you share a shower with about fifty other people, you want to be first in – believe me.

So I'm late for church but I can hear the service being broadcast on the loudspeakers from well and truly down the street so I am not officially missing anything. Besides the place is so big that I am assured of getting a seat. As I enter the smoky haze of heady incense just about bowls me over. Oh I do like a good waft of incense, it is grand Gromit and I am so pleased that the Cathedral has kept up this tradition. I have to admit that I didn't stay to the end. Sorry Mum but once you've been to one Mass, you've been to them all and I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't in Latin.

It is a day where the hot wind feels as if it is coming straight off the fires hell. It is a force that savagely projects dust and pollen irritants into the eyes and noses of all around. Sneezing is the sound that prevails this Sunday. I'm told that Melbourne has the highest rate of asthma and hayfever in Australia and that this is due to the prevalent planting of fast growing plain trees. Melbourne is a city of trees. The English elm was originally the popular choice to line avenues and as many other city's elms fall prey to disease, Melbourne has the best collection in the world. The elm buds with clusters of apple green blossom that when fallen, pave the ground in brown paper petals. The streets and parks are currently covered in this organic confetti. As I passed a wedding photography session in Alexandra Gardens, I suggested that it would make an awesome action photo if the bridal party showered the couple in elm petals. One of the bridesmaids had wanted to do something similar but the bride got all huffy about getting dead leaves stuck down her ample cleavage. Killjoy, grumped the bridesmaid.

Another irritant in the city today is cigarette smoke as with the wind, it is impossible to keep this habit personal to the smoker. Smoking is another statistic in which Melbourne unfortunately leads. The councils supply butt bins and stubbing bays on regular bins and Melburnians do use them so that is at least something. I have noticed though that the street bins no matter how often emptied, do not cope with the amount of rubbish generated from disposable wrappers. The city seems to prefer employing troops of street cleaners and they are a familiar sight. It is a twenty-four hour job cleaning up after people. I'm going to have to stop there before I get on my bandwagon of ecology.

"Do you want earplugs with that?"

2008-10-12T15:26:00.001-07:00

After two months now spent solely in urb and suburb, I desperately need some countryside so I feel that a train trip is in order. Enter Puffing Billy, the historic steam train through the Dandenong Ranges. The adventure begins at the end of the Belgrave suburban train line but for me it begins before then with the shenanigans at Burnley and Camberwell.

Weekends are the time when repairs are made to tracks constantly in use. Today it is the Belgrave Line's turn so out we all hop at Burnley to be shuttled via special buses to Camberwell to pick the train up again. Two lines share the same train as far as Ringwood where you connect with one or the other line depending on which service you are riding. These two are Belgrave into the foothills of the Dandenongs and Lilydale at the gateway to the Yarra Valley and vineyards.

So among the confusion of transferring from train to bus and back again there is also the added one of changing lines. Enter the winery set. I have already met the flossed up Spring Carnival ladies today heading the opposite way into the city for an all-dayer. Their early morning application of evening make up, sparkling jewels, high heels and fascinators seem a bit like under the yard arm drinking but they do look splendid even if out of place on a morning suburban train. A carriage would better suit them I feel.

Anyway these ladies have gone, packed no doubt onto a confused and crowded bus but the winery lot are sitting next to me. My word but they are the highlight of my day. Their hangover cure of 'V' and Berrocca is sending them over the top and spirits are hilariously high. Don't get them started, they will laugh at anything. It is these hungover ladies applying their mascara on the train that came up with the title for this piece. Voices pitched at glass shattering and loud enough to echo off the nearby hills, one told the others how she was in a McDonalds yesterday that was being renovated around the customers. As she placed her order the spotty teenager asked in all earnest, “would you like ear plugs with that?” Apparently they were being issued as a courtesy. This produced a howl of laughter from the gaggle and considering some passengers actually got up and changed seats, I suspect they thought that this lot should have come with the same orange putty offering. But I thought they were delightfully entertaining myself and they made the hour and a half tedious train ride fly by.

As the mascara was applied one of their number, for whom it was the first time on a train so all a little bit of an adventure, pulled out a guide to train etiquette. “Ahem,” she quoted. “Make up should not be applied on the train as people do not commute to work in a bathroom.” Wa-huh? They don't commute to work in a dining room either but people are allowed to eat on trains and subsequently litter freely. I fail to see the difference etiquette-wise. Anyway I was sad to lose my amusing friends at Ringwood as they were off to Lilydale and beyond to top up the alcohol levels already in their bloodstream.

The suburbs chugging passed my window began to change from inner city to mid-burb and finally to outposts with a view. Box Hill was one such suburb with the elevation to provide a view out over distant dark green bush covered hills. I could have caught the tram to here and completed the 109 route so I earmarked it as a possible route back.

Puffing Billy is the very popular 762mm gauge line from Belgrave to Gembrook, originally constructed in 1900 to open up outlying farmlands to the city. It was closed after a landslide in 1953 but the dedicated work of steam train enthusiasts saw it reopen in stages over the next thirty odd years. Saturdays, especially ones as brilliant as this, are really popular with families and makes me wish I had rented one to share the trip with me. Billy chugs, coughs, clatters and clangs its way through bush, farmland and prettily named villages where people wave to us on the train we pass. On to Emerald Lakeside where it is “All unboard!” to have a picnic and a paddle round the lake on a giant-wheeled bike. Makes me wish I had rented a family AND a picnic. Boy was I unprepared for a day out!

But the trip is pleasant regardless and it provides me with a much needed green scene fill because even in drought, the town is not called Emerald for nothing. Tiny bells of wild flowers pepper the lush long grass among bush canopy looking oh-so familiar but named here Ferntrees. Pukekos are here too but called Swamp Hens. Let's face it as the ad says, someone's always stealing your stuff and it's usually the Aussies. Can't complain really though can we? I mean we have a few Oz acquisitions ourselves like the White Tail and the Possum – hang on, why did we steal them?

Puffing Billy is operated by volunteers who all look as if they love what they do and it is clear that the devotees are equally fond of their train. One mother was bringing her little one on the same train she rode when she was wee. Children and adults alike sit on the sides of the carriages dangling their feet over the outside edge to cool. No OSH rules apply here. It is just the pleasant day out in the country that the doctor ordered for a Stuck in the City girl.

Dead ducks and other cultural mysteries

2008-10-09T23:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay I can't hold out any longer, I tried to resist but I am going to have to blog about taking a walk down the lane of dead dripping ducks. Yes I'm talking about Little Bourke Street's Chinatown crossing two blocks from Russell to Swanston. I tried to hold out for so long commenting on this famous stretch of Asian eateries because, um, it all seems a bit touristy to me.

When I visited Melbourne in March I was delighted as a first timer by the dedicated lane showcasing the varieties of Asian culinary delights. The entranceway at each intersection is marked by giant temple gates. Equally giant four balloon-bulb lamps pave the walk through a narrow, crowded lane of gold, red and royal blue restaurant frontages. It is definitely colourful, it is impressive in scale, and to someone who had never been in a dedicated Chinatown before, it was novel. I sampled my first and only plate of Thai crocodile and kangaroo meats in Chinatown. Neither really did it for me, the one was anaemic and chewy and the other was gamey tasting.

This time round Chinatown has lost its novelty and now seems a bit, well – fake. It seems to be the street put on for tourists to show them how revered the Asian culture is. It is frequented by young, urban professional Asians and tourists, both of which have the money to eat in city priced restaurants. As a vegetarian there is not really much on offer for me in Chinatown so I have generally given it a miss.

I have this problem in most Asian eateries and forgo the vegetarian commitment if I choose to dine Chinese or Japanese. Thai and Indonesian I can usually find something on the menu but forget asking a yum cha waiter if this is this vegetable? Three repetitions later my question receives a nod that less than convinces me. The occasional excellent sushi train or yum cha however is worth the meat lapse to experience.

But I fail to see why Chinatown should be so glitzy when the other cultural precincts are much more community developed and inhabited. I stumbled upon Victoria Street one day and this is the real Chinese area of town. This is where the pungent shop markets are. This is where the junky two dollar shops selling flashing toys, nodding and waving gold Luck Cats and red tai chi fans. This is where the bakeries with steam buns, pork floss, sweet green tea and purple taro breads are. This is where the shriveled old people, the real people, shop with trundlers.

Victoria Street is where a fight breaks out because a young man has pinched a mandarin off a fruit stall. The tiny old female stall keeper chases him up the street lashing out to swat him as she snatches the mandarin back. Fearless and wily stall holder one, sour-faced youth, nil. This sort of thing doesn't happen in Chinatown. Chinatown is full of narcissistic youths having their hair crimped in the most bizarre and expensive spiky styles. What is with that?!

Okay so if I feel this way about Chinatown I hear you ask, then why have I chosen now to comment. Well, I guess it is because it is an icon and far be it for me to dismiss it just because I am looking for a more down to earth and real Melbourne culture. The culture of the Asian youth is very real and that is other reason I choose now to comment.

I am staying in a hostel near the RMIT and University precincts so I am living the Asian youth culture at the moment. In a dorm room of six, I share it with four Taiwanese girls and understand what it is like to be a minority not understanding a word that is said. There is laughter and conversation happening in my room that I am not invited to take part in. I was first to check in so introduced myself to each new room mate as they arrived but once outnumbered, I became invisible as the conversation crosses through me in the middle bunk.

I don't really mind as I have plenty to do of my own but I have not gotten to know these room mates as I did those in the other hostel and most of them did not speak English as their first language either. I have always said that I feel disadvantaged being an English speaker because it is not necessary for me to learn a language other than my own to communicate almost everywhere in the world. All of the travelers I have met, French, Dutch, German, Korean, Japanese, Danish, have all shared a common language with which we can all communicate and hold conversations to get to know each other. That language is English. My Taiwanese room mates here speak English as well but they have no desire to communicate with me as the multi-cultural mix of room mates at The Nunnery did. This is a single culture room. It doesn't bother me but it is sad that I am not getting to know these people as I did the others. I have tried to start conversations but they go nowhere because when faced with chatting easily with each other in their own language or concentrating on conversation with me, I lose.

However there is also another, sadder aspect of youth culture at work here in the dorm. Victoria Hall is set up for budget hotel or long-term dorm accommodation. It is very neat and new and well managed. Each bunk has its own large locker with a shelf on the outside beside the bed, two individual power points and a dimming reading light. This means that the main light can be switched out for people to sleep while those wanting to read, can. The interesting thing is that it is a nightly ritual for everyone except myself to plug earphones into their laptops in order to watch movies till the wee small hours of the morning. I am isolated by language, the others freely isolate themselves with popular entertainment. Is our world really becoming so insular?

“It was really a hive of activity” - once upon a time

2008-10-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

I am seconds late to catch the train to Williamstown so I jump on one going to Flinders Street instead. Don't ask why, I'm a woman, I can be random if I like. Proving the random thing even further, I got bored sitting in the train on an underground track and anyway I have already been to Flinders Street only to get lost in its maze of platforms. So when the train passed Parliament, a station in the CBD I have not yet been to, I jumped off. If all roads lead to Rome then all trains must leave from Parliament, I figure. I have saved myself no more time waiting for the next Williamstown train as I still have fifteen minutes to go but the sporadic faded photos of pomp and political circumstance on the escalator are at least distracting. The train arrives with a woosh of wind and off I am at last to...Werribee. Well Werribee at least starts with the same letter as Williamstown and I'm in no hurry, I'll get there eventually and along the way are the happy adventures of a lost traveler.

Williamstown is a sleepy village on the otherside of Hobson's Bay. If you knew what it was you were looking at you could see it from St Kilda. The effect is better the other way around however as the landmark Palais Theatre stands out at a distance. Williamstown is historic and reminds me of Akaroa. It was the first permanent settlement in Victoria in 1835 and was supposed to be the capital. A lack of fresh water however let the side down so instead its significance was as a port and transport hub to the rural areas. Today it has a fabulous Visitors Information Centre with very helpful and keen staff armed with every brochure you could imagine. And as I leave, I now am too.

I have arrived with a picnic lunch courtesy of QVM. I don't think the market people like me much. When I ask for half the smallest portion of hummus, two felafels, one olive read roll and two dolmades, their eyes roll. I don't think they care that I am going on a picnic while they are working and earning fifty cents per felafel from my purchase. But I am at the beach so I have to have a picnic despite the fact that my al fresco dining attempts here have had mixed results. I'm hoping that the forecast for today will be right, it's usually pretty accurate. It's supposed to be mostly sunny with a high of seventeen. When I told them where I was off to today, the workmen at the hostel advised me to take a drizzabone. “The wind off the sea can come up out there, you'll want something other than a sunhat, darlin'.” Oh ye of little faith, thought I optimistically but I did take my polar fleece just to please them.

As I sat on the beach then wrapped up for the Pole and staring down a magpie sitting at my picnic table scowling at me, I am glad I did. There is something staunch about toughing out an al fresco meal with the wind blowing your hair into every bite. I watched a small bug drowning in the oil of my dolmades, not knowing which of us looked sadder. But I did enjoy my trip to Williamstown apart from the fish.

I learned a bit about its history. The pier at Point Gellibrand has seen ships of all sorts come in and out. Settlers, prisoners, wheat, war. Settlers arrived in 1842 on board the Scottish ship 'Manlius'. Yellow fever had already done for forty-two on the journey. The rest were quarantined and more were buried in the makeshift cemetery. The many vessels commissioned as transport to the goldfields and later abandoned became prison hulks. It seems that England did not have exclusivity on full prisons. Convicts quarried and hand hewed bluestone used to construct many of Williamstown's buildings. Their labour built the tramway and pulled the trams from the Gellibrand Quarry to Breakwater Pier. Mrs Isabella Dalgarne believed in rehabilitation. She was temperate and known to lecture drunken sailors by poking them with her 'strong and sensible furled umbrella'. She ran one of the hulks as a rehabilitation unit called a 'sailor's rest' but having seen how many pubs were in this town, I can guess where most of them preferred to 'rest'.

Wheat and gold provided the biggest boom for the area's industry. Bags of unhulled wheat were slit open to pour the contents into the ship's hold. There they were spread out and trimmed in the confined darkness of the bowels. The trimmers had to be given milk every hour to keep their lungs clear. It was hard labour at Point Gellibrand whether you were a convict or not. And then there were the sailors. Inquests into drownings at sea were held in the pubs until the publicans objected and a morgue was built. Other sailors were those in the Corvette minesweepers in WWII. HMAS Castlemaine is berthed at Gem Pier for public inspection. Williamstown has a timeball, a botanic gardens and two fish and chipperies serving hake and flake. Four dollars eighty for one battered piece with a limp lemon that won't squeeze and I say so long Williamstown but no thanks for the fish.

Vires Acquirit Eundo

2008-10-06T23:23:00.000-07:00

You figure out Melbourne city's Latin motto...oh okay then if you insist, I'll help. It means, for all those who did not have to conjugate Latin at school, “We gather strength as we go”.

I visited the City of Melbourne's magnificent Town Hall today and I've gotta say that I love Victorian grandeur. As we passed one evening I mentioned to Caroline that I had never seen the building on Swanston Street open so she issued a challenge to get in and off she promptly marched up the stairs. The guard rushed across, mouth full of sandwich and told us that there was a private function in progress. So instead I found out when the official tours were and went on one today.

Ken my guide was very knowledgeable and as the group was inquisitive, especially about the pipe organ (who would have thought that I would meet two Kiwi organ enthusiasts in a tour group of five?), our hour tour stretched to two.

Melbourne was founded in 1835 and by 1838, surveyor Robert Hoddle had laid out the grid plan of streets that stands today. And here's something interesting that I learned. Hoddle was determined to have 30 metre wide streets but Governor Bourke cried “Extravagant!” and beat him down to a compromise. Every second street would be a more modest 10 metres and so you have the reason for the big streets, Bourke (of course, had to have a big street named after him), Lonsdale, Collins, Flinders, interspersed with half streets, Little Bourke, da-da,da-da,da. Interesting huh? Well I thought so. Especially when you consider that the width of the streets has allowed modern Melbourne to keep its beloved trams running alongside the terrible motorcars.

But wait, there's more....that is not quite the end of the street story. The smaller streets were supposed to provide service lanes between the major ones but the gold boom brought more than just street width extravagance, it spawned building extravagance. Too many unnecessarily large buildings blocked service access along the little streets so even littler lanes were added, Degraves, Manchester, Hosier...a-ha, now you know.

Melbourne was coming along nicely as a village. John Batman's famous quote is that he spied this arable sheep grazing land and claimed; “this is the place for a village.” That was the spot under Queensbridge. Of course John slept in too late at daylight savings and three other fellas snuck in first and grabbed the title of founding fathers. Snooze you lose I'm afraid John but we didn't like him anyway because he gave the Aborigines beads and blankets for title to the land when everyone at the time knew that Crown already owned all of Australia the minute the first convict flag was shackled to a pole in Botany Bay.

What really put hair on Melbourne's adolescent chest however, was gold. When gold was discovered in Victoria in the 1850s, it bought more extravagance than Governor Bourke could have handled. The major buildings dominating still today, were built at this time in splendid Victorian copies of Classical, Italian Renaissance, Venetian, Gothic, Byzantine architecture. Ah, the joys of money and how lucky we are today for the gold leagacy.

Another interesting point that I learned is that most of the early development happened north of the Yarra River as Southbank is marshy and couldn't support the weight of enormous buildings. It sounds like a Monty Python sketch when you talk about the massive deep foundations supports required to hold up the Eureka Skydeck tower. Let's hope it's not a case of “it sank into the swamp so we built another one, that sank too so we built another on the remains of the last...” In March, I happily rode Eureka tower to the 88th floor viewing platform without a second thought. I wish I had known about it's boggy roots beforehand but I'm glad for those massive fundations.

Just one final piece, for the children's librarians out there, of amusing Melbourne Horrible Histories for today. The present city was named for English Prime Minister William Viscount Melbourne during a time when they were looking for a more suitable name for the village than BearBrass. I kid ye not. At one point in Melbourne's naming history the settlers turned to the natives and asked what they called the land. the Aborigines told them but unfortunately the settlers approximated what they heard and the mind boggling BearBrass was the result. One day son, all this will be yours, the Kingdom of BearBrass. Can you imagine the fun to be had giving your address to an officer when being breathalysed? No honesht offisher, I'm not pished I really live up a Bear's arse. Thank goodness sense prevailed.

"Our subjects we keep low and entertained"

2008-10-06T01:51:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, while I was enjoying a moment's peaceful respite from the battle of two footy teams, I met English actor, playwright and director Ryan J-W. Smith. He was out doing the footwork to promote his one man play 'New World Order' on at the Melbourne Fringe Festival and he handed me a leaflet. It was a similar but much nicer fated encounter, to the Save the Children crowd. Back then I had been looking for a charity to support when out they stepped nabbing me in the street. On this particular Saturday it was the Fringe Festival for which I was clutching a programme and thinking – I wanna go to something but where do I begin? Save the Children turned out to be the wrong charity for me but “New World Order” was definitely the right Fringe Festival performance to earn my limited theatrical performance dollars.

Ryan and I ended up chatting for a while and I fear that I kept him too long from his leaflet trail but in my defense I did go to his performance. And I learned a little bit about the talent that I would be supporting. Ryan made the brave move from England to live in New York taking his Shakepearian roots to a post-9-11 America. Audiences there have received his message of peace and awakening to state mind control well but then preaching to the converted theatre-going audience, while heartening, is much easier than converting the preachers.

Ryan told me that the hard-nosed Sex in the City world of New York was not to his liking. He witnessed from the inside the seductive illusion of national superiority being fed to the American people. Consumerism, fear, power, greed, invincibility, honour, duty, all tools being used to control the masses. And when you are immersed in its grasp, Ryan told me, it is very hypnotic. Fortunately he returned home for Christmas last year and I expect that the descent from the clouds landing back in reality would have been like waking from an illusionist's dream. He was invited to bring 'New World Order' to Adelaide and took the opportunity to line up performances in Melbourne as well. I suggested that next time he treat New Zealand audiences to his show we would relate well to its message.

His monologue in Shakespearian verse, was delivered through three characters. The war veteran as the narrator of hard lessons learned at great expense, reveals the King's hidden agenda to the Fool of the population. It was cleverly written and passionately delivered and I recommend it if Ryan does come to NZ.

I enjoyed the show although the change to daylight savings here in Melbourne almost caught me on the hop as my day got off to a later than planned start. I transferred yesterday from my budget hotel private sanctuary back to a dorm at Victoria Hall up by the RMIT and University. So far my changes of accommodation to various parts of town have provided me with a wealth of character inspiration and greater depth of insight into the different communities within this city. Elwood and St Kilda were the comfortable suburbs where it was easy to slot into the role of desperate housewife. Carlton and Fitzroy are full of zany artistic bohemian types – and oh boy were some of them zany. The hotel in the CBD came with the seduction of eating out and spending money and with my sister visiting, shops. Now I'm in student land living amongst often exploited overseas students.

I watched a dreadful news report last week on the accommodation shortage in Melbourne. It was about the greed of some landlords who are cramming unhealthy, unsafe numbers of mostly foreign students into apartments at inflated rents. Illegal partitions are erected to make one bedroom into two, bunk beds are used to pack more people in and when those are full, mattresses are moved to the floor space in between or out onto balconies at night. In one reported case nine people were sleeping in a two room apartment.

These are students who come from countries where they are used to overcrowding and are more tolerant of these conditions. They come to Australia to study, theoretically to better their lives but when their study is complete their stay here is over and by that time of course they have settled and are less inclined to move. They live in a state of fear that they can and will be sent home at any moment and so it is easy for mercenary landlords to exploit them and get away with it. Keep the masses low and living in fear so that they do not know that life doesn't have to be so hard. I have seen and talked to some of these student. The are working too hard at poor jobs to earn enough money to live here in this expensive city while they study even harder to try and make their future better. There is no new order to the world, only more of the old.

Let your dreams do the walking

2008-10-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

The inaugural Dream Festival opened this weekend in Birrarung Marr, the park along the northern side of the Yarra River. Tomorrow festivities continue with music in the Alexandra Gardens opposite but tonight Caroline and I visit the section that is already open, stunning light installations floating on the Yarra. This festival celebrates ideas, dreams and aspirations so it is fitting that I am here to participate in it. A purpose built gallery walkway has been erected to lead us onto the water in order to walk through the floating artworks of light and colour created by local artists interpreting the dreams of the people of Melbourne.

As we approach we are immediately impressed by the hypnotising display of light and colour beckoning us from a distance for a closer look. It is cold and raining here in Melbourne tonight, so cold that I cannot feel my fingertips and just have to trust that they are pressing the shutter button on my camera. Caroline is covered in goose-bumps in the summer dress she wore into town this morning. She is still getting use to Melbourne's changing weather but has already learned to bring a jacket with her for an all day excursion, as going back for one when you are a tram ride and a walk away is not easy. So although her summer dress sits above her knees, she has a padded jacket to keep her dryish. She looks like Little Red Riding Hood while I, in my white duffle coat resemble Snow White. We are mere dreams ourselves as we wander through the first part of the installation, the Field of Dreamers.

This section comprises rows of larger than life sentinel Dream People, like stick figures with heads in the clouds out of which peers a central eye. They are mostly all white and lined up in rows for the viewer to amble through, threading in and out, between and around. In the dark they glow like ghosts with a coloured light display reflecting off them. In the background the permanent ferris wheel performs its habitual nightly spectrum light show to compliment the festival. Music that reminds me of Pink Floyd at their most mournful perfectly accompanies the viewing of the field.

I am discovering that most attractions in Melbourne have a correct and designed way to view them and the way that I always seem to want to go, which is against the flow. Beginning then at the official starting point of this display is the piece that is for me potentially the most significant of these particular dream interpretations. It is Rebecca Etchell's innocuous 'Embracing together'. Of all the eye-catching, alarming and smetimes disturbing pieces, this one is the most gentle and peaceful. Three coloured figures entwine to symbolise family, happiness, harmony. While other pieces will no doubt attract more publicity, this art work appeals to me the most.

Among the other noteworthy contributions are 'Skull' by Andrew Walsh inspired by the Mayan crystal skulls set inside a transparent sphere designed to remind us that dreams are of the mind, 'Tall Tales' by Geoffrey Ricardo depicting two men draped in a red and white elephant suit rug and Christopher Langton's 'Sailing to Byzantium' a chilling reminder that nightmares are dreams of a different sort.

That brings me to my own sleep wanderings. Knowing me as you all do, it will come as no surprise that I am a prolific dreamer. I dream in colour, in complete storylines, I am the heroine, the villain, the dreamweaver. Here my sleep is plagued by not so comfortable and ever changing pillows as I do the musical bed thing around hostel, homestay and hotel. I have had some very unique dreams sleeping on strange pillows here in Melbourne in that they are filled with surreal cartoon characters in the same vein as the Simpsons, not quite yellow people but definitely not real either. It is like my mind is telling me that being in Melbourne is like a dream and not to be confused with reality. Curious.

From Hollow Halls to Hallowed Halls

2008-10-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

I am not well again. Yup, I guess I must have picked up germy jims from one of the uncouth hostelites. I brought my own bowl, plate and cup with me because as anyone who knows me even a smidgeon understands, I like to eat off sunny, happy pottery. So it wasn't the hostel kitchen utensils that did it. It could have been the Asian shower hoiker but my long standing camping tip is to wear jandals in the bathroom to avoid foot fungus so I think I was safe from his gobs down the plughole. There is a chance that is was any number of unprotected cougher or sniffer in the public library or on a tram I suppose. They seem to have some disgusting personal habits in this city and if I spend any length of time sitting next to one I end up battling the desire to hand them a tissue.

I suspect though that it was most likely the otherwise quite lovely Annette, my Danish roomy as she was coming down with the sneezes when she left for further adventures in Darwin. Whoever the culprit was, the result is that I have another cold and am not too happy about it. My normal sickly reaction is to wander around in a daze of indecision and that is exactly what I have done today. My head is dulled by fug but the rest of me is tense aching muscles and throbbing skull. I find that I have less tolerance for the world when I have a cold, in particular the sound of high pitched Asian yabbering, whining, grizzling children and loud machinery. So I guess that a food hall was probably not the place I should have chosen to lunch today then but I went there for an ATM and just didn't have the energy to go anywhere else.

Food halls are a universal black hole for flavour and nutrition but unsurprisingly a buzzing hive of diners addicted to additives and primary colours. The QV Centre food hall is big and there are the usual candidates, KFC, kebabs, sushi, curries, noodles. I hate how when faced with so many choices, the longest queue is always at KFC or McDonalds but at least here there is more variety due to an increased Asian population. This food hall is close to the central RMIT campus so the late lunchers in here, as I realise it is three o'clock and I'm not yet hungry, are mostly students.

I look around for the most unusual pick of eateries and there is something called Puffy which looks like a crumbed, fried, ice cream filled profiterole that I'm not willing to even contemplate trying, as it is just too junky for words. There is Breadtop, a Chinese bakery and it is here that I select a cheese roll. Now I actually like Chinese bakeries for the occasional different junk fix. I discovered them when I worked at Northcote Library and I quite like the taro or green tea dense sponge rolls filled with imitation cream. So Breadtop is not so scary. It is however tough to ensure that I choose something vegetarian among the hairy pork floss and sausage choices. My cheese roll is pretty safe, Hong Kong style sweet bread filled with cheese spread and topped with melted processed cheese single. I also choose something called a banana in pyjama because it comes in a canary yellow banana shaped container that I think could be useful later for – carrying bananas without bruising them. There's nothing worse than a bruised banana in the bottom of your bag. I ask the girl at the counter what a banana in pyjama is because you can never tell what is inside Chinese bread and the instructions are not in a language I can read.

“A banana,” she replies as if it's obvious and I raise an eyebrow.

“Really? A real banana?”

She repeats herself slowly as if she thinks I am having difficulty understanding her Ingrish.

Okay then, I'll have that. What it turns out to be is banana shaped dense sponge, what a surprise. Inside is cream, real cream and that is a surprise, mixed with custard. So far so good but I'm not finding any banana and I'm half way through. Oh, there it is, a small slice in the middle. Fruit must be really expensive in China because they always skimp on it. But I'm not complaining because I now have me a nifty canary yellow, fake banana container. Oh I'm so easily amused.

As I'm doing the whole Chinese lunch thing, my drink is a taro milk tea. What this is is a purplish milk drink served over ice in a sealed transparent cup with a thick straw. The thick rather than thin straw is so you can suck up without it getting stuck, the black balls of gelatine called pearls that go in milk teas. It's and odd sensation and probably causes choking in small children but it amuses me as much as my canary yellow banana pyjama so I'm a happy enough food haller.

The other excursion I managed today was a tour around the Victorian Parliament. They do it pretty much like we do but with two houses debating to slow the process down even more. The tour was recommended to me by one of my Dutch hostel buddies who had felt that it was very cool that the Victorian Government put on free scones for visitors. It turns out that they had inadvertently eaten the member's morning tea because yes there were plates of scones, jam and cream set out when we arrived but we were not invited to join them. I had thought when the Dutch folk were telling me that it was unusually hospitable.

Building of the grandiose Neo-Classical Parliament House was begun in 1856 with gold strike funds and took 74 years to complete. The highlight of the tour was the very sexy Parliament Library, that made me think of the sort of library you would find in a gentleman's club frequented by Sherlock Holmes. Tiers of shelves display colour-coded leather bound volumes accessed by curved staircases and wooden ladders. Leather chairs, carved tables, an original crystal chandelier from the Council Chamber, fireplace grates built into the pillars to heat the echoing spaces in the winter. I'm in love. There are functional public libraries and then there is this heavenly library and there is no comparison. When I build a house next I want it to have a library like this one. Forget the Taj Mahal inspired Civic Theatre brother architect, I want you to design me one of these.

Following the Pied Piper

2008-10-01T21:50:00.000-07:00

Where are all the children is my question for today? Oh I know, I know, the other day I was complaining about tripping over them every two seconds and now I'm off in search of them. Ah, but I am remember a fickle woman after all. Anyway, I am not so much looking for children as looking for something to entertain them. What does Melbourne have to offer children I am wondering? It is school holidays after all, there must be something good on.

I was in Bizarre Beads this morning, a shop selling all sorts of colourful beads with which to design and make your own jewellery. They run workshops for children surely, I thought. Yes they do, the assistant assured me so I look around at the empty shop and she gives me a sheepish look and promises me that she's not lying. The other stores are the popular ones for kids, she says. And why? Because they are in the shopping malls of course and her shop is in Swanston Street in the city. Oh how sad. How sad that it is no longer a treat to come into the city in the school holidays like it used to be when we were kids. The shop assistant and I lament together over the changing times.

Okay so now I have to bite the bullet and go to a shopping mall if that is where it's all happening. Right about now I expect twice as many females to be tuning into my blog but sorry gals, in about two more lines, you will be declaring me a she-devil and disowning me from woman-kind. I think I have developed an allergy to malls. There I've said it, like I'm at an Mallrats Anonymous meeting or something. “Hello, my name is Louise and I can no longer stand the vacuousness of shopping malls.” Here is your cue to either clap or boo, hiss and throw rotten fruit at me.

On previous visits to Melbourne I was hypnotised into a comatose state wandering around Chadstone. The only claim to fame of this black hole disguised by conservatory glass is that it is the largest mall in the Southern Hemisphere and it was built sometime in the sixties I think.

My first day in Melbourne on this visit, in fact within two hours of setting foot on terra firma after a flight that drained all but my nasal passages, I was in South Mall with Debbie. My excuse here was that I was dazed by my cold and confused by the time difference. Debbie had an errand to run and I wanted to keep going so that I would not crash until I could adjust my body to Melbourne time.

Today's excuse as I travel to Highpoint in the suburb with the gorgeous name of Maribyrnong, is because it is almost at the end of the tram line 57 that I am riding today. I have chosen this number not out of a barrel in a lottery but because I want to pass the Flemington Showgrounds to get a look at the Melbourne Show. Highpoint then is killing two birds with one stone but as I enter the maze of monotonous food courts, plazas and shops I feel my pulse start to quicken and my breathing rate elevate. The walls are closing in on me and all I want to do is escape before the numbness descends but I steady myself with my mission. I can't leave until I have achieved it.

Thank god then that Highpoint is where I find some children doing, holiday stuff. There is an ice skating rink set up here for the kiddies to slip, slide and generally bumble unco-ordinatedly around on. Not that I can talk, my ice skating days ended with a dislocated patella, ouch. Among the same old, same old mall chain stores however, is one worth noting. It is called 'Build-a-Bear' and as its name suggests, you make your own stuffed teddy bear from the materials provided in this workshop. How cool is that, I think to myself until I realise that some delicate kiddies might be a bit traumatised being presented with an empty bear skin to stuff with fluff before they can get to the fun bit of dressing it. I can hear it now. “Daddy you've put too much bear gut in him, you've made him fat. No, no don't take it out, that's his tummy, he'll die if you take it out again!” Face it parent's there's no winning with this one.

So where else might the kiddies that can otherwise live without malls go in their weeks off. The Royal Melbourne Show of course. One of my hostel room mates, an English girl also called Louise, has a job giving toys to children at the Royal Melbourne Show. The event is like a two week Easter Show and A&P combined. It is on at Flemington Showgrounds next to the enormous Racecourse which in less than two months time, will be bustling with spectacularly hatted Melbourne Cup goers. I get off the tram here, not to go to the current event because quite frankly I can do without the crap plastic toy given to compensate my pathetic aim at any of the side shows, but to escape the departing crowds that have just filled the tram. I am immediately hit, even at this long distance, by the smell of horse shit but this is definitely where the kiddies are, spending their pocket money on cheap baubles for their hair, bodies and bedrooms. I shake my head and smile as parents and children stagger out under the weight of appalling kiss-me-quick hats and inflatable baseball bats or hammers. Not one has escaped without a plastic shopping bag laden with junk. It is just like another trip to the mall after all.

A Walk in the Park

2008-09-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

As rain was predicted it is an unexpectedly beautiful sunny Sunday so I'm off on a trek to the market to arm myself with lunch then on to the Botanic Gardens for some much needed floral relief. Victoria is in drought and has been all year. It becomes sadly obvious when a spring walk in the park crackles under foot. Grass is not supposed to be crunchy but that unfortunately is what you get here in Melbourne, dry, brown or insipid green blades covering rock hard dusty ground like the wisps of comb-over on a bald man. Both are sad.

Tree blossoms have been happening for a few weeks now and leaves are now sprouting so a blue sky day seems the right time to explore the Royal Botanic Gardens. This then is where I take my baguette, brie, pear and celery stick lunch. Unfortunately as it feels like a summers day, the summer plague of Melbourne arrives along with it. I'm talking flies. Oh my god am I talking flies! I have no idea how the people who live here can be so accustomed to the aggression of these pesky insects. They don't just buzz around like Auckland ones, they stick to you like you're covered in a layer of honey-glue. They fly into your face, eyes, even mouth. I'm not kidding, these pests will sit on your lips, resistant to swatting and shooing away. It's really off-putting. I mean I have become used to eating blue cheese but I draw the line at black spotted cheese and there is no way I can pretend that they are chewy raisins! In NZ I love eating alfresco but it is much less appealing here. After sun down the regular flies are replaced by a plague of tiny midgy ones so there is not much respite in a late outdoor dinner either.

My walk in the park takes me to the Shrine of Remembrance so off I got ready for some military sobriety. War memorials are designed I know, to conjure awe at the might of the military through being reminded about the dreaded outcomes of losing and the glory and honour for those who die in the process of winning. Never have they been so popular as a few years after the First World War which was when the stepped pyramid inspired Shrine of Remembrance was commissioned and built. The donations of school children of the day went towards building this monument.

Nineteen thousand Victorians died in WWI. One in five that went overseas to fight did not return. The names of every person to serve in WWI is displayed in books lining the corridors surrounding the sanctuary. The video on display in the Shrine's visitor centre shows young high school students of today relating to how it would have been for them if they had been required to fight the war in Europe. The lack of communication with loved ones, the isolation, the uncertainty of traveling to the far off unknown were all concerns. So a bit like doing an OE then? I didn't sit through to the end but I did not hear anyone mention the abhorrence of having to kill another human being or face bullets themselves. Are we that detached from the act of war these days that we don't think about how we would react if faced with killing?

Certainly as I explore this colossal monument I do not get a sense of war. Death yes, it feels like an ancient crypt to me but war, hmm not really, not for me personally. To my mind this place with its cold stone walls, narrow angled corridor upon corridor and drafty stairs, is more like the pyramids, like a cobwebbed treasure tomb from Indian Jones. I do not mean to take away from the seriousness of this structure nor from the significance of the fact that it commemorates so many lives lost in war. My comment is about the modern de-sensitisation produced by the cosseting we receive in this age from the actual reality of war. We are exposed to so much horror, so much violence and so much hatred on our television screens every day that we are overwhelmed and have shut down. We seem to be closing ourselves off from the immediacy of war by building monuments and glorifying it on television. That may not be the intention of the governments or media (as I generously give some the benefit of the doubt) in building monuments or reporting war but it is the result that I see and feel.

I don't watch the news because I am sick of seeing and hearing how dreadful we humans can be to each other, to our planet. I admit that I am somewhat sticking my head in the sand but if I don't I might not be able to cope with the magnitude of it all. The blame, the shame, the sadness. If I took it all personally I would suffer a melt down and yet by not doing anything much to stop it, I am partially to blame. I believe in picking your battles and mine is planet ecology, someone else can have war so that I can manage still to sleep at night.

So back to the Shrine where I feel cold and it is not just from the draft breezing down the vaulted corridor at me. The only stirring I feel about this impressive monument is in seeing the New Zealand flag flying at the end of the sanctuary.

Every half hour they simulate the 'Ray of Light' ceremony that occurs naturally at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, Armistice renamed Remembrance Day. This monument has been designed so that the sun will pass over a window and throw a beam of light on to the stone with the inscription “Greater love hath no man” while the words are spoken, “They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old.”

Two things strike me as I participate in the minute's silence as this simulation takes place. One is that I am told that it is really a guy with a torch shining it from up the tower and the other is that daylight savings had skewed the real natural annual occurrence by an hour. So it's all a bit of a sham this war lark.

The Game that Made Australia

2008-09-26T00:15:00.000-07:00

Saturday is AFL final day at the MCG here in the City of Melbourne which means that the hostels are full to overflowing with footy nuts and I have been evicted from The Nunnery along with the other semi-permanent residents. That's okay, I have decided to treat myself to a hotel room for the duration as I would rather get some sleep if there is a likelihood that the footy will be followed by either a wake or a celebration. Win or lose the subsequent knees-up will likely go on through the night.

For the first time in ten years the two clubs competing in the final are local to Melbourne. Usually it is a Melbourne team and one from somewhere else, Brisbane, Newcastle, that sort of thing. It was 1977, I'm told by a very knowledgeable AFL supporting florist outside the Town Hall, when two local teams last battled it out for the final. Then it was North Melbourne and Collingwood. My local florist was obviously the right person to talk to when gathering AFL info.

So I decide as a foreigner, to test how footy mad this town is by spot quizzing people on the street to see if they can name the two teams playing and the animals they represent. Oh dear Mum, your wayward daughter is off talking to strangers again. What would you do with her?

The correct answer I am looking for to my footy question is the Geelong Cats and the Hawthorn Hawks. I am asked on one occasion what the prize for getting it right is and the answer is a friendly smile. I survey twenty people, ten women and ten men of all age groups. My selection is random except for two common criteria. One is that the person has to be stationary as I am not going so far into the footy spirit as to tackle them on the street. This means that they tend to fit the other demograph which is that they are mostly smokers, enjoying a quiet puff outside on the street. As Melbourne seems to be full of smokers this provides me with ample prospects.

Of the twenty, fifteen were local Melburnians or at least Australians as two of my female subjects had come down from the Gold Coast specially for the game. “You count then as local supporters,” I assured them. The other five were from overseas and had no idea what I was talking about if they even understood English. The fifteen locals all came through with flying colours getting the answer correct. The City Embassador quizzed as one of the fifteen claimed that every true blue Aussie would know. City Embassadors I should add here are volunteers dressed in red jackets and fedoras wandering around the city to answer tourist questions. They are a lovely bunch of people.

One chap surveyed was a small boy wearing a Hawks shirt. When I asked him which team he supported he answered the Cats. “But, but the shirt?” I pointed out with confusion. His dad tells me that they have only been following the footy for half the season and junior's allegiance is as changeable as the Melbourne weather.

“Are you going to play footy when you get bigger then?” I asked. “And be an AFL star?”

That produced a smile as bright as a crescent moon and a vigorous nod.

“We'll see,” murmured Pop giving me a look that indicated that junior's ball handling skills were more appropriate to spreading on toast than holding onto a rugby ball.

So of the survey score so far? Aussie home team fifteen correct answers, visitors nil. And who is picked to win the final? Hands down the support goes to the Cats because as my little Hawks jersey wearing friend claims, “The Cats rock. They are the best team ever!” Dad shakes his proud head and smiles. The general consensus on the score is that Geelong (pronounced G'long by the way), will take the win by three goals. We shall see on Saturday then.

Sanctuary, thank you very much

2008-09-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

It is school holidays here in Melbourne so I am sharing my weekly freedom of the city with mums and little 'uns. It is not that I want to selfishly keep the place all to myself but I am used to making my way around freely, now that I know where I am going. I share at the weekend like everyone else but the week days belong to me, ME I say! So getting suddenly stuck on a narrow footpath behind a crocodile of children all walking at snail's pace, is just not on!

The library, my usual writing sanctuary in which to escape the chaos of hostel living, is not really much of a haven at the moment either. It is full of students taking up all the desk spaces and giggling over – oh I don't know what teenagers giggle over these days, same thing as they did in my adolescent years I guess. God I sound old. Old cranky reclusive writer. Next I'll be sharpening my walking stick and poking it at people.

Anyhow in order to find a different place of solitude in the big city I am on a sanctuary hunt today. This as you would expect takes in a few churches and Melbourne knows how to do structures of ostentatious worship pretty convincingly. The CBD has cathedrals for every Christian denomination. St Patrick's Catholic, St Michael's Presbyterian, St Paul's Anglican, saint this and martyr that, the Welsh Uniting Church, the Church of Our Lady Who Takes Pity on Hopeless Cases or something like that...the list goes on. And I have to say that it gets a bit like, seen one church, seen 'em all. I am impressed however with the Catholic cathedral, having been brought up on the less than inspiring St Pat's in Auckland. Its Melbourne namesake is so much – well – more. Gothic vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows, devotional annexes, guilt everywhere (of the gold kind as well) and flowers. Oh Mum would be in her element with the floral displays at Melbourne's St Pat's. I have taken a few photos to keep her happy. I met the cathedral cleaner, a side-burned rock 'n' roll drummer who sweeps in his spare time. He admitted to having bought Ugg boots to wear his first year on the job mopping the frigid stone floors. This huge building takes all week to clean and given the height of the ceilings, I don't envy him having to clear the cobwebs from the rafters.

Pipe organs too are a thing here. Majestic instruments with gargantuan pipes that regularly thunder out stirring devotional music. On Sunday's the city air resonates bellsong from 10.00am through to after four. It is easy to find places to raise the spirits on Sundays but during the week takes a bit more dedication and soul searching.

So next I try an Eastern religion by visiting the Hare Krishna vegetarian cafe Gopals, for some inner nourishment. I have always liked the food sharing philosophy of this Hindu division. As I understand it the preparation of food is communal with the spiritual, mental and physical energy of the cooks infused into the meal. I have tried to follow something of this nature with my personal culinary philosophy. I do not simply cook a meal for my guests, I prepare one. This requires careful consideration for some time in advance of what they would like to eat, what they are able to eat and how that can come together in the most nourishing and appealing way. So I am grateful today for my nine dollar full plate of energising kofta, bean and corn croquette, and fragrant rice with a wholemeal roll to soak up the tomato chilli sauce. I waste nothing on this delicious plate thus paying homage to my hosts who made such a rich offering for me. This meal is so substantial that it will last me the rest of the day and is greatly appreciated.

One of the unusual inner city havens I have found is something called the Mingary which, was added in 1999 to an annexe of St Michael's Church. This small dimly lit enclosure is “a quiet place where the passer-by can pause awhile.” The cave-like room comprises six chairs circling a central altar of stone, trickling water and flickering light.

Enter in silence. This room is extremely restful even though you can hear the traffic noise on the street just beyond the open door.
Sit in silence. There is not a sound from those of us meditating in this space as we feel a surrounding peace and harmony like the quiet of night.
Leave in silence. And when I am restored and ready to go I gather myself and depart. Not a word has passed my lips, not a thought has clouded my brain, not a moment has been lost in this place of serenity.

Mingary is a gaelic word meaning 'the quiet place' and I have found mine here.

Thank you Melbourne, I have found something to be grateful for today.

Continental Drifting

2008-09-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

Monday afternoon before 4.00pm is cheap movie day at Carlton's alternative Cinema Nova. “Hoorah and lashings of ginger beer!” I whoop as clutching my six dollar ticket to the splendid French farcical fancy 'Welcome to the Sticks', I prepare to spend a rainy start to the week a la Continent aka Lygon Street. Yes this is the first real rainy day as opposed to short bursts of violent showers that we have had. Ha, listen to me saying 'we' like I am a bona fide Melburnian after just five weeks here. I will admit though to having adjusted my lifestyle to suit the surroundings so that I no longer look like a bumpkin Kiwi tourist. I have me a Melbourne vintage hat to remove the sore thumb from my general sticking out appearance but cannot understand why a town so plagued by frequent gusts of fierce vents should be so enamoured of the chapeau as it is. In fact my demeanor these days is so little like an import that I have been known to stop and give map-clutching genuine tourists a hand to find their bearings. I rode the free City Circle tourist tram yesterday which I hardly ever do as it is full of sightseers, and gave an Aussie visitor from Cairns a bit of a run down on the passing landmarks.

“Look at that quirky place,” I pointed to a little crooked shop on the corner of La Trobe and Russel Streets. “It was built in 1853 and is one of the oldest remaining settler buildings to pre-date the Victorian gold rushes. It has subsided so much that the front door no longer closes properly but the same family has run it as a general store for over a hundred years.”

She was suitably impressed by my vast guiding knowledge as seconds later the loud speaker on the tram echoed my history lesson. I have to admit that I cheated a bit. I had walked this road earlier that day and read the sign on the outside but I was able to puff myself up like a peacock for the sake of the tourist. That's definitely one on the board for the Kiwi Warrior versus the Kangaroo home team!

Anyway if the attraction is not free or cheap or irresistibly worth the money, I am pretty much giving it a miss as I do 'Melbourne on a Shoestring'. A six dollar movie was like a little luxury reminder of my previous wage earning life. 'Welcome to the Sticks' sold out in the Auckland Film Festival so I missed it and was delighted to get a second chance to see why it was so popular. The thing I particularly like about French humour over that of other nationalities, is that they take the build up to an obvious joke and stretch it to an extreme. Minutes before the punch line you will be holding your aching sides pleading with them to stop, not to go any further and then be stunned as the obvious and unthinkable pans out. 'Sticks' was brilliant French comedy at its best, with star and producer Dany Boon playing the romantic lead with his usual hillbilly charm. Go and see it if it you can, you will laugh yourself sick just as I did.

Of course being in Lygon Street was a good excuse to cash in on the discounted caffe and cake that my movie ticket bought me around the corner at Brunettis. Two bargains for the price of one, what a day! I think that I am successfully addicted to the Rum Baba cremes at Brunettis. O.m.g. and phew, talk about laced with real rum, whooee!

It's still raining, incessantly and I don't have an umbrella although I do have a coat. It was windy but dry when I left the hostel this morning but alas no longer. Four seasons in one day, is the saying applied to this town and it i.s truer than it is of Auckland. So my options are hmmm, get drenched and bedraggled walking the two blocks back to Nicholson Street, not so appealing, or...er..stay at Brunettis where it is warm and dry and open till 11.00pm with an unlimited supply of rum baba crème. I have no reason to stay sober so there's not much competition really eh? Maybe there might be a break in the weather before eleven but if not...Signor, un'altro perfecto rum baaaaba per favore, con molto rrrrrum, grazie. I love days of Continental drifting.

The Other Northcote and the EGRMB

2008-09-21T18:28:00.000-07:00

Melbourne has a Northcote of it's own. Yes Auckland, you have competition and quite a lot to live up to if you want to be in the name game. This quirky little village similar in feel to Ponsonby, is famous for the live music at its local pub, The Northcote Social Club. I have seen so many posters around for live acts at The Northcote Social Club that I felt I just had to check it out at some stage. So I looked on my trusty and much scronkled by this stage, tram map and noticed how far away it was. My immediate thought is, Holy carrolly Batman I'm never gonna make it on foot. But make it I did. I walked all of Smith Street, Queens Parade, through the pleasant suburb of Clifton Hill to Westgarth, another pleasant village and up the only hill I have yet found in Melbourne. Well when I say 'ill, it were a pimple really but it were a 'ill to uzz, as the Four Yorkshire Men might say.

I chose to visit Northcote on Sunday when the High Vibe 8 street fiesta was on. The wide High Street was blocked off to tram and road traffic and it felt quite daring to be walking down the middle of the ghost tracks but that is what I and everyone else did. All of the village shops had market day stands outside selling their wares and there were lots of lovely street food to be sampled.

Cafes set up enclosures of tables out on the street to sell alcohol. The cordoned off spaces effectively extend the cafe's license to it's new boundary. I was there for the first two of the eight hour festival so the drinking was still quite civilised. Alcohol induced violence problems are undergoing a big community newspaper campaign here in Melbourne at the moment. The slogan is “Just Think. We're not saying don't drink- just think”. I am skeptical that such a soft line will be effective but they are at least acknowledging the issue. But at the moment however the Northcote festival is very sociable with music and food to soak up any alcohol.

There are street musician and unfortunately the sounds clash a bit as they do with the Jazz Festival in Mission Bay but everyone is here, child buskers playing didjeridoo and dancing (obviously not at the same time), a teenage group sitting cross legged in the middle of the street clapping out random rhythms, a three piece folk group with harp and unusual harmonies, a real mix of sounds. Yes I know, my mind boggled also at the line up and I was there to witness it so you'd have thought it made more sense but no. Music in the northern suburbs of Melbourne is as eclectic as the mix of people and fashion.

There are vendors of tantalising ethnic street food and as it is lunchtime I sample some very tasty Indian pakora, a fried potato cake fragrant with cumin and curry, and some Sri Lankan lentil patties and potato dumplings. I nearly go back for a helping of Tibetan Yak dahl and rice but my hunger is satisfied so I pass on this occasion.

I decide that it is time to move on when the street starts to get crowded because after very little sleep due to the Friday and Saturday night noise at the youth hostel and and a changeable windy, sunny day that is making hat wearing difficult but also necessary I walk back to town.

So back down the road and this time I walked through the Edinburgh Gardens to stop for a bite to eat. There I met the Edinburgh Gardens Rotunda Marching Band. This ad hoc group of young musicians has just started meeting in the park by the rotunda on Sunday afternoons at about 2.00pm to jam. Their music is jazz roots with on the day I was there, a drummer, a guitarist and a clarinetist (if that's the correct term) however there could also be a cellist and other musicians turn up later if they are not too hungover from the night before. This is the drawback of meeting on a Sunday afternoon I'm told, the commitment to drinking for these young people is stronger than it is to jammin' with the group. I didn't see much marching likely to happen given the pale complexions of the three who did turn up but the sound was definitely was cool to happen upon on my Sunday walk.

Where for Art thou (not)

2008-09-19T18:27:00.000-07:00

The 'not' in the title by the way is a reference to a slogan on some street art I saw. Today was an artistic one. I took in an exhibition at the ACMI Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Federation Square and also the Ian Potter NGV Australian Art Gallery. But let me begin today's itinerary like a Canaletto landscape, with the journey of the Melbourne art scene in Carlton at the Royal Exhibition Building. Yes, that's me there looking dickey as usual in my electric blue hat, mini skirt and Dr Seuss socks taking a photo of myself in front of the fountain. I'll spare you the self-portrait on this occasion. The fountain like the grand building behind, was commissioned for the 1880 Exhibition displaying all that was new in the 'civilised world'. For European settlers in isolated Australia the lavish exhibitions formed a vital link to the outside world ensuring that they did not fall too far behind civilisation. The Antipodean Classical fountain designed by Josef Hoehgurtel depicts reptiles attempting to climb out of the surrounding pond to the haven of the classical mer-people on the island fountain. At intervals platypus peer down over the edge of the catchment dishes to the water creatures below.

So now that we have established a grand tradition of Royal Exhibitions by Jove, let us speak more about the birth of the arts for which Melbourne is so renowned. There are two parts to the formal display of visual art in the city and both are called the National Gallery of Victoria. One houses works by international artists, treasures for the city to cherish and align itself with other international art galleries. This is the building with the cascading arch entrance on St Kilda Road next to the ballerinered Arts Centre. The second NGV Ian Potter Centre for Australian Art features homegrown treasures, indigenous Aboriginal works and European influenced Australian artists from the early 19th Century to today. This is the gallery I visited today.

There are two distinct sections to the Ian Potter building. On the first floor is the Aboriginal art and above it the rest. I found the Aboriginal art most interesting as a writer for the artist's comments written on the walls providing an insight into the minds of these indigenous artists.

“They tell my life, my family, they keep that story alive,” explains Ronnie Jakamarra Lawson about his reason for painting. “My Dreaming is my painting. That story will not finish – my son will take him.”

Aborigines paint to record their history as their own personal stories are entwined and indistinguishable from the story of the land.

“Our spirits lie in the water...It lies in the ground. It lies in the earth but we are bringing it out. We bring it out and paint it on bark where we can see it.”

The paintings of the Aborigines whether the canvas is bark, rock or decorated bodies, is the genealogy of the people of Australia, sacred and profound.

Upstairs are a different set of memories. The paintings of the Australian artists of the 19th and 20th centuries reflect a reluctance to cut ties to the European traditions and create a style of their own. As I read about the origins of the art scene in Melbourne I am whisked back to my passage here this morning in front of the Royal Exhibition Building. Two international exhibitions in the 1880s focussed world attention on Melbourne and subsequently European artists started coming to the Antipodean Mecca. This period is considered the heyday of Melbourne art.

It was a particular display entitled “9 by 5 Impression Exhibition” in 1889 which really launched Melbourne into the art world and here is why. Leading art critic of the day James Smith, hated it thus proving the theory that all publicity is good publicity. If someone hated it as much as Mr Smith did, then people had to visit the exhibition to see what was so ghastly about it. What they found instead of heinous crimes against the eyes, were in fact a series of 183 small works with dimensions of 9 inches by 5 painted as quick impression sketches on cigar boxes. The idea was for the artists to rapidly jot down the essence of a scene. The group numbered among their ranks Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin. Melbourne art was labeled crap by pompous critics and therefore it had arrived for the masses, right on and power to the people!

By the end of the 1880s the economy crashed and a depression set in that drove the fickle artists away again as easily as they had come. Fortunately there were others now trained to take their place and a women emerged as a new force of talent to rival the staid English impressions of the Hugh Ramsays and the John Longstaffs. Clara Southern, Jane Sutherland and Jane Price came of artistic age in the later years of the 19th Century.

Two interesting temporary exhibitions caught my eye today. One was Klippel/Klippel's “Opus 2008” a strikingly displayed collection of Robert Klippel's household miniature sculptures set to the sonic response of his son Andrew. I stood there transported back to my days as a miniature model maker and thought, hmm, I would have had fun doing that. The other was “Correspondences” at the ACMI. This exhibition showcased the short films of two filmmakers born within a week of each other in Spain and Iran. The lives of these two men only touched for this exhibition and yet their filmwork on childhood parallel so easily that they are able to be viewed side by side. The filmmakers are Abbas Kiarostrami and Victor Erice.

Vegging Out

2008-09-17T22:33:00.000-07:00

A regular market goer is me these days. Most markets are permanent or regular here so there is not the same urgency to get there early as in Auckland. They also usually go from dawn to about 6pm so there's no rush, plenty of time when time is your friend.

The occasional markets however are for the worm catching early birds and the Veg Out Farmer's Market is one of this category. On the corner of Shakespeare Grove and Spenser Street behind Luna Park is the curiously named Peanut Farm. Don't ask me what it historically refers to I haven't found anyone yet who can tell me (most Melburnians seem largely ignorant about their city beyond their own small piece of it). What it is today is a St Kilda community allotment of gardening projects. It appears to have quite strict rules for what is essentially a hippy and kiddie's veggie patch. I find it absolutely charming, a place for butterflies and bees to party which is incongruously juxtaposed by it's proximity to the shriekings from the party at Luna Park next door.

The Veg Out allotments are well laid out and very personalised. There are granny scarecrows, over-sized model pirate ships, web-footed birdman angels, rainbow benches, rusted fireplace barbeques, there's no limiting the imagination in this garden. It is like walking through Lewis Carrolls' living flower patch in Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass. I expect the tiger lilies to growl at me as I pass and the snap dragons to snip at the hem of my skirt. It is a place to amuse myself unsuccessfully chasing white cabbage moths with my camera and the buzz of bees all around is blissfully pleasant to my ears. The birds that enter this arena are also far more attractive and sociable than the nasty ravens and crows that are synonymous with St Kilda. They freak me still where as the rosellas in this garden add a further splash of beauty to the colours. It's all very cool and begs the question why doesn't Auckland have community gardens like this one?

Too-ra-loo-ra-loorak

2008-09-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

I'm in Toorak today having stepped off the train from Elsternwick onto Toorak Road. What defines Toorak I wonder as I look around to gather my bearings. It is a suburb whose name is familiar to me. Toorak, I roll it round my tongue. In association with what I can't right at this moment remember but I think it is a well to do part of town and I'm right. I wander from Punt Road to where this street crosses Chapel as they all seem to in Melbourne's grid system town planning. Does every road lead to Chapel, I ask myself because there is no one else around and I am turning into the crazy lady that talks to everyone? In this short distance of Toorak Road I have passed three maternity shops. Ah, so do people who get married in neighbouring Armadale then move to Toorak to start a family? Good question and a pattern is emerging. I also pass plenty of Italian trattorias and French bistros. I suspect I may have stumbled upon an enclave of Europeans.

At a cafe where I pause for coffee it is confirmed when I meet Raoul, a French man who moved here in the mid-1950s. He likes the area because it is handy to everything, leafy, green, big old houses, old money with a recent injection of new. Melbourne's climate suits Raoul, the people, the neighbourhood too, he enjoys. Toorak is close to town and has everything you could possibly need. There are sixty hairdressers on this strip he tells me with a smile and a dandy stroke of his neatly trimmed beard.

Toorak is primarily Anglo, settled in the Victorian era by the country squatters. They built their town residences here to spend the winter and spring months enjoying the social scene as a reward for the hard work back on their country acreages during the summer and autumn harvests. Before the settlers, the area was home to the Woiworung Aboriginal people but Melbourne was built on the wool trade. I learn this visiting Como House, the National Trust property in Toorak.

This elegant verandahed house had it's beginnings in 1847 when Edward Eyre Williams built a cottage and named it in a romantic gesture Como, after the lake in Italy where he proposed to his wife Jessie. That cottage formed the foundation for the current house which became the home of squatters Charles and Caroline Armytage and their nine children.

Here I should explain the term squatter so that you don't start to think of this well-to-do family as parasitic hobos (unless of course you want to go into the whole settlement argument). The Melbourne Victorian aristocracy of gentlemen landowners with country farms and town residences were known as the Squattocracy. I'm not entirely sure why the term, please feel free to add your reference. They lived semi-permanently in town during the social season of winter and spring. Their townhouses were often packed with guests for week long parties. Friends, family everyone came to stay sleeping where ever they could find a space. Caroline Armytage was particularly known for her cherry teas which of course featured the freshly harvested fruit in as many delights as possible. I missed the house tour so made do with the gardens which gave me the opportunity instead to chat to the National Trust volunteer gardeners about the joys of spring. We have been hit by it all in the last week, ferocious winds, icy showers, high temperatures one day, plummeting back down the next. Four seasons in one day is a term used to describe Melbourne.

Hallo, my name is Ikea und I kom from Sweden

2008-09-14T18:20:00.000-07:00

Debbie wants a sofa to fit her compact flat. Actually she wants the latest craze, a chaise lounger or maybe a sofa bed to accommodate guests now that she has a flatmate rather than a spare room. After scanning through catalogues and sizing up actual sofas in the shop however, it becomes apparent that this is not going to happen.

So she takes me with her to the Swedish furniture store Ikea in the Victoria Gardens shopping centre where I am told we can get absolutely everything. You name it, it's all there written in amusing names like knoppa, grintorp, strib, hopen, gorm, knubbig that conjure up the Muppet Swedish chef's voice to pronounce. This store is so big that it contains a restaurant so that shoppers who have lost all perspective of time and space, can nourish and fortify without leaving the shop. It is possible to stay all day in Ikea, and why wouldn't you it's so big and has so much in it to entertain a first time Helga like me. There are play areas for the kids, full-sized apartments set up and maps to assist navigation around the arrowed floor plan.

The first Swedish shopping innovation that Debbie, the seasoned Ikea shopper, introduces me to is the space demonstrations. The store has set their furniture up in spaces designed to represent not only rooms but entire flats and small houses. There is the 55m2 apartment and the 120m2 townhouse. Melbourne like most urban environments, is suffering a housing shortage, especially in the rental market. Houses for sale are plentiful but they are existing ones, new properties are simply not keeping up with demand. So furniture and home accessories designed to maximise small spaces are essential. I have already been impressed with the hooks over doors and pull out drying racks Debbie has made use of to add quality living to her flat. Ingenuity of design can make a small space feel spacious and that is exactly what I see here at Ikea.

Spice racks that attach to the fridge, overhead wine glass rails, hideaway drawers and cupboards with adjustable separating inserts to ensure that every corner is usable space. And all with such stylish and affordable European elegance of design. Much to Debbie's amusement, my eyes are like saucers, my hands madly waving in every direction and the words, “oh wow look at this,” are never far from my lips. I think she brought me along for the entertainment value more than anything else.

“The even have a deli here,” she says and I'm sure it is just so she can chuckle at my reaction.

“A Swedish deli!” I clap my hands like an excited three year old. “where? Do they have Haagendass?”

“No but they do hotdogs,” Debbie says as apparently it is her little Ikea ritual to have a lipsmacking hotdog on the way out. Debbie likes hotdogs I have learned over the past couple of weeks of watching her prepare a quick dinner after work. It's usually the hotdog wrapped in giant pita bread with cheese and a quirt of tomato sauce that suits her convenience.

We try out a number of lounge suites and yes, this does involved opening out every sofa bed and climbing on. How else are we supposed to see if they are comfortable? Both of us stretched out on the same sofa bed has a few of the shoppers looking sideways at us but we are enjoying ourselves and eventually we find the sofa Debbie needs to match the chairs she already has so she is happy.

Now I get to see the ingenious Swedish buying process. Take shopping list printed for your convenience, take a pencil also provided, take a tear off tape measure, they are all here for you the shopper's use. Note the aisle numbers of the components that make up the kitset you are about to purchase and go downstairs to the warehouse. Here grab a giant trolley and trundle the massive aisles that make The Warehouse look like The Garden Shed to collect your purchases. It is all self serve. Next you pay and then you take it all to the delivery bay to register your next day delivery. Debbie discovered how this works on her first visit when she asked for the delivery to be made on Saturday and was told to come in and order on Friday if she wanted delivery on Saturday. So she will have to stay home tomorrow to wait for today's purchases. When they arrive, assembly is up to her and this goes for everything, beds, tables, lounge suites, cupboards, they are all kitset. Top marks to the Swedish for their ingenuity and their economy, Ikea rules, right on!

I'm on a Mission from Blog

2008-09-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

I have been told that it is possible to get from La Trobe Street to Flinders Station without crossing a road so today I am on a mission to prove it or otherwise. The nine blocks I have to cross in sixty seconds are: La Trobe, Little Lon, Lonsdale, Lt Bourke, Bourke, Lt Collins, Collins, Flinders Lane and Flinders Street. I'm kidding about the sixty seconds but this message will destruct in five.

1.35pm: I take the time on the giant pocket watch at Melbourne Central before I begin and start the clock. So far I have traversed from La Trobe through Melbourne Central across the skybridge over Lonsdale to Myers. Here I come a bit unstuck trapped in the maze of this institutional department store. It was my mother's dream store come true when we came as a family to Melbourne in the early 1990s. With the amount of time I spent in there on that visit you would think that the Pavlov's Dog trigger would kick in to navigate me smoothly through, but no. No, because I feel incredibly claustrophobic in this low ceilinged, packed to the gunwales store. Everywhere I look there are granny knickers, comfy shoes, pillow slips and doilies and I don't know where to turn to escape the blue rinse. I exaggerate of course Myers is Melbourne's Smith and Caughey, every city has one, a store catering to the old world and ladies who lunch when they can afford to. Myers has a certain charm but at the moment as I pass through the Foodwalk for the third time and still don't know how I managed to loop the floor to get there, I am not feeling in the slightest bit charmed. Just let me outta here, I want to scream at the arrows that seem to point in every direction. I hear that not long after I finally did escape there was a fire in a lift well and I just have to state it was not sabotage and it was not me.

But on with Mission Impossible. 2.20pm: Thinking @$%& so much for the clock racing, I manage with a bit of underground sneakiness to connect from the Little Bourke Street entrance of Myers across the road to the Bourke Street section of this massive store. Like its next door neighbour David Jones, Myers covers four floors of two blocks with the one store so it gets mighty confusing keeping track of which particular section you might be in. I can be forgiven for losing my natural compass in here when the chances of seeing daylight are as slim as meeting the Pope in a porn shop.

All the signage in Myers points me out on to Little Bourke Street but I refuse to be defeated when I know that there is a second Myers on the other side. It must be possible to get there from here even if I have to cajole a staff member to let me crawl through the air conditioning ducts. However I cunningly manage to find a legitimate route via the underground Basement bargain section. Triumphant I pop up now in Bourke Street.

Here I attempt to cheat slightly by nipping next door to David Jones because the split between the two parts of this shop happens between Bourke and Little Collins. It's 2.30pm, I study the floor plan and stand around looking hopelessly lost, something I became well practised at in Myers, until a shop assistant asks if I need help. I explain my mission but sadly she shakes her head. There are no underground routes or skybridges across Bourke Street. I rather suspected as much but it was worth a go. Instead I opt for Union Lane which is the state approved street art site. 2.40pm, the walls of this narrow lane are decorated with elaborate and colourful art graffiti to reward me for having to emerge onto the street at this point. Unfortunately the lane is too narrow to fully appreciate the larger than life designs but cheers to Melbourne's bureaucrats for sponsoring creativity of this kind.

2.50pm, at this point my mission having been foiled, I settle for making it to Flinders Street Station via the network of lanes, alleys and arcades. I have asked several local shop and cafe staff and no one can think of a way to get me across Collins Street either so the mission needs to be abandoned for today. 3.00pm, as the sunny eighteen degree day promised by the weather report has not eventuated, I am not properly dressed for the overcast fourteen. Truth be told, frozen fingers was my primary motive for changing my original plan to take on this mission. People who know me well will be nodding and saying uh-huh, that I rarely dress appropriately for the weather and am always either hot or cold but I have been doing so well lately, honest. Trouble is that the temperature can change on a whim if the sun decides not to come out reminding me that it's not summer yet. The weather in Melbourne must be a woman.

3.10pm, so the route I now take acting on good advice, is through the cafes on The Block Arcade in order to stop for a double shot cappuccino and a chance to write this. 3.50pm, across Collins Street to The Centreway Place leads me through Little Collins to Degraves Lane. Here I can finally take an underground passage direct to the station and hey presto, mission all but accomplished. It may not be possible to cross every intersection in the inner city circuit avoiding street traffic but it certainly is possible for seven of the nine.

Kiwi Tourists Hat the Town

2008-09-08T16:07:00.001-07:00

Debbie and I became Sunday tourists, joining the throngs of people on Southbank and Federation Square for Spring Fashion Week. We were tempted to take a ride on the tourist shuttle or one of the horse drawn carriages but thought it best not to go overboard. Instead I introduced Debbie to the Arts Centre Market. She has been living here about six months now but when you work five days a week and spend part of the weekend doing chores at home, it isn't as easy to get around discovering the city as it is when you have whole days and weeks at your disposal like me. She is amazed at the places I have explored and the people I have talked to on my travels so today I became her tour guide and we goofed around taking silly photos at the State Library, St Paul's Cathedral and the Crowne Towers, places I had already visited and wanted to her to see.

The main focus of our trip into town though was to attend one of the free Spring Fashion Week activities, a talk on 'Hat wearing etiquette' at the Champions Racing Museum. Debbie intends to go to her first Melbourne Cup in November and wants to make a hat to wear. She has a bit of thing for hats.

The flamboyant Austrian Waltraud Reiner of Torb and Reiner milliners wound me up in a ribboned spell of feathers and gauze with her talk on hatiquette. She had a delightful way of telling me that big hats would not suit my small face.

“If you want to wear a big hat with flowers and feathers,” she flapped at me. “Then hold a tea party in your garden with your dollies and best china. Release your romance there in cream lace, wide brims and roses but don't wear the hat in public on the street for people to say 'hello who's that hiding under there?'"

Waltraud's advice to Debbie is become a left tilter not a Raggedy Andy and think big not pimple chapeau. Debbie modeled the hats for the class and Waltraud demonstrated that she should angle her brimmed hats jauntily to the left rather than planting them on the back of her head like an Oklahoma barn dance. She also advised not to wear a hat that looked like a dollop demonstrating how unflattering it was as Debbie grinned like a Cheshire cat underneath the feathers. It was a bit of afternoon fun.

Other gems from Waltraud were to accessorise black days with colour “like a rosella in a naked winter tree” and listen for your inner 'ah'. This is the reaction that your gut should make as you place the perfect millinery creation on your head.

“If your body says 'ah' then don't talk yourself out of the hat. Likewise if is says 'oh' don't make a purchase you will regret. You have to be comfortable in your choice.”

Waltraud's very sensibly advice regarding hats is just as relevant to the rest of life.

“If you buy these amazing knickers but they spend all their time lodged up your crotch, you won't wear them.” So true and the sound pearls of life and millinery wisdom continued.

“Everything must come from the inside out when you buy a hat. You are just fine as you are so find the hat that works with you and you will be happy with it. I can dance on the table wearing this one and it stays on just fine.” Thanks Waltraud now I feel liberated for some table dancing in my hat.

'Doing the Block' in St Kilda

2008-09-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

Saturday dawns a glorious blue and the multitudes are drawn out of hibernation to throng St Kilda Beach. To my mind it is still too chilly at sixteen degrees for the beach duds they are wearing, baggies, tank tops, thongs (which to Kiwis are jandals not g-string bikinis). I have however for the first time changed from jeans to a skirt parading the glaring whiteness of my winter legs to the world. It's not exactly fair competition that the rest of The Esplanade are either ethnically blessed with pre-pigmented skin or have backpacked recently in places where summer is pretty much given all year round. So what I cry, I'm pasty and proud!

The idea was to give myself some time off from pen or keypad today and instead read a book in the sun's warming rays at the beach but I ask you, how can I concentrate when there is so much people watching to be had on the boulevard?

I read a piece the other day in the Melbourne history exhibition at the library that talked about 'doing the block' which was the fashionable parading their families along Collins Street on a Saturday morning in the 1880s. Local author Fergus Hume in his book 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' described: “portly merchants walking beside pretty daughters.” I look up from my book on a Saturday morning one hundred and twenty-eight years later and see the exact same thing – with ironed flat hair and cell phone attachments. Dog walkers and their miniscule dogs reign supreme. Debbie and I were in stitches the other day ranting over the fact that these days they sell, what we new to be mongrels, as 'designer dogs'.

“They can call it a schitzoodle all they like,” Debbie raves hysterically. “But it's still a mongrel.”

We got inventive with cross-breed names and came up with the very juvenile but wettingly funny at the time, Poo-schitz or a Bitchin' Freeze. Okay so we don't pretend to be grown-up all the time.

Ahem, anyway the dog walkers are here with their miniatures bred for city living venturing, like their owners, out of their winter hoodies. I was really pleased to see that summer attire for dogs is au naturel and not mini boardies and tanks.

The barely teenage skateboarders are also out in force to flick tricks on the curbs. I am impressed with the skill at which they dodge the pedestrians and other wheeled traffic on the boardwalk but then they tell me they have had hours of practise here, at apparently eleven o'clock at night. Does their mother know they're out at that hour, I wonder?

The air is buzzing with sounds of beach rugby games and the steady drone of weekend jaunters flying passed in small planes, on jetskis and in fishing launches. The sailors are on the water as well and even though the wind is maybe not even 10 knots, they all have their spinakers up. Puts Auckland sailors who prefer to motor if the wind hasn't reached 12-15 knots, in their place a bit. Everyman and his teeny dog it seems, is enjoying the day.

Over at Luna Park Debbie braves the oldest continuously operating rollercoaster in the world and other chunder bucket rides as she nurses a slight Friday night hangover. I'm sure she's not the only one whose stomach is not up to the ride. The Scenic Railway was built in 1911 and can reach speeds of up to 65km per hour with a manual brake operator riding the carriage. Having done a few of these 'vintage' rides at Blackpool I am aware of how real the fear feels that you think you might not make it to the end without something going horribly wrong. Debbie made it safely through however, stomach still in tacked and her souvenir photo is hilarious but then souvenirs are a bit of a thing at theme parks. I do like the Asian lady at the entrance selling from about her person, everything that flashes, wobbles and goes wheeeeeee. Luna Park is a St Kilda landmark along with the Palais Theatre and oooh this is a bit of a sore point at the moment the locals have told me.

Inevitable development is happening at Melbourne's day-tripping capital in the form of (sinister drum roll required here), The Triangle. This is a planned, Council approved entertainment complex encompassing the area from the dilapidated theatre along Jacka Boulevard to the Sea Baths. It has some residents protesting bitterly that it is too big and will bring more people to the area to party. I understand their gripe but my feeling is that St Kilda has always been a pleasure garden and the Triangle complex is just a newer version of the skating rinks and dance halls of old. What's the difference? The promenade has the same portly merchants, the night clubs have the same unsightly bodgies and wedgies who always hung out here. People complained about it then as they do now but they choose to live here.

The other time honoured tradition of St Kilda is the homeless drinking out of paper bags in the parks. They have not adjusted their routine according to the weekend or the weather and are a feature of the beach that the rest of the day trippers obliviously ignore. The beggars are week-round regulars but fare no better with the increased weekend numbers hanging out at the cafes to see and being seen. Something I find really annoying here is that despite the footpaths being constantly busy with dawdling walkers and shoppers, the cafes spread their tables well and truly out into the traffic flow so it doesn't. They create a very narrow corridor for people to get passed and I guess the theory is that if they can't, they will stop for a bite to eat instead. They also have walk-by breakfast bar counters which add to the street block as people queue and hang around waiting for takeaway coffee. It doesn't bug Debbie as much as me because it is prevalent here as the way of life but I don't have to get used to living with it.

Jewel of the Brunswick Nile

2008-09-04T15:34:00.000-07:00

A number 19 tram to North Coburg takes you through Brunswick's Sydney Road. This is just one more of the colossally long straight roads to Melbourne town. Where Sydney Road differs from Chapel, Brunswick or Smith Street is that it is more of an obvious cultural gumbo with the most fragrant flavour belonging to North Africa and the Middle East.

Here the shops glisten with gold, Muslim icons, Persian rugs, functional art, treasures brought to us from the Arab world. One shop stands out as Aladdin's Cave filled with elegant brass coffee pots, trays of gold filigree encrusted glasses, mysterious enticing hookahs that would have had Alice's caterpillar smoking from the other side of the mushroom. It is a truly alluring shop and if I had had all the wealth in Dubai on me, I would have spent it here.

Every window I pass in Sydney Road shows me mannequins in Arab garb, intricate gold jewellery, bolts of vivid cloth, pastries soaking in dates and honey. I feel like I have stepped onto the Nile.

Pantheon International Cakes sells sweet treats from all over Europe. I asked the man at the counter to take me on a tour of his cabinets. He smiled and with good-nature, humoured me. Koulouria make many koulouri and many koulouri are on display in the window. These are piles of miniature crispy Greek cookies some twisted plain, some covered in sesame seeds. Above them are many style variations of shortbread and buttery Viennese fingers. The counter cabinet is filled with imitation cream yummies from the rest of Europe. Call me a freak but I like mock cream far better than fresh so these are causing my tastebuds to salivate. Slices of gateau Black Forest, cappuccino, chocolate, vanilla...fruit topped cheesecakes...Chantilly cream filled profiteroles and cannoli and tray loads of baklava swimming in nuts and sticky honey.

The owning family is from Greece but the young man serving me tells me that he was born in Australia. He speaks fluent Greek to his regular customers though because he was sent to Greek classes in the evenings after school. That is a difference to Auckland that I like about Melbourne. Immigrants from Europe came to both countries round about the same time, after WWII. They were looking for a fresh start. New Zealand required new immigrants to assimilate fully into the community so the Dutch, the Dalmations etc learned to speak English and forgot about speaking their own language. Their children were brought up New Zealanders and in some cases never learned to speak the second language of their inheritance. This I find sad. If you have the opportunity to own more than one culture then you should embrace and make the most of it. As a woman with pasty British white blood coursing through her veins I would love to have inherited something more exotic.

The immigrants of Melbourne have gone to lengths to not forget who they are by keeping their heritage strong in their children through living language and culture. I believe that you understand yourself more completely knowing where you come from and by appreciating the efforts of all those before who allowed you the start in life you have. Melbourne has successfully embraced its cultural diversity so much so that it is a colourful feature of the city and communities. For the visitor like myself it allows me to discover a fresh beauty in every suburb I cover and I am very grateful to share the exotic I don't myself own.

A lesson in Melbourne Misfits and Civic Pride

2008-09-02T19:21:00.000-07:00

I did it! I gave in and took the busman's holiday today. I usually resist going into libraries when vacationing because – well – I'm on holiday why would I want to think about work? She's clearly not a librarian then, I hear my bibliophilic colleagues huff, look she even makes up words not in the OED like bibliophilic. What can I say, I love libraries and all they represent as well as what they have personally meant to me but I'm here as a writer not a librarian. But writers need libraries right? In fact everyone needs libraries whether they use them or not. The reason we need the existence of libraries is to elevate our communities to societies and transcend civil into civilisation. Libraries are egalitarian, they are free and they provide everyone from the coated to the coatless with the tools to rise. But only if their hands are clean according to the original charter. Most people, regardless of whether they have ever stepped into a public library in their life, support that principle.

So that makes the State Library of Victoria, an elegant stately building on a gracious lawn at the top of the city grid, one of the most important buildings in Melbourne. And I visited it today, she says puffing like a peacock. It is simply the most beautiful building I have seen lately and over the last couple of weeks I have seen some impressive places big and small. Classically influenced Victorian splendour are words to describe the library inside and out. Starting at the lawn and front steps it is already a place Melbourne citizens frequent. Lunchtime crowds make the most of its green sanctuary in a pushy urban jungle. Freedom and space abound in the library environment.

I could wax rapturously lyrical for hours about the architecture of the State Library but I won't, I'll just tell you all that you need to come here and see it for yourselves as one of Louise's Wonders of the World. Instead I will talk about a current exhibition.

“The Changing Face of Victoria” succinctly chronicles Melbourne's history. Navigating as I have been lately via the who's who of streets, I was hungering for some facts about this city, names and places and where better to find them than the library?

Let's start with the founding fathers, all three of them, John Batman, George Evans and John Fawkner. Fawkner at least was a convict criminal and Batman sure sounded like one from the narration. He allegedly bought the land at Port Phillip from the Aborigines for the usual price of beads and blankets (no giving these natives guns like New Zealand). The next thing he did was swagger around arrogantly in a Batman cape claiming that he was the greatest owner of pastoral land in the World. The village of Melbourne would be established where Batman dictated and it was, at Queensbridge. Sounds like a bit of an oik to me especially when the scribbles on his treaty that he claimed to be the illiterate signatures of the Aborigine chiefs looked suspiciously like doodles made in his own journals. What was he doing, practising forging their x marks?

George Evans was the only one of the three original founders to settle permanently in Port Phillip at Sunbury. I couldn't help snickering at the unlikely name he chose for his homestead and feel that the authors of the exhibition must also have seen the childishly humorous side to make mention of the 'Emu Bottom' estate. George, what were you thinking? Can language have changed that much that Emu Bottom had completely different connotations back then? I think not!!! If you put that as your address on your tax form, they wouldn't believe you. He lives where? Up who's bottom?!

Fawkner and a fellow convict William Buckley, were escapees from the infamous Van Diemen's Land penal colony of Sorrento. Buckley took refuge with the Aboriginal Wathaurung people forming a unique bond between white settler and native tribe. When he stumbled back to Port Phillip almost thirty years later however, he completely let the side down. William Buckley, clad in Aboriginal garb complete with paint, had to be recognised by his tattoo and dental records (nah, I'm joking about the teeth) because apparently he had forgotten how to speak English. Forgotten English?! Oh come on! I can believe that he might have been a bit rusty but completely lost the ability? Had he also forgotten how to ride a bike, tie his shoe lace or put on pants?

The settlers started coming to the village on the green at Queensbridge in droves. The Colonial Government got cross and waved their arms yelling “stop it! Go away! We're not ready!” But still they came, gravitating to 'Marvellous Melbourne' and eventually the authorities threw their hands up in disgust and pouted, “oh go on then if you must, just keep the noise down.”

But noise is kinda inevitable when your mum names you Ned, Ned Kelly that is. They have a great display of that bush larrikin's armour at the library right now. Wow it's impressive. Impressive that the gang ever let Neddy go out wearing such a crime against fashion darling. Riddling it with bullet holes to make it look authentic didn't help but I did like the lippet. Oh, come on people THE LIPPET, the flap covering his chop, the family jewels to those not of Aussie-Polish decent. The important body bits Ned instructed his kindergarten blacksmith too protect were; head, shoulders, chest, back and chop. They of course shot him in the leg and he fell over.

The Rhythms of War and Peace

2008-08-31T16:44:00.000-07:00

It was Melbourne Day on Saturday. What does that mean? Good question. Well there was a bit of flag waving in the morning and the opening of a couple of exhibitions but apart from that, not a lot to a visitor specifically looking for some civic hooplah. Once more with feeling Melbourne, please.

But today I was visiting the Shrine of Remembrance, a classical mausoleum memorial to Australian's involvement in global wars, when I happened upon the Defence Reserves Support Day March. Ooh, now here might be something worth stopping for in my search for pomp, thought I. Hark, ae hear the bonnie drones o' the pipes drifting on the breeze to my ears. The Ringwood Highland Band to be exact practising for the march down the avenue to the cenotaph. So I lingered for a moment enjoying the circumstance of the modern sculptures and classical monuments immortalisng the patriotism of war. I have to admit to being a cynic when it comes to generated patriotism of this nature but I make it my habit to pause for anything out of the ordinary and I also appreciate men and women smartly dressed in uniform. The rhythm of marching and the music of a live band is good, war is not but these Aussie's keep reminding me that Dorothy is no longer in Kansas, New Zealand and war is a reality to these folk. It's enforced in regulations that make little sense, it's in the scars that mark the bodies of the refugee survivors, it's talked about on the news and hard to miss. Silly me Toto, lest I forgot?

But onto the peaceful part of the day with the chance discovery of the smooth beat of Concrete Jungle, the R & D band playing in Southbank's World Cafe. World had been recommended to me and what a happy find it was. Funky, chic, bustling yet chilled, I felt immediately at home. The World staff are some of the most attentive, friendly and switched on I have met here in Melbourne and I had me a mighty tasty muffin and coffee for a decent five dollars. The rest of the menu looked to be equally good value and the ambiance is top notch in my book. I was able to sit and relax over my coffee listening to some fine Sunday reggae/soul/funk fusion sounds from the trio comprising electric bass player Patrick Kilby, drummer Julian Goymar and yay New Zealand, Titirangi native keyboard and singer Clare Whitcombe. The band has been playing together for just a couple of weeks but they gel perfectly and their sound was cruisy. Just the ticket for a blustery Sunday afternoon's entertainment that also included a detour through the Arts Centre to check out the upcoming performances. Costumes from the Sydney Dance Company and Australian Ballet's past performances were on display to remind me of the proud tradition of ballet in Melbourne.

The other day I happened upon a circus performer practising his new juggling act in the park behind Debbie's place. At the time I stopped briefly and talked to him but now here he and his partner were performing for me on Southbank. Manx and Gordo are two very cool circus performers. Their act together, Gentlemen Freaks, I felt deserved far more recognition than the sleepy crowd of Sunday strollers offered. Performance for a crowd can be hard work some days but you can tell the ones who are born to do and these guys were. They are part of the greater circus troupe Opposable Thumbs and I was impressed if somewhat disturbed, by the talented sword swallowing and fire juggling act of these world champs. Check them out on You Tube. It was also wicked to be at the full act I had seen at it's less dangerous stage. I wish all of the impressive performers I saw today all the best in their artistic paths. It's a tough world out there for the arts but they are vital for raising the civil to civilisation. The regular display of living arts and support of such is far more a celebration of Melbourne than a day of flag unfurling.

The Girl in the Melbourne Bubble

2008-08-31T16:40:00.000-07:00

I have had a few requests from folk for more specific news about me and how things are going with my raison d'etre for coming to Melbourne, namely my grand scheme of writing a novel. So here goes then.

I am very fortunate so far to be staying with a friend, Debbie. Debbie has been wonderful making me feel at home and she is great company in the evenings. In fact it has become part of her greeting as she returns from the office to ask me what I got up to during the day. She seems awed at how many people I am talking to and how much of Melbourne I am getting around in such a short space of time. Debbie is a kiwi girl, who when offered a fabulous job in Melbourne, decided to in her words, 'suck it in' and make the permanent move with a container load of her worldly possessions. She arrived at the start of winter but her gutsy attitude did not let the cold or the shortened days get her down. She is fast making Melbourne her home and can't wait till summer to explore a bit more although she tells me that the thought of forty-five degrees at midnight on New Year's Eve as it has been for the past two years, is just not on.

Debbie came down with flu a couple of days after I arrived with my Auckland cold so the two of us were rugging up by the oil heater to cough and splutter our way through an evening. What sad old nanas we were but apart from some lingering flem in the chest, we are now like the fifth book, mostly harmless.

A new flatmate is due to move in with Debbie in a couple of weeks so I have made contact with the local YWCA and put my name on the list for accommodation at the single women's house in Richmond Hill. They will let me know when a room becomes vacant and I would be able to move in on the same day. Any overlap between bases I plan to spend at a backpackers. I have booked into a place in Fitzroy called The Nunnery which has lots of character but more about that when I get there.

As far as the writing is going, well obviously I am doing lots of travel blog stuff and there is so much more being written but not posted that I will include in the finished Blog Book adventures of my travels. So all of you that think you can get away with not buying a published copy because you thought you were getting it free on the internet, think again. If you want the full story, you will have to buy the authorised book when it's finished and the author will happily sign it for you.

And the novel? The original goal of the venture? Well in two weeks I have written over 100 first draft pages. It is amazing how prolific I am when inspired, motivated and have lots of time to indulge my passion for writing. Now if I can just manage to achieve this all the time and make a decent living from it, I will be the happiest Larry you could imagine.

I have reached a good stride to my day with a perfect harmony between writing blog, writing novel, exploring, taking photographs, music (I have another song written to add to my collection), with the odd bit of Sussy solitaire thrown in to amuse me while Debbie watches Neighbours and Home and Away. I balance my day by starting with a bit of yoga to the melodic sound of Swell Season, the CD from the Irish movie Once. Just perfect.

And finally for today, I miss everyone and Auckland heaps but am comforted and delighted to be hearing from you so keep the emails and blog comments coming people. You have no idea how important hearing from home is to the Girl in the Melbourne Bubble. It lets me know that there is a world beyond Sussy's keyboard which, can sometimes be a vacuum sucking up hours of time in the blink of an eye. It reminds me of the important stuff. In two short weeks Melbourne has been kind to me, being just what I was looking for to put the bounce back in my life but every time I log on to check my emails I am reminded that as Dorothy said, there is no place like home because home has the people I love in it.

xxx

Spring is in the Air

2008-08-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

Ah the warm breath of spring is upon us at last. It has been a very long, hard, lonely winter this year my friends but it seems to be coming to an end at last with the dramatic bursts of magnolia heralding that winter has become, late. The first pink cake decoration cherry blossoms have begun to sprout on the trees adding a joyful colour to the day. Blue sky and warming sun also helps to raise the spirits and shed the coats for lighter sleeves. As I looked around me today people were noticeably out of the mourning colours of winter garb. Likewise the shops are sprouting flimsy frills to match the whimsy of the blossoms. Spring is definitely in the air.

I took me off to Camberwell Market today on the number 16 tram to Kew, planning to get off and walk some of the way. I made it as far as Malvern before I decided that the day was far too lovely to be spent on a tram and jumped off. I had ab-so-lutely no idea where I was or where that was in relation to Camberwell. Figuring that most places are within my walking distance, even if most Melburnians advise me to take a tram to walk two ironing board flat blocks, I asked for directions.

“Oh you're a fair way off,” the chap in Readings Bookshop told me. “You'd have to carry on with the 16 and change at Riverside to a 72.”

Into this I read that it was possible to walk but it would take me a while and then he put the spanner in the works.

“But you do know that the market is only on Sundays don't you?”

Bugger. Ah well, I'll just have to try again on Sunday. It was a pleasant day so I decided to just go for a walk and if I got bored, take a tram to somewhere else. I do love this being free to just, as the ad says, 'lose myself in Melbourne.' I had always thought that that slogan was just the Aussies trying to tell us Kiwis to get lost but apparently it's not.

So I walked from Malvern to Chapel Street though Armadale. Armadale is classically wealthy. I wouldn't even dream of asking the price of anything in Armadale because I would be a) considered uncouth and b) likely to have fit. Class is the best word to describe Armadale. Antiques, art galleries, jewellers, beauty salons, designer shops that sell writing paper, fine books and the most stunning wedding gowns imaginable. It is all about quality in Armadale.

Speaking of wedding gowns I witnessed the most heart-warmingly beautiful scene this afternoon as I strolled through the Alexandra and the Queen Victoria Gardens. A young lad proposed on bended knee to his sweet maid and my heart went ahhhhh. I was a little way off so I saw it acted out in poetic mime as covering her eyes, he led her to a seat. Making sure she kept her eyes closed, he then nipped off to a nearby flower bed and stole an orange poppy for his lady love before returning to stand in front of her. She opened her eyes and there he was on bended knee, flower in hand...thankfully her answer was apparently yes because I watched her fling her arms around his neck and cover him in kisses. I kid you not dear friends, this is a true story. Romantic fairy tales do exist and moments like these are sent to keep our hopes alive for the real world. It's spring and it seems that not only the blossoms are budding, love and romance is too.

Oh, I do like to be beside the Seaside

2008-08-28T15:23:00.000-07:00

I took my mid-week trip to the market for supplies of super fresh pasta (leek and sweet potato ravioli sold conveniently by the each) and some of the amazing range of cheese available here. On my way back I decided to take the frivolous tram route. In other words the one that took me nowhere near the right place but offered instead a far more interesting exploration opportunity. Just call me the modern Kiwi chick version of Burke and Wills but better prepared with fresh market supplies to sustain the lost expedition into the Melbourne interior.

I discovered that a number 112 tram gets me to the vicinity of the beach promenade on Beaconsfield Parade. This looks out to Port Phillip between South Melbourne and St Kilda Beaches.

Beaconsfield Parade is a wide avenue of traffic and apartments, old and new, with sea views bordered by palm trees and carefully racked yellow sand. Sand IS yellow you ninny, I hear you all tisk at me but not all sand is quite this yellow. Some stretches can be white, others black like West Coast Piha grit, but the sand along the entire plush coastline of Port Phillip looks as if they've added yellow food colouring to enhance it's attractiveness. Groomed is the term I choose to apply to the boulevards of the Melbourne Riveria. It reminds me of Napier's Marine Parade or Wellington's Oriental Bay, in party dress.

They like regiment in Melbourne. First the shop window displays, now the beaches. I have to say however that having a decent long stretch of wide sand, pavement boardwalk and grass reserve to potter along is extremely pleasant, especially on a day with such glorious sunshine as this one. No riparian rights for the rich here, the beach is for everyone. Europeans with your rocky shoreline and three deep rows of beach huts and deck chairs, eat your heart out!

That brings me nicely to one of two sets of people I chatted to today (I have my mother's permission now to talk to strangers just as long as I don't accept any sweets :-). Marieke from Koln (Cologne to the non-Germans among us), and French-Spanish Camille are two sweet backpacking girls I led to the Acland Street eateries after wrong directions sent them in the opposite direction. Headlines read: 'Kiwi chick turns Melbourne tour guide'. I know my way around now better than some locals! The girls are at the end of their Aussie sojourn and about to head home with observations about the backpacking lifestyle similar to mine.

After two months of itinerant living they were ready to return home and settle back down to reality. Living out of a suitcase is fun for a while but there is always a hankering for a bed to call your own and somewhere to hang your hat. You meet great people on the move, see the world with fresh eyes and experience more than you would if you stayed at home. You cram so much more into an international backpacking trip than you ever would vacationing at home. It's just the way it is. If you make the effort and spend the money uprooting yourself to another country, you make the most of every minute. The girls agreed that they would be going home for a rest as every day touring Australia had been filled with activities they would never have contemplated at home, like snorkeling, skydiving, that sort of thing.

They also admitted that exploring Australia made them ashamed at how little they had seen of their own countries. I had the same realisation some thirteen years ago when in England, I had to deflect interested questions about NZ destinations with: “Hmm, good question, I dunno, never been there.” It was this shameful epiphany that led to my lifetime's New Year's Resolution to travel every road in New Zealand. Most intrepid Kiwis look at me as if this feat is an impossibility and I'm obviously deluding myself, but that has not stopped me making a serious dent in my target. Anyway Camille and Marieke were both friendly and chatty and quite unlike the Aussie fishermen suffering at the hands of my interrogation earlier on my walk.

Typical of the Aussie bloke (similar to the Kiwi brand), this group of recreational pier-fishers answered my questions about the day's catch, like their teeth were being pulled with rusty pliers. Their faces were so transparent that I could see the same silent freaking out on each one of them without needing to read the otherwise blankness of their minds. The saucer eyes of the collective (what do you call a group of fishermen? 'A Catch'? 'A Tackle'? 'A Keeper' or better still 'A Tosser' of fishermen perhaps?) all screamed the same terror, namely: “Oh my God Jonesy, it's a gurl and she's tawking! Whadda we do, whadda we do? Why is she picking on us to tawk to? Please God make her stop.”

The best I got out of them was that they had caught baby marlin and they were not the slightest bit interested in New Zealand although they work with a few Kiwi blokes. One of them however tried a nice bit of sidestepping, throwing his mate Jacko into the lion's pit by suggesting that because he had been as far as Geelong, that made him a traveler and a starter to give New Zealand a “beet of a go”. Apart from the amusement, talking to them was like picking oakum so I waved farewell and found me instead some friendly backpackers.

Angels, Saints and a little slice of Devil's food gateau Heaven

2008-08-27T16:14:00.000-07:00

My mission today was to see how the other half live...or maybe not. The excursion was to Melbourne's general cemetery researching a scene that takes place in my book. It is one of the quirks people have to love about me that I like to visit cemeteries and be with the dead people. They are great company, no seriously. Reading the names on headstones can keep me amused for hours on end and it is a fascinating lesson in history to read about their life through their death.

This cemetery is gobsmackingly huge. Imagine the biggest cemetery you can think of and times it by six. That's how big Melbourne's cemetery is. I'm talking enormous here. As far at the eye could see in every direction stretches row upon row of black marble, white marble, concrete and stone. Angels, pietas, crucifx, monuments, Madonnas and saints, they are all there in groups of Chinese, Jews, Greeks, Italians, English. Every colour and creed is represented here but the dominant theme is Christian. Ave Maria, alla cara memoria, eterno riposo, mother, father, sinner, saint the line up is a who's who of Melbourne's past. Raftopoulos rests next to Leung. In the next avenue are the Dawsons alongside the Vizzinis. The cemetery is as much a melting pot as the living City of Melbourne. The Italian graves are the most interesting. Glossy black marble embossed with gold lettering and photographs of loved ones. Arcangela, Nunziato, Benedetta, Crescendo. Beautiful names for beautiful people the photographs are all of tough old settlers. I did not see one grave belonging to a child. These are all hardy people who lived long and prosperous lives. Their families still come to visit them, black clad with respect for parents and grandparents who died twenty years ago. The Italians are a tight knit clan. After walking much further than anticipated in high heels I felt that I needed a wee Carlton special treat.

One word then...Brunettis. For anyone familiar with this magnificent establishment,the name says it all. Brunettis is an Italian pasticceria, paninoteca, gelateria and caffe in Carlton and an offspring kiosk in City Square on Swanston Street. It is a little slice of Italy's finest gateaux bringing all the best of classic Roman decadence to Melbourne. Mmmmm. At this point I am struggling to find words to best describe Brunettis except that it is a Mecca for indulging the palette. It's like a Monet for the taste buds. When I die I want to be buried at Brunettis alongside the pistachio choux pastry and tiramisu. Brunettis is like an Armani suit. In the immortal words of Cole Porter, you're the tops, you're the toy balloon that is fated soon to go POP! And pop I certainly would if I spend too long at Brunettis.

Bridge over the River Yarra

2008-08-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

Several times today I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I started the day in North Richmond, navigating my way around Church Street in search of accommodation at the YWCA in Richmond Hill. Once that was out of the way I was free to explore Richmond's famous Bridge Road, street of factory outlets all screaming SALE! 50% off! Buy NOW! at me. Aarrgh I can't get away from everyone wanting to take my money from me! Be strong and use the Force Louise, deflect them all your Wonderwoman bracelets of gold, resistance is USELESS! I think I walked the length of Bridge Road with my eyes closed, like a blind woman stumbling along without her cane.

There was one particular shop however that was inevitably going to be my downfall. Macro Wholefoods Supermarket....uhhhhh. Is that angels I hear singing through the open door? This must surely be Paradise in the afterlife. It's like a giant Harvest Wholefoods only stacked in regimented rows. I've noticed this about Bridge Road, neat stacking of shelves and perfect windows displays seems to be a signature of this precinct. But I digress, back to my dream shop, Macro. Every type of organic food is available in this superstore. Rows upon rows of it from vanilla yoghurt topped chocolate mousse tubs to anise and fig bread cobs. Oh. My. God. I managed to get out alive with only a muesli bar, a can of soup and a cookie. I consider myself lucky and am very proud of my self-control.

Further along Bridge Road is a spectacular window display of chandeliers that made my jaw drop. I decided that I was in the mood for excess today so I caught the tram to Docklands (the equivalent of Auckland's Viaduct) but missed and ended up at the Casino instead. Ah well, not quite what I had in mind but excess could not be greater here. Casinos are not my cup of tea, seen one, seen 'em all sort of thing. Aucklanders rag Sky City as a particularly tacky version of a casino but I think, hey, they're all tacky what's the difference between Sky City and the Crowne Casino? So I bypassed the jingle whoodle-oodling pokies and flickering dressing-room mirror light bulbs.

I did end up however in the Crowne Towers Hotel and whooeee Daisy-Mae them cowpokes in there are mighty fine looking spec-i-mens. A five-star hotel this place is a wonderland of waterfalls and marble. The atrium between hotel and shopping complex is a darkly lit mountain cavern. Photographs just cannot do justice to the dramatic effect so I'll try and make a thousand words draw a picture for you instead. The ceiling is a hanging Babylon of crystal stalactites, perfect droplets evoking the moisture encrusted web of a glow worm. Peacock colours of green and blue light the roof of this Lost World. Down below on the forest floor water falls through a cascade of marbled terraced ponds. The smooth surface is covered with tiny blow holes to allow jets of water to arc out. Spurts of water burst out all over the ponds, firing through beams of light, a visual representation of the musical symphony playing in the background. Beyond the atrium the reception, lounges and Conservatory bar and restaurant are opulent gold. This is somewhere I would definitely like to come back to stay on my book signing tour :-)

This Little Piggy Went to Market

2008-08-24T15:51:00.000-07:00

South Melbourne has a damn fine market. At the weekend it is chocka block with young professionals. Gay couples, straight couples, young couples with children in strollers. They are well dressed and affluent looking but all the same, the Nana trolley reigns queen at the market. Nana trundlers are a common sight and are not confined to the usual profile of pusher (and that would be your Nana of course!). It seems far more acceptable here to trundle a fawn, navy blue or karkhi canvas covered trolley and let's face it – they are extraordinarily useful, they are just not a fashion item. But for the Melburnian resident who gets around on buses and trams, they are oh so practical and therefore this odd behaviour of trailing a bag on wheels behind you has become tolerated, even embraced. Everyone is a Nana here so no one minds.

I like South Melbourne Market, better I think that Prahran. South Melbourne has more interesting stalls like Rita's Nuts. Rita is a Greek goddess, full of life and love for the market, Melbourne, her family... Her stall at the corner is a family business. Three children work here, Rita likes to keep her family close. “You can leave your mother, your sister, but you can't leave your children,” she shakes her head at me when I tell her that I have left my family behind while I'm in Melbourne writing my book. “Your family's the most important thing,” she continues. “Even if they are horrible, they are all you need to survive.” Rita's family came to Melbourne thirty-seven years ago and she loves it here. The adoration in her eyes is all that I need to convince me she is not exaggerating. “You've got to love what you do,” she purrs. “The market is my life.” And she must really love it to get here at 5.30am most mornings.

Another market I visited today was the mass of stalls at the Arts Centre on Southbank. The well-organised ranks of stalls display beautiful handcrafted works from silk scarves to paintings. I found a match for almost everyone I know at this market but I only bought one, absolutely irresistible gift because it was perfect.

Southbank is peppered with street performers, acrobats, jugglers, musicians, human statues. They perform here everyday of the week. Spaceman has even migrated to this end of town. We last saw him in March, my sister and I, on Bourke Street. I caught him today at the end of his...rather bizarre...routine so had the pleasure of seeing him without his spacesuit helmet again. I was tempted to take a photograph but like Batman and Superman, I was sensitive to revealing this Melbourne icon's true identity. The other noteworthy street artist I came across today was outside the National Art Gallery of Victoria on St Kilda Road. He was drawing gorgeous reproductions of famous paintings in chalk on he pavement. They were very good indeed.

Hidden Under a Balaclava

2008-08-24T01:48:00.000-07:00

I completed a circle today. I walked from Elwood, City of Port Philip, along Glen Huntley Road to Elsternwick in the City of Glen Eira. The main street of Elsternwick is Glen Huntley which in the scheme of Melbourne's incredibly long crossroads, is also in Elwood. There is also often two roads in the environs with the same name (Barkly for instance was a well known Melburnian so he therefore has a few streets named after him).

Elsternwick is a mixture of faces and races. However bakeries such as Aviv's, offering boiled bagels and traditional Jewish cakes and cafes advertising kosher fare, give away the predominant cultural enclave here. I found me a fine Lebanese diner in Elsternwick called 'Talk of the Town'. The owners were friendly and extremely good at selling me far too much of their tasty vegetarian fare with their cunning open-ended question of “what else can I get you?” after every order I placed. When faced with such choice and that question, what else was I to do but cave in and stock up with take-home meals for the whole week!? Red lentils with rice, couscous with carmelised onion and almonds, pumpkin, spinach and pine nut kibbe, spinach and cheese or potato and curry pie. So much for the diet! Curse them!

The streets here seemed filled with fifty-something women, perfectly coiffed in purple velour tracksuits and fur coats. The mop on the end of the leash they carry is wearing a coat bigger than it is. Yes, it seems mandatory in Melbourne to dress your dog in some embarrassing outfit. Big or small, no pooch is beyond the humiliation of doggie-style. Personally, I keep thinking that every mutt is a guide dog for the blind before remembering where I am and gaffawing at them.

Continuing the walk, I turned up the oddly named Orrong Road and headed towards Balaclava. I had been at one end of Balaclava in Carlisle Street earlier in the week on my market excursion. This time I approached from the other end, the obviously fabulously moneyed end of the neighbourhood. It is Saturday, the Sabbath and so I am seeing lots of Jewish families heading off to prayer. I can even hear the sounds of their chanting drifting from open windows above to meet my ears as I pass in the street. It is a world I have never entered before but an interesting one nonetheless. Having seen my fair share of massive ravens lately, I can't help being reminded of these birds as I see the men in black suits, curled locks and square hats perched on their heads. I apologise if this analogy causes offense to anyone, the comparison is purely visual.

There is a subtle change of housing from this neighbourhood to the one I have just left. Elwood is old money, houses built in the Arts and Crafts movement and between the world wars of the last century. The houses in Balaclava are old money but new style. Pallisades, columns and porticoes are the ticket in Balaclava. If Elwood is Melbourne's Remuera then Balaclava is Howick at double the price. Apparently I should make the effort to visit Brighton and prepare to be amazed.

Balaclava Road meets Carlisle Road and the neighbourhood changes slightly again. As I delve further along Carlisle Road the faces that I saw on my excursion to Chapel Street start to reappear. They are the faces that peer into rubbish bins to find the bagels that might have been discarded. These faces are everywhere in Melbourne as they are in every city in the world but as a traveler looking at everything around me with fresh eyes, I see them more and feel closer to them as I am, myself out of place at the moment. These are the faces that hide beneath the Balaclava.

The Serious Art of Writing

2008-08-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

I have declared to the world that I am a writer quite a bit today. Out and about in St Kilda I've found a couple of cafes in which to briefly set up camp. For the small consideration of a cup of coffee (or in one case a scrummy hot chocky), I have been able to sit happily in the warm with my travel companion Sussy filling in the atmospheric authenticity of my novel. Big Mouth cafe and bar on the corner of Acland and Barkly Streets and The Vineyard Restaurant on St Kilda's Esplanade are the first two trendy, friendly establishments to feature as settings in my novel. The cafe staff and clientèle hangers around have been very interested in what I am doing and Sussy, my wee EeePC jobby has been attracting a fair amount of attention. It's so dinky that folk don't believe it could be a real computer. Haha! My cunning plan in action!

I am way impressed with how friendly cafe staff are this time round. Maybe when we visited in March, Caroline and I were just not engaging successfully with them because the hospitality staff encountered on that visit all seemed to be stand-offish like they had hemorrhoids or some such, making them ultra grumpy. This time however I have introduced myself and my project to the cafe folk and received a very different response. Maybe it's that my enthusiasm for what I am doing is glowing from me or perhaps it is actually interesting to people but whatever the reason, I am welcome at cafes now. At Big Mouth the duty manager Brendon even sat down to read over my shoulder and asked to be named in the book. Here you go then Brendon you get your name AND picture on my blog! The pretty lass with him is co-worker Sandra.

It's raining here today. I thought that I might escape the rain if I left Auckland but – er – no, apparently not. However Melbourne rain is different. It is frigging cold for one thing! A high predicted of 12 degrees today – high?! That is like the radio announcing that it was a balmy 15 degrees when I visited the Catlins once in December. I guess the rest of the world is a hardier bunch than Little Miss Auckland here. I do like the rain when I have the time and freedom to dance around splashing about in puddles, singing as I go. It's only when I need to turn up somewhere clean and dry that it is a pain. Or when it never seems to stop. I prefer weather variety. It's the spice of life so bring me sunshine, bring me rain, just not snow 'cos I didn't bring my skis.

So it's cold we've established but I knew it would be so I'm not complaining. I have my thermals so the cold is my friend. The rain, I could have done without after Auckland's persistence but as I said, Melbourne rain is not like Auckland. There is no wind attached. the rain comes here straight down in heavy curtains. If it hasn't set in for the entire day as it has today then the rain sheets are sudden, heavy and you had better have an umbrella or be able to run for cover fast! I like Melbourne rain, it is committed and as that could be said to describe the crazy Kiwi lady splashing about like a looney in puddles, it is my kind of rain.

Chapel Street – from one extreme to the other

2008-08-19T17:41:00.001-07:00

Today I walked from Elwood to Prahran Market down the length of the famous Chapel Street. Although I might be feeling lousy and gummed up still I am determined to walk everywhere in order to see as much of th real Melbourne in its suburban and city streets as possible. A bonus will be shedding some of he extra pounds piled on in preparation for the “Survivor Melbourne” diet.

Anyway that's not what I started to write about today. As I said, I walked the length of Chapel Street. It is a street that crosses at least three suburbs from fashionable Prahran, through funky Windsor to flaking Balaclava.

In Prahran is a market with enticing trays of fruit and vegetables laid out in rainbow arrays of colours. You don't have to know he name of anything here just where to find it in the spectrum. Lychees resembling the conkers I see everywhere on the budding plain trees lining the Elwood streets, blood oranges, scrumptious grapes that look hand picked for the gods and 4 x D-cup sized watermelons!

The rest of Prahran's Chapel Street is full of oversized sunglasses, GHD-curled hair and scruffy sculpted whiskers. Stroll further down passed Pran Central shopping centre and the Stonnington Library and you stumble upon the Chapel Street Bazaar. My eye was caught of all things, by the display of antique lace in the window but the rest of the shop is filled with the most funky retro junk you never knew you needed. We have entered the realms of grungy retro trendy Windsor where there are opshops like Fat Helen's, others for herb enthusiasts and smokers, and adult wares where giggling and pointing is definitely not allowed. Here the graffiti is designed, in contrast to the spray painted scribble a few doors down passed the Dandenong Road and the Astor Theatre.

We're not in Kansas anymore Toto as we cross into Balaclava at Carlisle Road. I met some oddities on this part of the street. Old folk walk their yappy dogs, owner and pet both wearing dressing gowns. Dressing dogs is the thing to do here. Older women sporting vibrant henna-coloured hair push shopping trundlers. In this part of the street I meet more midnight-coloured faces than elsewhere. There's a lad with stick-thin ankles protruding from ¾ length baggy pants who looks like a CCF advertisement. An African woman passes me, two ugly, healed over knife wound scars mark her cheeks. These people are so far apart from their neighbours at the other end of the street. It is unbelievable that so little physically separates them when so much keeps the apart.

J'arrive!!!

2008-08-18T02:19:00.000-07:00

Hello world I have arrived. AND I brought a present with me along with the mementos from loved ones in Auckland, only this particular travel companion I could have done without. Let me give you all a clue. My ears rather painfully, failed to pop as we descended into Melbourne. Guessed yet? Well, the sore throat, blocked nose and head filled with cotton wool should leave you in no doubt. Oh yes I got a cold so day one of my trip left me feeling more Bad, lazy body, get with the play I'm in Australia now stop waking me up at 4.00am. Office workers start at 9.00, cafes at 8.00 and shops at 10.00 so there is absolutely nothing, zip, zilch, zero to do at four in the morning. I tried to stay up as late as possible last night to swap from NZ-time to Oz-time and it seems to have worked quite well because I have made it to five in the afternoon without needing to head home to crash yet.

I'm staying with Debbie, a friend of my sister's. She's a Shore girl recently relocated to Melbourne and she has been absolutely fantabulous as a host. She has given me a blissfully comfy bed in a room all to my self (oh what decadence says the person who had planned to hole up in a hostel), clean towels that match and space in her bathroom cabinet! Oh the luxury. What a welcome.

Still it was strange waking up this morning to the sound of foreign birds. Where were the tuis? The minahs? Even the common sparrow? I'm not used to being serenaded by magpies, rosellas and ravens. It was quite disconcerting especially the ravens and their smaller cousins the crows. My word they are freaky birds swooping from the trees. It's like walking into an Edgar Allan Poe tale. They are like minahs on steroids and I am the helpless cat.

I've learned my first Melbourne lesson today. Always take an umbrella with you. It doesn't rain all day like it has recently in Auckland, in fact Melbourne is quite dry but when it does decide to precipitate you'd better run for cover because the rain comes straight down in drops that make you turn around to find the rotten kid that just chucked a water bomb at you. I think I may have to get a heavier duty brolly than I currently have.

Melbourne lesson number two for the day – how to order coffee. Step one enter cafe and be greeted by the Aussie-Greek beauty with the set of huge white teeth. She will most likely call you Darl or Luv. This is not a pass, it is the acceptable form of shopgirl hello. It's actually far nicer than you get from the fake NZ mall maids. Step two, order an extra hot double shot flat white. What you will get will be the equivalent to a single shot in NZ speak. Step three, kick back and enjoy a luke warm but at least strong coffee – ahhhh. I am happier with this discovery than I was on my last visit to Melbourne where I was pre-promised that the coffee would be good. On that occasion I was disgusted to find every cup weak and cold. I read a sign in a cafe window that said "Behind very successful woman is a vast amount of coffee." Coffee is my ticket to sit for hours in the one cafe. As long as I have bought the one cup I seem able to deflect the waiters from chucking me out.

Anyway here's a piccie of me on day one in Melbourne to keep the folks happy that I am alive even if somewhat congested. What a dill I'm going to look taking photos of myself around town but hey, I'm here on my own what else do I do. Here I am in the rain on Marine Parade in St Kilda. I'm looking across to Port Melbourne and the city. They have really great two lane walk and cycleways so there's no bikes sneaking up on you from behind.

The Final Countdown

2008-08-16T02:55:00.000-07:00

Murphy created a law, Alanis Morrisette wrote the song 'Ironic', some other chappie with a greater grasp of poetry coined the term 'best laid plans of mice and men'. You can call it what you will but basically I don't care. I have spent the last two weeks using some fancy foot work to sidestep, duck and dive, float like a butterfly yadda, yadda, yadda, in order to outwit the stubborn cold germs everyone around me seemed determined to present me as a bon voyage gift. And did it help? What did I do? What did I say to deserve waking up this morning with a throat feeling like it has been scoured by a cat's tongue coated in steel wool and a headache to rival Anne Boleyn's. So sucking on a tree load of half-ripe super-sour lemons was of no practical value whatsoever? Typical. The male members of my family, with caring brotherly concern, insisted that I not touch anything lest I share the germ love at my farewell/birthday bash. Segregated to a corner at my own do! Talk about salt in the wounds!

Ah well there is little point whinging and snuffling pathetically for chicken soup. I'm on my own now for the next four months, it's up to me to remember to wrap up warm and drink plenty of fluids. So Louise, supreme effort required but you can do it. Wake up at the sound of the alarm, drag your sorry arse out of bed in the dark and get to the airport before the sparrows are even contemplating farting in the trees.

I am staying at my brother Matthew's place overight and he, as always, is being a fantastic brother looking after his little sister. The Olympics games are on telly and there is a bit of frenetic cheering coming from his flatmate Suphie as she sits on the Swiss ball bouncing for joy as the Kiwis win rowing medals. Bronze for Mahe, bronze for – er-um the other two and Gold for the Ever-Swindells. Sign of the times, we can update the headlines on the NZ Herald through wireless connection in the living room while simultaneously watching the action of the box. Sheesh talk about unnecessarily contemporary! It is truly a 'Now Generation'. Later the All Blacks versus the Springboks will be happening in the living as Matt camps out on the sofa in front of the Sky coverage while the rest of us sleep. He has been known to emit the odd whoop at our national sport. Dad used to be asked not to support his children on the field because of his loud sideline reffing.

The End is Nigh

2008-08-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

It's Friday and thank God as they say. You know what this particular Friday means? It means the last day at work for me for four months. Today at 5 o'clock I leave the office behind and enter the world of the impoverished unemployed. Fool according to my Dad (did I mention before that I love you Pa?), fearless according to others. Do I feel at all nervous or concerned? No, not really. How about excited? The question I am asked a lot lately is am I excited. Well let me think. Actually no. I am too busy to be excited and besides I tend to launch into the unknown with an open mind, a blank page on which to write...few expectations. That way I am open to opportunities as they present and also to surprises. Expect the unexpected and be surprised and delighted. Or maybe it is just that my mind is enough like a cat or a child that I am unable to extrapolate into the future to see the consequences to feel afraid. Don't worry Mum I promise not to speak to any strangers whatsoever while I'm in Melbourne. I will ask first to see their crudentials and request two referees before entering into any form of conversation.

Actually I know two people in Melbourne and have a friend of my sister's to stay with for the first little while until I find my feet. It is also surprising how many people have said to me 'you should get in touch with so-and-so while you're there. They're a kiwi living in Oz'. Kiwi solidarity! I appreciate the offer everyone, really I do but at this rate I am in danger of spending four months in Melbourne socialising with Kiwis! I might as well just stay at home. I will keep the friends of friends list with me just in case but part of why I am off to do this in a city other than my home is to separate myself from that six degree thing that happens in a small town like Auckland. There are a lot of pleasant distractions when you know lots of people but it is not very helpful when it comes to knuckling down to the business of writing.

T'other thing that I have been hearing a bit too much for my liking is that people seem to think I won't be coming back. Hmmm, what am I supposed to understand by that? You don't want me back? Heaven forbid, I know that you all love me really but why do people think that just because I feel the need to take a wee break from my hometown, that it means I don't love it anymore. Ballgowns aren't much use in small towns, my friend Mr Greg Johnson wrote but ballgowns are useful anywhere on the right person. I love Auckland, it is my home, where my heart is because Auckland (apart from being crappy in the winter) is a beautiful places and it contains all the people I love the most in this world. Friends, family, fond memories, of course I will return to the town that has captured my heart but as they say, absence makes the heart etc...and rekindles the love. Set me free Auckland and when I return to you it will be with affection afresh and a heart better placed. We all need to take a break from time to time to step back and appreciate how good life is.

Happy Birthday to Me...da, da, dee, dum, dee, dee

2008-08-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

Today I enter my 37th year on this planet. Thirty-seven…huh? No sense of vainly lying about my age when I believe that every year adds a wealth of knowledge and experience absent from any previous era. Every wrinkle, every joint that aches when it rains, every ounce that gravity adds to my weight (or at least that’s what I’m calling the reason for any extra pounds I might be carrying on my hips these days), is a badge of honour. I have lived for thirty-six years and that in itself is an achievement regardless of the fantastic time I have had getting here.

Still having said that, thirty-seven is not a particularly significant number you wouldn’t think. It’s not sixteen where evidently I was sweet nor eighteen entering the work force in the grown up world. Thirty-seven is not the new twenty-one where the world becomes your legal oyster all of a sudden. It is not thirty when I was in a stable relationship and had just escaped death from peritonitis. I spent that birthday recovering with a very quiet but grateful to be alive, celebration at home. I counted my blessings at thirty.

This year is not any of those but it is one more on my journey through the game of life. I am looking forward to my thirty-seventh year, it holds the promise of the unknown, the chance to become a better me and the possibility of fulfilment. Who needs a conventional number like 4-0 to do something exceptional? Magnificence can happen at any age and perfect harmony can still be found even in a rest home. Hmmmm, I think I’m gonna like the big 3-7, after all it has already started with four birthday songs, chocolate cake, candles and gifts. I ask you how much better can it get?

Amounting to a Hill of Beans

2008-08-10T14:02:00.000-07:00

Possessions, I have discovered have a use-by date similar to food. There would have been a time in the life of each of my belongings when I needed or just plain desired it. That item, be it furniture, ornament or tool, once had a purpose but later was shelved, put aside for a day when it might come back into fashion or use again. Eventually it was forgotten, sad, even old-fashioned, a lost memory to cling to, a relic. After that, it turned into junk taking up space, valuable domestic real estate.

I have moved house six times in the past fifteen years and realised as I faced a seventh that it was always in a rush with never a proper chance to clean the excess from my life. I would simply pack (sometimes so meticulously it never resurfaced) everything into boxes and find places for it all in the new house. I carried baggage from my life with me everywhere I went.

It was definitely time then, to purge years of nostalgia, clung to memories of good times and bad and previous lives I have led. They have all contributed to the person sitting behind this keyboard today but none of it is necessary as a reminder of how far I have come. I am organic demonstration of that. I don’t need trinkets to bear witness.

So purge I did and once I started I got me on a roll that felt sooooo good I just kept right on going. The questions I asked myself were; do I need this? Do I still use it? Did I even remember I had it? Am I going to have to go out and buy another if I throw it away? What followed was a monumental clean out, arms windmilling as I delved into boxes under the bed, in cupboards, everywhere there was a place something could be stashed. My sister looked astounded asking where I had kept it all. Hidden was the answer. Well hidden, like a hoarder’s dirty secret. I felt shame at having so much stuff but then I’ve never owned a home so what other people would accumulate to fill houses, I fitted into the bedroom and kitchen of a shared flat. I have never had proper space to call my own so I found secret places to keep everything I considered necessary to define me. In this clean out however, I realised that none of it was precious anymore. Less was better, a simple, uncluttered, clean existence was healthier for me than filling the gaps of my life with fripperies. I am not defined by things. I am defined by experience, by personality and demonstration of my soul. Possessions are just easily identifiable trappings, frivolities, clues to the deeper but not the only me.

So what to do with stuff that is no longer necessary but has tangible and intrinsic value still? What-ho, a garage sale! By crikey what a cracking idea, well done Gromit! My previous experience of garage sales were as a kid, when the genius to sell stuff we piled into the annual mini skip was instead, hit upon. That garage sale had been lashings of childhood fun and lucrative with folk wanting to buy everything down to the very last coolie hat lightshade. So, this would be the answer to our moving hassles, sell everything, earn extra cash and reduce the amount to shift! Genius!

A word of advice that I wish everyone had not waited until afterwards to give…never, ever, ever hold a garage sale unless your heart is made of stone. For Little Miss Sensitive here, the experience devastated my delicate sensibilities. No seriously - stop laughing. The sight of vultures arriving in the dark, eyes powered by greed lighting a path to our door, trampling over my meagre life spread across the floor of the garage, was horrifying. Honestly, it was as if the hyenas had arrived to tear shreds of flesh off me for $2.50 and even then, they wanted to haggle over the 50 cent. They showed no respect. I was after all, selling for decent and reasonable second-hand prices, things of value. All this lot wanted was something for nothing and cared nought that they were trampling others to get it. The lowest form of humanity came to our garage sale and by the end, my spirit was drained and empty.

I said at the start of this that my possessions meant nothing but it is not quite true. They represent my judgement good or bad and the garage scavengers would be wise to consider that. However, I am glad to have purged the waste from my life and in a way, even thankful at the traumatic manner in which it occurred because now I can say that I am rid of it all. It is gone, torn savagely from me and I can start afresh. I go to Melbourne with no past haunting me. I am an international woman of mystery, a fresh face and a fresh perspective. I feel healthier already.

To Go or Not To Go, that is your question?

2008-08-03T17:41:00.000-07:00

Many people have commented on my courage upping sticks and heading to Melbourne where I know no one. They tell me I am braver than they are. I will admit to having had brief moments of doubt early on as I weighed up the pros and cons and the uncertainties. Now however, I don’t feel so much brave, as buoyed by the prospect of the adventure I am about to have. I give up my steady job to be a committed writer, have vacated my home, sold a lot of my things and put the rest into storage. I allow myself four months to make it happen and then I come back to reality with a fresh perspective, new lease on life, satisfied. A new woman!

Some weeks ago, I took off for a weekend during a particular piece of bitter winter weather to make the hard crunch-time decision of whether to go or stay. I needed total isolation to search my soul, breathe, reflect, cry the odd self-pitying tear and test my resolve by being completely alone. How well did I do? Well it sounds silly but I slept a night in my car to test the degree of discomfort and loneliness I could endure. Okay so at this point you are thinking – ha, little rich girl playing at being homeless waif but I wanted to know where the tipping point for my comfort zone was and I didn’t reach it sleeping semi-rough in winter. I might have been sleeping in the back of a Starlet but I was well prepared with sleeping bag, pillow and extra blanket. That, I guess is the difference between choosing to sleep rough and needing to. I am lucky though, I have the knack of falling asleep practically anywhere. It’s the waking up with the crick that is literally a pain in the neck.

That weekend was about relocating my inner peace, recently misplaced. To the outside world, the expression on my face must have looked troubled but it was in fact, torn. I was torn between the safe road and the road less ordinary. The reason for separation that weekend was to ensure that the decision regarding my immediate future was mine and not mine influenced by everyone else giving well-meaning advice. When I returned, I felt drained, burning inside with a cold-fever, tired and in desperate need of a long soak in a hot bath full of scented roses - ahhhh. I had a decision but my resolve still a little shaky. The first people I told were my parents. My steady father, love you by the way Dad ;-) told me I was a fool. Resolve trembled but the more I voiced my intention, announcing it to the world, the more solid and tangible it became. The deep breaths also helped fortify.

After all, I have the chance of seeing my dreams come true. At the very least, I am giving it a go and will never feel I have let this opportunity to do something impressive pass me by. Carpe Diem! Potentially I have always been daring underneath this mild exterior because I have made a point throughout my life of identifying opportunities and going for them. Fearless or foolish? You decide.

An aging Mobile Library customer of mine once said to me, “If someone offers you the chance to try something different dear, take it. You never know what worlds you might discover of which you previously knew nothing.” I think I just put that more eloquently than old Mrs R. who was after all 90 and losing her mind but I got her drift and have applied her advice often. And incidentally, the philosophy still allows me to be discerning. I can honestly say that I gave careering on a bike through forests of tree trunks an honest go and that particular mania is just plain not for me! Skiing…ok I get that one...sometimes.

Point is…I want to know when standing at 120 looking back on my life, that I have truly lived. Success or failure is of no consequence, I will have given it all a go and there is achievement in that alone. Besides, I don’t fear failure, not in the least. Failure is part of being human, it gives us humility and resolve. I don’t feel brave going to Melbourne because I know that I gain more from the journey than I risk losing. I have commitment, passion and imagination, what more do I need right at this moment other than the back of a Starlet to sleep in?

Behind the Dream

2008-07-21T18:28:00.000-07:00

Auckland, New Zealand

I have a dream…it began circa age seven when I discovered a kind of bliss expressing the realms of my imagination writing creative essays at Birkdale Primary School in little ol’ Auckland, New Zealand. Writing brought me comfort and companions during isolating times of illness and hospital stays. Writing gave me strength and purpose, and escape from fear and pain into worlds of goodness and beauty. I was a sucker for traditional stories of good and innocent triumphing over evil. Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, the Little Princess, Alice and Wonderland all caught my imagination and inspired me to express the visions of my world through my own stories and characters.

From small beginnings, a mature child made a big commitment to herself. I wanted to write novels. I needed to release all the people, plots and places cluttering my head for others to know and enjoy. I didn’t need to be famous, I just wanted to get the many, many tales there down onto paper before they were lost, forgotten or faded. Fame was something that even at the hugely mature age of seven, I didn’t expect would come from my chosen vocation to write. Fortune was the other ‘F’ word I was not expecting to follow the release of my soul onto paper. Adoration and praise? Well…we all have an ego of some degree so I wouldn’t say no to having my own fan club.

There have been many dot, dot, dot moments filling in my existence since that decision but they hardly bear lingering over. There are no more excuses as to why not, only reasons why. This is to be no boring tale of my life of tragedy and woe, but an escapade into the dream I had at seven to dedicate my life to writing.

So here we go then. Take a ride with me to the Southern City of Dreams, Melbourne, Australia where I intend to devote four months to starving in a garret (or more likely a dingy hostel), lurking behind cappuccinos eavesdropping on potential characters for my novel, and pounding countless pavements to gather what I need for the chance to create something magnificent. This is it, the money where my mouth is moment to succeed or fail but regardless, to try. Nothing comes of nothing so deep breath everyone, here goes...are you coming?