Day 81
Friday 31 March. Cold at 12ºC. Sunny.
We set off from Phillip Island after breakfast to return to Geelong for a day, before heading for a weekend in Melbourne. The return journey did not seem as lengthy as the outward one, despite the fact that we stopped at yet another winery en route. There, we took part in the shortest wine tasting on record, because the owner could only spare us five minutes as he had a large party arriving for lunch. So it was look, smell, slurp, gulp, next one, then thank you. Laura and Derek liked the wine despite the somewhat perfunctory reception, and they bought half a case. The winery was miles from civilisation on an unmade dusty road, about two miles from the highway: a lovely building and restaurant with superb views of the sea. How people got to hear of it, heaven only knows, but the restaurant has a good reputation for food.
The trip back on the ferry across The Rip to Queenscliff was enlivened by a women’s get-together in what passed as the restaurant onboard, eating an extended lunch and making one heck of a racket at the same time (as a lot of women can do: they all talk at once). Apparently you can hire the ‘restaurant’ for such events and just stay onboard for trip after trip, eating and drinking away. We all get our thrills in different ways; I must write to the North Shields Ferry Company and suggest they do something similar for their trips across the Tyne.
Finally, we were back in Headquarters in Geelong. The house was like a fridge, a fact remarked upon by all concerned, yet Laura’s solution was to open the back door. Jane sat in the kitchen with a fleece on, and I would have joined her if I had one. I’ve said it before: they are a tough bunch these Australians, they still walk around in shorts and flip flops in the freezing cold. In the end, we both decided to go for a walk and get some exercise in order to warm up, and that did help. Odd contrast to earlier in the visit.
We spent the evening in a little Italian restaurant in Geelong where you could ‘bring your own’ . It was a family run affair, and so very good, though it took an hour to deliver the main course and we were comfortably into our wine by that time. The return to the happy fridge was highlighted by taking some of Derek’s port, which warmed us up very well. The photograph of Jane drinking it through some spouted contraption, aimed at aerating the port as it was consumed, was duly posted.
And so to bed. I don’t think I’ve slept with an icicle before; this was a first.
Day 82
Saturday 1 April. Rabbits, and there are a lot of them in Australia. 21ºC, sunny intervals, cool breeze.
Mid morning we set off for our penultimate destination in Australia, Melbourne, and we were very much looking forward to it after seeing its competitor, Sydney. It was an hour’s journey on the motorway, and rather tedious (as any motorway journey is). I was struck again by the poor lane discipline on Australian roads, something I found a little strange given the stringent driving test standard in the country: everyone seems to just pick a lane and stick to it; there is none of this ‘keep to the left after overtaking’ like in the UK. Consequently there is overtaking and undertaking, and it is quite unnerving.
Our first sight of Melbourne was very impressive, because its skyline was visible from miles and miles away as a huge majestic conurbation. When we got closer in, the majesty of the city came across even better. We drove across Westgate Bridge, which is very popular for suicides who cannot face poverty after losing in Melbourne’s Crown Casino (typically five a month). A few years ago, a father threw his four year old daughter from the bridge to get back at his wife, with whom he had had a row. Pretty appalling.
Under the bridge, the Yarra River wound its way from a busy harbour, up through the heart of the city. The buildings seemed higher than those in Sydney, but also the city centre roads were much wider. As a result there was not the dark canyon effect so common with high-rise buildings, and there was much more natural light on the streets; the wind still howled like a banshee at street level, however, and I was reminded of Chicago.
Laura had used her timeshare contract to obtain a serviced apartment on Kavanagh Street in the central business district, and this proved to be a perfect location. The apartment was an executive suite on the seventeenth floor and quite excellent. It had two double bedrooms (one en suite), with a family bathroom and a small kitchen. Large picture windows and a balcony gave fine views of the city. After parking the car in the residents’ car park we set off to explore the Melbourne.
Our first port of call was the viewing platform of the Eureka Tower, 88 floors (282m) above ground level. This gave us splendid views of the city all around, and we were able to appreciate the layout and many fine features. It was quite breathtaking and we were fortunate to have a sunny period in which to do the viewing. I liked the look of Melbourne, and I reckon it looked even better than Sydney, which is saying something. It appeared very spacious, well laid out, and with some impressive old buildings and many parks. There was the option, for an additional fee, to walk onto a glass-floored external platform, but we passed on that. Curiously, given my acrophobia, I was not too bothered by the height, but I did feel slightly nauseous, and so did Jane; I think we must have been suffering vertigo, something I have never experienced before (fear, yes, nausea, no). I did read that the top of the tower can move as much as 300mm (12″), and I reckon that was happening when we were up there. I didn’t actually kiss the ground when we exited the lift on the ground floor, but it was a close thing. Interestingly, local runners sometimes run to the top of the Eureka Tower for charity; I understand the record for 88 floors is seven and a half minutes. This brings that dash to the upstairs loo during a commercial break on the television into perspective somewhat.
We pushed on to the riverside, where the city was celebrating a festival in style: brass bands, singers, individual players. We wandered through this lively mix, seeking out somewhere to have lunch. I thought perhaps a little riverside restaurant with French cuisine, but Laura said that there was a food court nearby, in the ground floor of the Crown Casino, and this offered good value for money.
A food court. This sounded ominous. I didn’t think I had ever eaten in a food court. Surely it couldn’t be as bad as I thought it would be? Yes, it could. We strolled though a heaving, noisy, bustling chamber, which had stalls on all sides offering all manner of international foods. Plain Formica tables with plastic chairs were scattered around the centre of this maelstrom, and they would be the hub of The New Dining Experience. I am not the best person for concealing personal feelings, and I confess that I viewed the area with the manner of a Regency buck touring an abattoir. But the rest of the party were determined to eat there, and I tried hard to make the most of it. We eventually ordered some Asian food: any two dishes, with noodles, supplied on a paper plate with a plastic fork to eat it with. We secured a table and sat down to eat, buffeted by noise and movement all around like pebbles in a fast flowing stream. People bumped into our chairs and shouted over the top of us; we were assaulted by clamour on all sides. The food was actually very good, but frankly, the entire experience was absolutely awful. As a process for taking on fuel it could be compared to a Replenishment at Sea in a Force 8 off Portland; as an enjoyable culinary experience it failed miserably.
And so for a stroll to see the rest of the city, heading for the main shopping street, and it was then that the detail of Melbourne was to be compared with the first impressions. It was extremely busy and noisy, it being the Food, Wine, Art, Comedy and Just-About-Everything-Else Festival this weekend. As in Adelaide a lifetime ago, we were assaulted by a cacophony of different types of music and a medley of conjurers and street artists, all performing at once. The city was much more open and airy than central Sydney, with an eclectic mix of buildings, old and new, that broke up the skyline, let in more light, and was quite pleasing to the eye. The roads were very wide, typically eight lanes plus two tram lines, and this enhanced the feeling of space. Most roads were lined with plane trees, which also gave them a very relaxing and natural appearance. Although Melbourne didn’t have the magnificent harbour and waterfront of Sydney, it did have the river, and the riverside had a wonderful buzz to it. The buildings were quite imaginative. There was a huge curved concert hall that looked like something built by the Todt Organisation as part of the Atlantic Wall; an art theatre with a tower like the RKO logo; an art complex that looked like camouflaged discarded shoe boxes; and some very fine Victorian architecture, all of which I marginally preferred to Sydney’s buildings (Opera House excepted). Overall, architecturally and aesthetically, Melbourne came across better than both Sydney and Adelaide.
But oh dear, the graffiti. It seemed to be everywhere: it was on bridge pillars, hoardings, buildings, lamp-posts, electricity sub-stations, bollards, and road signs (and they are just the ones I can remember). There was even an alley deliberately set aside for graffiti artists, and the vandals had disfigured that with obscenities too: graffiti on graffiti. And this wasn’t in some run-down part of the city: it was in the Central Business District. Even the head of office of the Bank of Australia, with its grand marble entrance, had graffiti on it. It all felt a bit of a let down, like when you see a beautiful woman then discover that she has tattoos. Why put up with that? Why not clean it off, or, better still, shoot the graffiti artists as they crawl out of their holes at night? It really did let down the whole city and it was worse than Tenerife (see Blog 1).
We did not really see all of the main shopping area of Melbourne, so I cannot give a fair comparison with the other Australian cities. Laura only took us through the poorer quarters where the ragged people go and these areas were a bit scruffy, with lots of dog-ends outside buildings, where the pariahs are sent to pursue their dirty habits away from healthy people.
We went into our first Australian pub, a fine Victorian building called Young & Jackson, and had a very pleasant pint of Carlton Bitter (Carlton is THE Australian beer, by the way – they wouldn’t touch Fosters with a barge pole, and it isn’t on sale anyway). The comfortable lounge was dominated by a huge oil painting of a naked girl, Chloe, painted in 1875 and the subject of much controversy at the time because of its perceived prurient influence. The full-length painting showed some powerful use of colour and subtle brush strokes, illustrating a slim youthful form in the style of Raphael. Derek and I were so impressed by this example of fine art that we felt bound to examine it in detail and be photographed next to it.
In the evening, Laura took us to ‘a little place where she had lunch once’ that was a Hare Krishna eatery called Crossways. We set off through the streets which, if anything, were even busier and noisier than during the day. Smart theatre and concert patrons in evening wear shared the streets with pop fans, eccentrics, students and tramps; rap music competed with classical; jazz with hip hop. Think Oxford Street, pre Christmas at night time, with lots of noise and no Christmas lights. We battled our way against the stream, tripping over down-and-outs and push chairs, until suddenly Laura dived left into an ordinary doorway between two shops and started to climb the narrow stairs. I started humming ‘Fernando’s Hideaway’ for some reason, and did wonder if we would have to knock on a door and say that Joe had sent us. But no, we went straight in to an ordinary first floor room, quite narrow, that ran from the front to the back of the building.
Crossways, run by the Hare Krishna movement, was like a cross between a Salvation Army refuge and a Youth Hostel. Round or long pine refectory tables, with folding plastic chairs, were scattered through the room and were occupied by a wide range of patrons: students; men in vests with tattoos and hairy armpits; Orientals; an old woman in a lamé top with a rucksack, cleaning out her ear with her little finger; and a thin, angular, old man wearing a floppy bee-keeper’s hat and wrapped in a sheet. A bit like Simpsons on The Strand, then. At one end of the room was the serving counter. There was one (vegetarian) ‘choice’ only, and this changed each day. The main course came with a pudding and a drink, all for $AUS 8. Tonight, the Dish of the Day was vegetarian curry, and the pudding appeared to be that old naval favourite, figgy duff and custard. We trooped up to the counter, paid our money, and were duly handed our plate of curry and rice, with the duff added to the tray. We were expected to clear our table when finished, emptying the leftovers into a slop bucket and piling the dirty plates and cutlery in suitable receptacles. A bit like the Cadets’ Messdeck in HMS SKEGNESS, only the deck didn’t move or leak, and we didn’t have to wash up.
We sought a suitable table and managed to secure three seats on one, with Derek sitting nearby on another. There were no napkins or tablecloths, but the cutlery was – at least – in stainless steel. For a drink, I chose a milky yoghurt called lassi, the first time I have ever drunk a dog food.
It was a cheeky little repast that offered much in the way of unintended entertainment and people watching, but not a great deal in anything else, unless you count the extremely cheap price. I’m sorry to say that the curry was not terribly good. As we left, we were required to ring a ship’s-type bell as a Krishna way of saying thank you. And ‘thank you’ for a unique experience (never to be repeated).
Return to the flat was the reverse of the outward journey and just as noisy. I was struck by the incongruity of siting an open-air rap venue right next to the classical concert hall: it just didn’t seem right or appropriate. As we sat in the flat on the seventeenth floor, the thump, thump, thump of disco music was entirely audible until late into the evening, but fortunately it did stop when it was cocoa time. As I have said previously, these Aussies really know how to party.
Day 83
Sunday 2 April. Sunny intervals and cool. 16ºC and cold at night. We put our clocks back overnight in preparation for the Australian winter, so this makes us nine hours ahead of you now. Of course, we forgot to alter anything until Jane woke up at 0630 thinking it was 0730. Discovery that she had another hour in bed gave her immense satisfaction. We had intended to go to Communion in St Paul’s Cathedral at 0800 (there is a great deal to confess), but the flesh was unwilling and the spirit was weak.
Today, we set off for the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, taking a tram from the centre of town. We could have walked, but Jane wanted to ride in an Australian tram and it was easy to fulfil this simple pleasure. On the way, we passed a bloke transporting a suitcase and tent on a skateboard, and an old man in an invalid scooter with a built-in hifi playing at full volume. And I thought London was full of eccentrics.
The flower show was very – erm – flowery and Jane enjoyed herself immensely. I recovered consciousness after five hours to find myself holding an enormous bag of horticulturally related goodies, next to a woman with a big smile on her face. At least she didn’t buy any plants.
A late lunch seemed to be the order of the day and Laura suggested that we go to China Town for some dumplings at a little place that she knew. After yesterday, I was becoming a little dubious of Laura’s choice of eating establishments, but Jane was hissing at me to be pleasant and agreeable, so I smiled feebly and we set off, me dragging the heavy bag forlornly behind me. We passed under a large decorated Chinese arch at the entrance to China Town, bearing a message in Chinese that said,
“Welcome White Imperialist Barbarians. Enjoy Australia While It Is Still Yours”. (My Mandarin is a little shaky, but I think that was the gist of it)
In China Town, the favoured dumpling place was shut, and the next alternative had a queue out the door. We cast our eyes around a range of establishments that looked to me like opium dens, bordellos, or bars where you would go in to ask for a glass of Chablis then wake up in Shanghai. We drifted forlornly and indecisively back up the street and the sign ‘Food Court’ caught my eye. Oh no.
Right on cue, Derek said,
“Heh! We could always go to the Food Court!”.
“Go for it!”, I said in a feeble voice.
In we went, and it was actually fairly empty and quiet and I would have considered eating there, as my feet were killing me. However, the emptiness was because every stall was shut. It was Sunday.
Finally, we ended up in the ‘Elephant and Wheelbarrow’, an older drinking establishment very like a London pub. Jane had a bruschetta that comprised onions, tomatoes, goats cheese, pesto and a pint of olive oil on what appeared to be a toasted piece of thin cardboard; Derek and I had beefburger and chips; Laura had chicken panini. Jane left the cardboard, but ate my chips when I wasn’t looking.
I thought that a return trip on a tram would have been nice but, no, Laura felt that we should see Fitzroy Gardens and Cook’s House. The latter was the house of Captain James Cook’s parents from Great Ayton in Yorkshire, which had been bought by Australia and shipped over in the 1930s, making it, effectively, the oldest building in the country. En route, we took in a large conservatory full of begonias and gloxinias. How lovely. At last, tired and weary, and still dragging the large bag of horticultural products, we staggered back across the bridge, ran the gauntlet of street performers, and made it back to the flat, where we collapsed. We still had to go out later for supper though. Dumplings anyone?
Reluctantly, we dragged our weary legs out of the flat for supper and, to my relief, we weren’t going back to China Town on the other side of the city; instead we were going to a riverside restaurant called Left Bank, which was quite close. The thumping music from the festival could be heard from hundreds of yards away and, as we approached the river, I said, “Can we pick somewhere quiet?”, whereupon we entered our destination to find a screeching saxophone and throbbing drum duo blasting away at full volume. By hand signals we asked for a table that was warm and quiet, and got the first, but not the last. The place was very busy and we were actually on a veranda overlooking the river, but with a heater going full power, which was lovely. Unfortunately, conversation was impossible and all we could do was smile inanely at each other and wave occasionally. “This”, I thought, “is like eating dinner in the engine room of a tramp steamer at full power, with half the main bearings wiped”. It was such a shame, because the service, the wine and the food were very good, bordering on excellent. Even the music was good, I have to concede; it was just far too loud and inappropriate for a restaurant setting. Jane liked the music too, and she boogied and wiggled her bottom all the way back to the flat (memo to self: see if you can get a CD of that music for a private listening).
Off back to Geelong tomorrow, and final preparations for departure on Thursday. Thoughts on Melbourne? Very difficult, as I tend to give more weighting to the marks on graffiti than is probably rational. Appearance and architecture, 9; arts and culture, 9; parks, 8; graffiti factor, 80%; dossers, 30; dog-end factor, 60%; skateboarders, 2; grown-up men on children’s scooters, 1; shopping, 7; refinement and placidity, 5. Overall view: I liked Melbourne, but it felt like the place was being abandoned to the Morlocks. Which city won out of Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne? Let me think about it.
Day 84
Monday 3 April. Bright and sunny, 21ºC, cold at night. We took breakfast out, returning to yesterday’s restaurant, which was a bit quieter than last night. The girls were going off to the art gallery after breakfast, but the boys were deemed too philistine to appreciate finer culture and sent back to the flat. Also, there was some suspicion as to our artistic motives after Saturday’s episode with Chloe.
Finally, at noon we said goodbye to Melbourne and set off back to Geelong. The final phase was about to begin.
Jane needed to fill up with probiotics, pills, powders and other mysterious potions recommended by our daughter-in-law for the return journey, so we walked down to the local shopping precinct and enlisted the help of a friendly pharmacist. I reckon we bought enough stuff to last until next Christmas, and it cost quite a packet, but nothing is too expensive to keep Jane well. I just hope it will all fit into the aircraft to Singapore.
We also thought we would obtain an external thermometer so that Jane could monitor the temperature on the return journey (she has a passing interest in the weather), but the best place to buy that was a DIY store, which was some distance away on the Melbourne Road (which sounded ominous; just how far up the Melbourne Road?). Action the iPhone Maps app, which told us the direction to walk in, and off we set.
I have mentioned previously how the Australian infrastructure is not geared up for urban walking. Our journey reinforced that comment. The route took us down a very busy four-lane bypass that had no footway, so we stumbled through the dust, past factories, tyre repairers, garage forecourts, metal shops, fabricators and incredulous manual workers. We clambered over crash barriers, bits of car bumper, abandoned cars and discarded lorry tyres. With the traffic whizzing by, it was a bit like walking along the A303 on a Bank Holiday: not terribly nice. But we did make many motorists’ day, judging by the stares that we got. The DIY store was Bunnings, the Australian chain that is taking over Homebase. It was very good, with helpful staff and a good range of stuff. The layout was a bit like B&Q, so the latter will have quite a challenger in due course.
Sarah, Laura and Derek’s daughter, cooked the supper tonight: Gyoza (Japanese fried dumpling), Pho (Vietnamese soup), and Humming Bird cake. It was all excellent. The soup, in particular, was something I had never had before: a complex beef stock with fish sauce and noodles into which you added, from the table, bean sprouts, greens, coriander, mint, chilli, lemon or lime juice as you wished. It ended up looking like a mangrove swamp, but it tasted delicious and was very filling. The Humming Bird cake was one of Sarah’s mother-in-law’s recipes and proved to be a moist, chunky version of carrot cake. It wasn’t fattening at all because it contained one of my ‘five a day’.
Sarah asked Arthur if her Humming Bird Cake was as good as his mother’s, and I was able to save him by interjecting, “Careful, it’s a trap”. However, having avoided that hazard, he then blundered on to remark (presumably as a professional chef) that, yes the cake was a pretty easy one to make. And people say that I keep putting my foot in it. Arthur has a record of displaying the Death Wish, for – on his honeymoon – he managed to lose his wedding ring. He and Sarah went swimming on the first day, and she advised him to take off the ring before entering the sea; advice which he duly ignored. He then lost the ring in the surf and Sarah was apoplectic. Arthur went to report the loss to the local police station and outlined the circumstances, and the police officer raised a sardonic eyebrow and said, “So I suppose you’d like me to give you a cell for the night”. Fortunately, I think Sarah forgave him (though I must warn him that she will never let him forget it).
As a digestif, the port came out and we were indoctrinated into yet another Australian tradition. This consisted of taking a biscuit the shape and size of a bourbon, but covered in chocolate and called a Tim Tam, nibbling off a corner on opposing sides of one diagonal, placing one end in the port, and sucking through the other bitten-off end. Result, a port infused biscuit and a chocolate flavoured port. We then ate the biscuit. It tasted lovely, but I am not sure I would want to make a habit of it, lest my liver and/or heart give out. Never mind the potions, I hope we fit into the aircraft to Singapore.
Day 85
Tuesday 4 April. Sunny and pleasant. 22ºC. Well, it is the penultimate day and our thoughts were beginning to leave Australia and to think of packing for Phase 3. But we could hardly sit in all day, so we set off to walk into Geelong for the last time to say goodbye to the familiar places. We took a slightly different route this time, which avoided most of the industrial estates, and made the town centre in an hour and a half.
I started off my initial comments on the subject of Geelong with the harbour frontage, and I am pleased to report that I have not changed my opinion. It looked lovely in the bright sunlight and, this time, there was a small cruise ship at anchor in the bay, with tenders shuttling to and fro. It is a pity more ships do not stop in Geelong: the city would be worth the visit and it would do the city a lot of good.
We had lunch outside at our old favourite, The Sailors’ Rest, then sought out the shopping area to change some money into Singapore Dollars. Jane needed a belt to hold up her jeans (why else?) which were still very slack after her illness. It is a measure of the fickleness of my wife (I will not say, ‘…and of women in general’, nay, nay) that, having moaned for years about putting on weight and having clothes that are too tight, she now moans that her clothes are too big for her. Of course, there may be an ulterior motive here, in that the comments may be a precursor to putting in a bid for new clothes. I feel a belt, taken up a notch or two, will be much cheaper and perfectly adequate.
Now here is a curious feature of the Australian retail system. If you buy something that costs, say, $AUS 39.98 with a credit or debit card, then the process is exactly the same as in UK. If, however, you pay for the goods with cash, then (in the example I have given) you will get no change. The invoice lists the change (2 cents in this case) as ’roundup’. This is because the Australians no longer have coins less than 5 cents. It is a funny system, for I am suspicious about what happens to the ’roundup’. Moral of the story: don’t pay cash.
I bought Jane the inevitable ice cream, and we walked back along the coastal walk as the sun was setting. Another 12 miles in total I reckon, though my legs felt like it had been 20. If only all this exercise was doing me some good. To make up for all the energy lost, I tucked in to Derek’s homemade paella for supper, cooked in an enormous dish on a massive gas ring on the patio. It was delicious.
Day 86
Wednesday 5 April. Bright and sunny, 24ºC. With the writing very much on the wall, we spent the day packing, washing, ironing, swearing, dumping various superfluous items, reading and sun bathing. In the evening, Laura, Derek, Sarah and Arthur took us out for dinner for a farewell feast. Saying goodbye is so difficult and we cannot believe that our time in Australia is over. The whole thing has been absolutely lovely and the best holiday ever. Of course, there is Phase 3 (Singapore) and Phase 4 (The Happy Return) still to come.
Verdict on Australia? Fantastic. Lovely people, very friendly. Excellent wines. Surprising, but generally hot, weather. Unexpectedly very like the USA in many aspects. Liked the birds, especially the penguins. Very little litter or dog mess. Lots of men with pony tails on skateboards and scooters, who have yet to grow up. Pity about the graffiti in Victoria. Flies could be a nuisance. Beware the Yellow Peril. And Laura and Derek have been absolutely splendid and such good and tolerant friends (would you put up with me and my whistling for six weeks?). Would we come again? You bet, but not unless we win the lottery.
I will conclude this Australia phase now and send it off. We are off tomorrow, Thursday 6 April, at 0500 to get to the airport and catch our plane to Singapore, of which more anon.
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 