Melbourne Day One

Melbourne Market

Victorian City Baths

Melbourne Arcade

We spent three nights in Blackburn, an eastern suburb of Melbourne, at the home of Jack and Sue, members of the Affordable Travel Club. We joined this club last year encouraged by friends who were members. They had travelled to NZ and Australia a few years ago and stayed almost exclusively with ATC members. ATC is based in the US and a modest membership fee gives one access to a listing of members who are willing to receive visitors. There is a nominal charge for breakfast, and memberships provides travellers opportunities to meet locals and to find out about not only the area but education, politics, culture etc. It is not obligatory to receive visitors when contacted but optional. In Toronto we hosted an American couple from Maine last summer, but this was our first visit as travellers. Upon arrival we enjoyed tea and scones while getting acquainted. Sue and Jack invited us to dine with them too, and we appreciated the invitation because this had been a travelling day, and we didn’t feel like searching for a restaurant. Sue, a retired teacher, had travelled extensively in Canada with her sister a few years back. She’d enjoyed her time there and expressed a wish to revisit the west coast. Jack is interested in the Maritimes, particularly Halifax. We hope when they visit, they’ll consider a stop in Toronto.
They were superb hosts taking us under their wing and providing invaluable information about their city of which they are justly proud. Melbourne has trams, the equivalent of Toronto’s streetcars and a very multicultural feel. The first night Jack drove us to the downtown area pointing out landmarks and highlights of the city. He lamented the fact that we had only two full days.
Our first day we took train into the centre of town and visited the central market with over 1000 stalls (!) selling clothing, electronics, produce, meat, fish and gourmet food items in their deli division. We took lots of photos of the Victorian era stalls. We visited the Victorian era City Baths, now a fitness centre and beautifully restored, Lygon St. with all its ethnic restaurants, the central shopping arcades that are exquisite Victorian structures similar to the Burlington Arcade in London, UK, but in my opinion more interesting. We ate lunch in the food hall of David Jones dept. store, and I enjoyed looking at all the foods, wines, cookbooks etc. We could see that Jack and Sue were correct, two days was a pittance.
I was trying to track down a DVD made by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in one of their stores. The shop assistant very kindly reserved a copy at an eastern suburban store and Sue drove us there to pick it up the next day. The program was called Gourmet Farmer, and this is the one we found out about on Bruny Island. Apparently they cannot keep the DVD on the shelves it is so popular.
We decided to visit the Docklands area and hopped the Tourist Tram. This is a free tram for tourists that follows the rectangular city centre. One can hop on and off at any point. We mistakenly hopped off at the wrong place and ended up in a large shopping mall so we decided to enjoy a “cuppa” at a shop on the upper level. We were entertained by the “barista” who made our tea. We asked for directions to Docklands, and she happily obliged and told us (very unselfconsciously) that the best time to visit is “Tight-Ass Tuesdays”. I thought maybe there they had comedy routines on Tuesdays, but it turns out it’s one night of the week when some restaurants reduce their prices! She was very funny and asked all about Canada wanting to know if Victoria was close to Toronto. She has a friend in Victoria.
We hopped back on the Tourist Tram deciding that the huge Docklands area would have to be a destination on another visit. Before circling we’d visited Federation Square and seen the Neil Potton Arts Centre and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). I’d been able to track down Dance Me to My Song, an extraordinary Australian film, we’d been unable to find elsewhere. My friend and former colleague, Keila, urged us to see the film while in Australia, but we’d been unable to find it anyway. We booked to see the film in a personal viewing area the next day. I hope this is what our new Bell Lightbox Centre will be – an archive of all Canadian films that one can view without charge.
We returned home by 6:30 p.m. so that we could go out to a Thai restaurant, King and I, with Jack and Sue. We bought a bottle of wine in the shop next door as BYOB is common here and enjoyed an excellent meal and conversation. I’d chosen Jack and Sue from the ATC catalogue because they were retired educators and shared similar interests in books, theatre, food, wine and travel.