Melbourne Day Two

In Mr. and Mrs. Cook's Garden

Jack giving navigation pointers to Duncan

We arose and after visiting the ABC shop to get The Gourmet Farmer DVD, Sue dropped us at the tram to go downtown. We passed through Box Hill, Richmond, Kew, Surrey Hills. At Richmond the tram we were riding hit a car that had moved onto the tracks. The driver slammed on his brakes, and we were jerked around but able to maintain our footing. The tram driver handled the whole thing very professionally. It was obviously the fault of the driver who was a senior. He took photos with a digital camera, spoke with her calmly, and we were on our way again after about ten minutes.

We’re surprised at all the British names of towns, Richmond, Kew, Surrey Hills etc. We thought Aussies weren’t all that fond of the Brits! I guess the early Brits chose the names of the towns. We walked through Fitzroy Gardens, visiting Cook’s Cottage, the home of Captain James Cook’s parents that was transported brick by brick from Great Ayton in Yorkshire UK, very close to where we had stayed in Tholthorpe nr. York when we exchanged homes with the Berry family on five different occasions. We are both reading Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz, a NYT journalist who wrote about retracing Captain Cook’s three sea voyages. We bought a map showing his routes at the gift shop. We feel we are retracing his steps as he was in Hawai’i, NZ and Australia, and we’ve seen plaques, monuments etc. frequently on our journeys.
We saw the Fairy Tree, carved in the 1930s by the author of a famous Australian children’s book and a miniature Tudor village created from stone and sent from the UK to thank Melburnians for the food parcels sent to Lambeth in central London after the war. We enjoyed lunch in the Pavilion before moving to Neil Potton Art Gallery for a one hour tour on Aboriginal art.
Our very knowledgeable guide equipped with a highlighted map of Australia gave us an overview of the Aboriginal art in the collection. There has been public interest in the art only since the 1970s when collectors and galleries began acquiring it. The original art was painted in caves but members of the groups in the centre of the country near Alice Springs were encouraged to recreate their Dreaming compositions on bark. The Dreaming compositions depict the creation myths and stories of the Aboriginal people who unlike the Maoris, have inhabited this land for 30,000 to 40,000 years. We also saw paintings and figures woven from sage grass by women artists and contemporary paintings with very political themes by both sexes. The history of Aboriginals here parallels the sad history in North America. Currently the Aboriginal population is a little more than 1%. Some land is being returned, politicians are apologizing, but of course reparation will never restore what’s been lost. It’s the same story in Canada and all over the world.

We then moved to the ACMI and saw an amusing display of the claymation Australian film Mary and Max. The figures reminded us of Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit. This features the penpals, Mary from Australia and Max from NYC. We were intrigued and bought a copy of the DVD. While watching Dance Me to My Song, we noticed that many other people were watching Mary and Max on their screens. The film was very moving. It was written by the starring actor, Heather Rose, a young adult with CP who uses a speech generating device to communicate. The film was shown at an ISAAC convention, and I’m certain had a huge impact on the audience particularly individuals with disabilities. It is about the relationship between the young woman and her abusive care giver. I was reminded of a personal friend, who had faced similar challenges in her life. Those of you who know me can imagine my reaction when the care giver took away the communication device and said, “I just don’t want to listen to you today.” The film was harrowing, and we both felt we needed to walk around a bit without speaking when it was over, just to absorb all we had seen. I am very interested to know why this film has become so hard to obtain. One shop owner told us there was a copyright issue and that it was no longer available in the stores.

We hopped another tram to St. Kilda, a seaside town, and walked along the sea and on the main thoroughfares trying to make a choice from the many restaurants. Jack told us to find one that was busy because the food must be good there so that is what we did. We chose an Italian cafe Rococo, and it was excellent. We had salads with parma ham and calamari and two flat whites to end. We now apply “Jack’s Rule” when choosing a restaurant in an unfamiliar locale. It took us quite awhile to make our way back to Blackburn, two hours, so we retired early. Unfortunately Sue’s mother had fallen and sustained serious injuries so Sue was at the hospital and left very early next morning so we didn’t have a chance to say good bye. She left us a note with a gift of a DVD, Ten Canoes, by the same director of Dance Me to My Song. (Vivien and John, we have our first films for our intended movie discussion group, Ten Canoes and Mary and Max. We’ll get a new TV when we get home. We promise!)

Next morning Jack presented us with a beautiful gift of a photo album as a memento of our short stay and a beautiful bottle of wine that we enjoyed on our wedding anniversary on April 12. We were their first ATC guests and they certainly went above and beyond the call of duty. We hope they’ll read the blog and come visit us in Canada so that we can reciprocate!