Melbourne has a completely different vibe than Sydney. Sydney feels more cosmopolitan and global, while Melbourne feels more local and has a younger hipster feel. There are so many restaurants in this coastal capital, it would take three lifetimes to dine in each. Melbourne is a fine walking city with a thriving 24-hour culture and lots of central parks and green space, a nice mix of San Francisco and Berkeley in the Bay Area.
Besides having five full days to unwind and laundry to catch up on, we were told that we had to do 3 things in Melbourne: Catch an Aussie Rules Match, get lost in the Laneways and attend a movie at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Judge for yourself on how we did.
Aussie Rules Match –
Our visit to Australia would not have been complete without attending an AFL (Australian Football League) game of footy as the locals call it. The match we attended was between The Melbourne Demons and The Sydney Swans. What we didn’t realize at the time we booked this game is that The Sydney Swans used to be the South Melbourne team. Hence the strong showing by Swans fans. Oh, and yes – we happened to be sitting in the Swans section (even though S wore a Melbourne Demons beanie). The crowd was super tame at the outset but grew steadily rowdier with beer consumption and as The Swans took the lead in the low scoring game. Once we got a hang of the rules, the game became more and more interesting. The gentleman sitting in front of us was kind enough to provide some comical play by play information throughout the game.
In case you were wondering, The Swans won, dealing a huge blow to the championship hopes of The Demons.
Video of some pregame action…
Getting Lost in The Laneways –
Get lost in the laneways, we were told. When hungry or thirsty in Melbourne, leave the main streets! Pick a random laneway (alley), and you will discover many hidden treasures.
The Laneways came about from a few circumstances. The original city plan provided for these little alley ways to assist in servicing the city while avoiding main streets, controlling traffic flow. In the early 1990’s The City of Melbourne encouraged public art displays down their alleys. In addition, shop and restaurant owners were looking for an alternative to escalating rents on the main thoroughfares.
One of the first bars to start on this trend was Meyer’s Place Bar. In 1994, a small group of friends pooled their money together ($30,000 Australian) and built a small bar made of recycled timber, shag carpeting and a cast-on-site (‘cement”) bar. It quickly became “the place” to drink.
Ironically, Meyer’s Place Bar is no longer located on Meyer’s Place. They were forced to relocate recently when their lease expired. The owner did however get the last laugh when he pulled out the original bar and relocated it to his new location.
Today, The Laneways wind through the city like a hidden maze, each offering their own character of shops, dining, bars/clubs and street art. One of the Laneways we visited was the AC/DC laneway – as seen here. Though the band is from Sydney, a healthy tribute has sprung up to the band alongside one of the best live music venues in the city.
One of our dining highlights was catching up with two friends that E had met on her Antarctica adventure. We started with a bottomless brunch and ended up venturing to a speak easy gin bar in St. Kilda called The Store Room. We walked into a doorway and picked up a rotary dial phone, and voila! The door opened into a dark and eclectic speak easy bar. The cocktails tasted fantastic and the presentations were sublime!
S’s drink served complete with the burnt woodchips that provided the smoke for his drink…
St. Kilda Penguins –
Speaking of St. Kilda – When you are in Melbourne, you have two opportunities to see these cute little creatures coming home for the night after a long day of feeding in the ocean. You can drive two hours to Phillips Island and sit on cold metal bleachers with a huge crowd of tourists, shivering in the driving damp winds, or you can take a stroll to The St. Kilda Pier.
After we warmed up on crafty gin cocktails, we took a ten-minute stroll to the pier shortly before sunset. Although there was a small crowd of people gathered, it was much tamer than the alternative.
There are about 1,400 penguins that call The St. Kilda Pier their home. They are the smallest species of penguins called Eudyptula minor penguins (fairy penguins) and only grow to an average of 13 inches in height.
We couldn’t have timed it better. A few moments after we arrived, we heard the unmistakable peep of a few penguins. We then saw the little guys swimming and waddling up the small beach to the rocks, to nestle in for the evening. It was super cute. We captured a photo of one here.
Melbourne International Film Festival – (Jirga)
It just so happened we were in town during the Melbourne International Film Festival. We hadn’t attended a film festival before and decided it would be fun to catch a flick. We chose Jirga, a film about an Australian soldier that returned to Afghanistan to make right to the family of a civilian man he inadvertently killed during the war. The film was well done and sent a positive message about the act of forgiveness and letting go.
The film was supposed to be made with known actors and filmed in Pakistan. But the locals pulled the filmmaker’s permits at the last moment (out of fear that Islam would be made to look bad). The producers quickly scaled down production and took the great risk of filming in Afghanistan with …um…local (the Taliban in some cases) serving as actors. The director filmed the whole thing himself with a handheld camera. We were told that everyone (producers, director, actors and locals) took great personal risks to tell this story, which only added to our appreciation of the movie’s artistry.
After the film was finished, we were surprised to learn that the director was in the audience to lead a question/answer session afterward. We didn’t stay for this portion as it was our last night in the city. We wanted to have a nice dinner before our flight back to Sydney early the next morning.
Good to see you again Sydney-
On to our final segment in Oz – we returned to Sydney for two quick nights before our flight back to San Francisco. This gave us one full day to explore another part of the city.
The weather turned out to be a stunning sunny day, with a temperature in the mid-seventies. Australia couldn’t leave a finer impression on us. We took the ferry over to Manly Marina. The views of the Harbor and Opera House were amazing. Upon reaching the marina, we decided to go on another long coastal walk. We walked along the coast from Manly Marina to Manly Beach to Shelley Beach and then around the Sydney Harbor National Park. There was a lookout point with the City of Sydney far-off in the distance. A truly spectacular view on a gorgeous day.
A view of Manly Beach…
A view of Manly and several beaches to the north from a vista point…
Hey look, Australians built a pool next to a large body of water, where have we seen this before?…
The view of Sydney from the North Head of Sydney Harbor National Park…
Spending our last day walking the coastline and park was an appropriate ending for our trip to Australia since it’s how we spent our first day in Australia too. Recall that we walked 10.6 miles on our first day and 11.4 miles on our last day (though it was much warmer on our last day).
Our Next Habitat Build – Nepal!
E being the consummate planner that she is has been religiously scanning the Habitat website looking for our next build location. We’ve kicked around parts of South America, Central America, Europe and Asia. But one build in Nepal seemed perfect in terms of location and timing. It wouldn’t be so much a build as continued clean up after the massive earthquakes from a few years ago. We loved that idea. So we looked at flights. It costs $3500 per person to fly from San Francisco to Kathmandu. Bummer. Again, E being the travel expert that she is, she started playing with routes. How about we fly to Mumbai, spend a few days and then fly to Kathmandu? Less than $1,000 per person? Um, yes, please.
If that were the end of our story, that’d be enough. But it’s not. To officially become a volunteer on a build, we have to reach out to the Build leader and make sure there’s space. Sometimes there’s a short call which takes place to make sure there’s a cultural fit for both sides. Before we spoke to the Build leader, we were still kicking around whether this was what we wanted to do. The build fit our schedule, but did it speak to us? Did we feel compelled? Well whatever hesitation we had soon disappeared…
On our last night in Sydney, we were walking back from Circular Quay to our Airbnb (after finishing our walk around Manly) and we strolled into a taqueria of all things. It was a happening after work spot apparently. We asked the host if there was room. There wasn’t. He suggested that we try and find room at the bar, have a drink and he’d let us know if a table opened up. As luck would have it, two seats opened up and we slid right in.
Because of the work/holiday program for kids under the age of 32 (if you don’t know what it is, look it up, it’s a tremendous program for the youth of the world), we’ve taken to talking to young people around Australia to discover where they’re from and learn their story. We’ve met kids from all over the world but mostly from the US, Canada and Great Britain. Our server in the taqueria was from Chicago. After getting our drinks and food, the host returned to say that a table had opened up and we could move if we wished. We were happy where we were, so we declined. But we asked, you have a slight accent, where are you from? Nepal comes the reply. Isn’t the world a magnificent place! We excitedly told the host what we planned, and he gushed that his homeland needed the help. A few moments later, he brought over 3 shots of tequila and we did a toast “to Nepal!”
We don’t meet many people from Nepal. And to have met this chap at the time and place we did makes this build fate. We know that you’re not supposed to confuse coincidence with fate. But in this case, how can we not?
So anyway, it’s done. We spoke to our Build leader and we’ll be headed to Nepal next May. If you’d like to contribute to Habitat-Nepal and to help support our attending this build, please donate at the following link:
https://share.habitat.org/emily-salil-mehta-gv19362
So that’s it!
The final installment of our 35 days in Australia. This is a massive country and it’s almost impossible to cover well in one trip. Despite all of our excellent adventures, we can count at least one adventure that we had to pass up to complete one from our itinerary. We will certainly return one day and conquer what we missed: Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks, Tasmania and Western Australia.
Wearehere 