Melbourne

Luna Park, St Kilda Beach

Kate and I visited for a week in Melbourne, Victoria (in the south east corner of Australia) in March of 2017 after our South East Asia and Darwin holidays. This was a working visit for Kate with colleagues at Deakin University in Geelong and Latrobe University in Melbourne. We managed to add on some adventures in an area we have visited several times over the years.

We have a photo album of our visit to the area you may wish to visit. We've been to the area many times over the years so there are lots of albums from previous visits: Melbourne (2010), Melbourne (2011), Melbourne (2015). It's ground well trodden, we like the area.

We flew in from Darwin on a Sunday and rented a car at the airport for a couple of days. Our first visit was to the city of Geelong which is a little outside of Melbourne on the west side of Port Phillip Bay. We could have tried public transit (we love the public transit system around Melbourne, it's extensive, fast and reasonable) but a car seemed easier especially with our luggage.

Kate has a colleague at Deakin University whom she has collaborated with for years. On the Monday they met while I explored the Bellarine Peninsula. It's a wine region at the west side of the mouth of Port Phillip Bay. Kate and I had spent a weekend exploring the wineries and beaches during our 2015 visit. This time I was on my own and, while I didn't get to see many wineries (most where either closed, it being a Monday, or places we had visited before), I did get into a very small vineyard, Barrgowan Vineyard, by just driving up to the door to see if anyone was at home. I met Dib Simonsen who, with her husband Dick, grow and produce their wine on site.They make a lovely Shiraz from a few rows in their front yard and we brought a bottle back to share with some colleagues in Melbourne. A wine that few will have tasted given their very limited production (I recall Dib saying they produce about 1,200 bottles in a good year).

I drove through the seashore towns of Port Arlington and "Indented Head" -- now isn't that an odd name -- and had lunch (fish and chips yet again) at the seaport town of Queenscliff where we had stayed last time. Bumped into some fellows riding very old motor bikes ("Ridden not Hidden"). Queenscliff is on a spit on the very tip of the peninsula where there's a ferry that crosses the bay to Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula side (we toured wineries there at the end of our visit). Back in Geelong Kate and I wandered the Geelong Waterfront and the Cunningham Pier near our hotel looking for a nice restaurant with a view of the bay..... we ended up having fish and chips (again). There are a couple of nice restaurants on the pier but one was closed and the other didn't have any window tables that weren't reserved.

We were back to Melbourne on Tuesday morning where Kate had meetings with colleagues at Latrobe University. We stayed at the City Tempo apartments (as we had back in 2015 which is just outside the CBD and right across the street from the Latrobe building near the Queen Victoria Markets where her work friends are located. The main campus of Latrobe is out in the north-eastern suburb of  Bundoora but I've never been there.

While Kate is meeting with colleagues I explore the city. Federation Square by the Flinders Street train station is a sunny meeting place in the centre of the city. Nearby the Yarra river flows through the centre of the city out to Port Phillip bay. I explore the interesting graffiti of nearby Hosier Lane.

We have myki cards from previous visits which we reload with a bit of cash so we can use the public transit system. Within the CBD public transit is free -- even touristy with the quaint old Circle Tram which circles the CBD an essential ride for every visitor. We ride the 109 tram out to the Melbourne Port on Port Phillip bay and from there we rent city bikes and ride down to St Kilda Beach for lunch and a swim. It's the end of summer but the beach is still very busy, the water is warm, but not too warm. People are swimming, sunbathing and paddle boarding. The Luna Park Amusement Park is still open for the season but only on weekends and holidays.

Back in the city Kate's colleagues have a netball game we attend in the nearby Flagstaff Gardens. I've seen the game a few times over the years. It's a strange game, very popular in Australia (we even saw some professional games on television), somewhat like basketball where you put a ball into a net but without the dribbling. There's lots of passing, no physical contacts, and no running with the ball. There tend to be a lot of whistles and I can never tell who is wining. Our colleagues are wearing orange "Volunteer" T-shirts from the Lausanne KBS meeting of a few years ago. We've brought a couple of shirts that match and donate them to the team.

Melbourne is famous for it's lanes and arcades in the CBD. These lanes and back alleys are populated with funky restaurants, bars and coffee shops. Some are very fancy, others more graffiti laden. One day after work Kate's friends took us down an unattractive graffiti sprayed back alley near their work and up some creaky back stairs to an obscure roof top bar. The only "signage" was sprayed on the curb: "rooftop bar". The tiny graffiti laden rest-room (do they say toilet, washroom or rest-room in Australia?) was a challenge to enter as the door swung in and was in the way of the toilet. An odd place indeed, they didn't have a name! Kate tells me they were a "pop-up" and their licence was going to run out soon.

On International Women's Day we march with a good sized group from the Parliament buildings through the CBD. It was a fun march with "pussy hats", songs and shouted slogans, lots of interesting signs: e.g.,  "Patriarchy is for Dicks", "This Pussy Grabs Back" (in reference to the Donald), "Fight Like a Girl"; and T-shirt slogans too: e.g., "This is what a Feminist Looks Like", "Solid Gold Clit", "Nasty Woman" (again in reference to the Donald), "Fries before Guys". On Swanston Street we skip out of the parade and have a dinner at the Noodle Kingdom in China Town -- they're hand pulled noodles, one of Kate's favorites.

Another day we went to the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) on St Kilda Road just across the river from Federation Square for a special exhibit of the artist David Hockney. We went at the recommendation of some friends who had been. We weren't sure what to expect and were very pleasantly surprised. He's an established British artist, lived for a while in LA (although now he seems to be permanently in North England), late in life, and his current medium is the iPad! It was interesting to see some pieces in "playback" mode on huge screens -- you could see the work develop from a blank screen through to a finished product. The printing of these works was impressive as well -- very fine grained even when printed very large.

We have lunch together at the NGV but Kate had to get back for another meeting with her colleagues. I explored the rest of the gallery and then went across the river to the Ian Potter Center of the NGV on Federation Square. I've visited both galleries many times and there are some favorite works there.

Our last day, the Saturday before we head home, we rent a car again and tour the vineyards of the Mornington Peninsula (we've been there several times before, e.g., photos from 2010 and again in 2015 with Angela and David). This is an important wine area and famous for the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that they grow there. They tell me it's "Cool Climate Wine" but I tell them they really don't know about cool climates -- we have freezing winters, they have cool ocean breezes. As we've been to the area several times before we decide to explore vineyards that are off the beaten trail and pick a few that are only open on the weekend (bigger wineries can afford to be open all week).

Our first stop is at Blue Range Estate Wines which is quite a struggle to find. It's off the beaten trail and we get very lost but ultimately find it down a farm lane. It's a fair sized modern winery on a hillside with a scenic cafe overlooking their vineyards. They also run a vacation stay. It's late summer so the vineyards are netted to protect them from the birds. We sample a few wines and enjoy them all.

The next winery, Nazaaray, is the furthest south and well off the beaten trail. There doesn't seem to be anyone around but we poke around until we find someone and have a tasting with one of the owners, Nirmal Ghumman (her husband Paramdeep makes the wine, she doesn't drink!). We are very impressed with their wines and buy a couple of the white wines. We ask about getting some plastic glasses so we can have a picnic with some of the food we've brought from the Victoria Markets and she tells us to use their patio. It's not busy today (we were the only callers in all the time we were there) and we're welcome to use it. And here, use these nice wine glasses. And hey, here's some Indian appetizers to go with your lunch. They really made us feel welcome. If you're in the area, visit this winery!

On the area known as the "main ridge" we visited Paringa Estate Winery on Paramdeep's recommendation. It's very good wine and quite busy with a restaurant overlooking the vineyard. While we don't immediately recognise that we've been here before, we recognise a fellow behind the counter conducting a tasting -- he looks familiar. He should because he's from Canada. We've met him before -- we've been here before with David and Angela! We visited Myrtaceae, a very small winery and down a lane we find Main Ridge Estate where we enjoy some of the most expensive wines we've ever purchased.

It was a nice way to end our trip with the wines of Mornington Peninsula. We both enjoy the graceful Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines they make in their "cool climate".

The next day, a very long day, had us flying home through Sydney, then Vancouver BC, Toronto ON, and finally London.

P.s. at the Sydney airport you could buy the iconic Penfold's Grange (that's an inky big Shiraz) for only $849 per bottle -- it made the Main Ridge Estate wines seem a bargain!

Darwin

Kate & Jumping Saltie Croc

Kate and I spent a week in Darwin, Northern Territories, Australia in March of 2017 after visiting Saigon and South East Asia (Bangkok, Songkhla, Siem Reap and the Mekong River Cruise). After Darwin we had a week with Kate's work colleagues in Geelong and Melbourne before heading back home to Canada.

We have a photo album of our Darwin adventures you may want to visit.

Darwin was one of the few places in Australia that we had yet to visit (although we had tried). In March, 2011, we had set out to drive the 4,000km+ from Perth in Western Australia (WA) up to Darwin in the Northern Territory (NT) at the very top end of Australia (see the photo album of that trip) but we only got as far as Broome, WA -- the wet season flooding at Fitzroy Crossing in the NT had closed the only road through to Darwin. The flooding lasted for months!

This trip to Darwin was a more leisurely affair - a flight from Saigon to Kuala Lumpur and then a second flight to Darwin .... the bad part was we spent the better part of a day in transit (with a long layover in Kuala Lumpur at the not very nice airport) and only got into Darwin at 4:00am on the Monday morning.

The cab ride from the airport to our Quest Apartments Parap (that's in the village/suburb of Parap, midway between the central business district and the airport), was a welcome relief from the crowded streets of Saigon. At 4:00am, we were pretty much the only people on the street! This turned out to be the norm for Darwin -- it's not a very big town and March is the end of the rainy/hot season so there aren't many tourists visiting the city. There's lots of room in the NT and lots of room in Darwin.

Staff were at the Quest to greet us (or at least let us in) at 4:00am and we were given a "bachelor" styled apartment on the second floor, as we had reserved. In the morning we switched to a larger one bedroom unit (quite big really) with a patio area beside the pool and internal court yard. We had a few lunches there, enjoyed the rain a few times and I even cooled off in the small pool. I don't think Kate even tried the pool -- she likes to do lengths and one or two strokes would cover the length of the pool. Nonetheless, it was a well equipped unit with a good kitchen, two tv's, a comfy lounge area, etc. It was air conditioned but seemed to be struggling to keep up. We ended up buying a fan to cool us down a bit more.

Our first day we took a short cab ride into the city and explored the "Inner Harbor" area. There's a secured swimming area with a beach, wave pool and break wall. It's "secured" in the sense that the water will have no sharks, crocodiles or poisonous jelly fish -- it's fed by seawater but not connected directly to the sea. You can't swim in the ocean in this part of the world -- it's far too dangerous. The crocodiles seem to be the big issue. On a harbor cruise one day we were shown a crocodile trap on the shoreline and told that about 150 crocodiles are captured in the NT every year (14 in Darwin alone -- see Crocodile Captures in NT). It's a sprawling city with a lot of water front, but gosh that's an awful lot of crocodiles to try to avoid.

While crocodiles are endemic in the NT -- even far inland -- the other important water hazard is "box jellyfish". I've never seen any in all the times we've been in Australian tropical waters. But you don't want to have a run in with them either.

We did go swimming a couple of times in the protected area. I enjoyed the swim; however, Kate found it too warm for doing "lengths" or "laps". One of the swimmers told me to listen for the "clicking" sound of crabs feeding under water. Yup, I could hear them plainly when I lay on my back floating in the warm water. Didn't see them and can only take his word that it was the crabs making the noise.

The inner harbor has condominiums, several hotels, shops and a busy restaurant/night life area by the sandy beach where you swim. We're not night people and it was off season so fairly quiet . There wasn't see much going on there. Beyond the break wall that separates the inner harbor swimming area from the ocean, there's two piers with a gap in between. The one pier is where tour ships dock -- the "Norwegian Princess" was in town for part of our visit. The other, Stokes Hill Wharf, became something of a favorite hang-out for us.

At the end of the Stokes Hill pier there's a large building with a couple of nice white table cloth restaurants and a interior "mall/arcade" with several take away restaurants. We often ended up having fish and chips (Kim's Fish and Chips for $10 was the best) on the pier with a bottle of wine ($20) and enjoying the spectacular end of day views of the ocean to the east of us. Tables, chairs and umbrellas are provided so you're pretty comfortable. The clouds were always towering and slowly evolving while in the distance you could see lightning storms flashing and rain falling. All the while we're enjoying our dinner and the cooler sea breezes. Sometimes large fish could be seen near the water surface as people tossed bits into the sea for them to eat. It was always a nice place and a great way to end the day (or at least when it wasn't raining).

There's also a museum/attraction on the pier: Two Iconic Territory Stories -- The Royal Flying Doctors Service and the Bombing of Darwin Harbor. The Flying Doctors should be well known -- there was a airplane you could explore (a flying ambulance/hospital). The geography of the Northern Territories is quite large, the population quite sparse. Without the Flying Doctors there would be no emergency health care! The bombing of Darwin Harbor on February 19, 1942 was only the first of several bombings by the Japanese during World War II. It was, and remains, a defining moment for Darwin and all of Australia. The exhibit had lots to see and enjoy but the most interesting part was a virtual reality experience of the bombing. You felt like you were right there during the event -- you wore goggles and the scenes you experienced were very real and quite dimensional (e.g. you could turn around and look behind you). We did it twice as recommended by the guide at the door. The second time through you had a better understanding of things having explored the other exhibits.

For ocean views at sunset we went to Mindil Beach one night; another time we had more fish and chips at Cullen's Bay; and one evening we caught the sunset at Northcliffe. There's a picture in the album of a couple who have set up some lawn chairs, a table and a couple of bottles of wine to enjoy the sunset at Northcliffe -- typical Australians. You're not supposed to have alcohol in public places but it's never enforced when you're well behaved (affluent and white).

We rented a car for most of the time we were there. Car rentals around Darwin all seem to run about the same. The nasty part is you can't get a car with unlimited mileage -- they're all a reasonable base rate with very limited mileage. Distances are huge once you leave the city so it is a bit of a scam.

We took a cab out to the airport to pick up our rental (and dropped it at the airport when we left Darwin for Melbourne). From there we drove out to Litchfield National Park which is on some higher table land about an hour and a half out of Darwin. Most of the territory around Darwin is very flat low land, almost swamp like. The table lands are a bit higher and there are some spectacular water falls, especially during the rainy season. All of the pools, below the many falls, were posted for salt water crocodiles (salties) and our friends from the area told us to take the postings seriously (see Crocodile Leaps at Tourist, 2012). The only place you could safely enter the water was a small water feature at a place called Buley Rockhole. We did take a dip but weren't cooled very much. It was a stinking hot day with intense sun.

Another feature in the park was the giant termite mounds. These are grass termites and the mounds are the huge colonies they build. We'd seen these before in Western Australia and on our long drive across the continent back in 2004 but nothing like the one we saw in Litchfield.

One day we visited the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin on Fannie Bay (sic!). We had a nice lunch at the museum restaurant on the verandah overlooking the bay and a tour of the exhibits. There were, of course, lots of Aborginal works of art and museum exhibits. At the museum entrance there was an outdoor display where an Aboriginal artist painted on large automobile parts, As for art work I was particularly impressed with some of the photos on display in the "EX!T ART, 2016 Year 12 Student Exhibition".

The museum had a huge (I mean really, really, really big -- 5.1 meters) stuffed crocodile on display called "Sweetheart". It had been causing trouble back in the 1970's and was captured live but drowned in an attempt to have it relocated. There was also an interesting wing/exhibit hall on boats and small ships over the ages.

But the most interesting exhibit was on Cyclone Tracy which literally destroyed the entire city on Christmas eve and Christmas day of 1974. The city at the time was made of lightly built tropical homes built to let the air through. Louvered walls, light corrugated metal roofs, and homes on stilts (for cooling) -- that was the norm. None could stand the prolonged cyclone which lasted from Dec 21 to the 26th! Even stone buildings, like the old town hall, were demolished by the winds. Since then building standards are much better and hopefully the city will survive the next serious cyclone which is sure to arrive (when we left Darwin a cyclone was bearing down on the city but thankfully it veered off it's projected course).

We made a couple more car trips out of town on the road towards Kakadu (that's a big, important National Park some distance to the south and east -- basically a day trip to get there). We went to the Fogg Dam Conservation Area and were able to take a lot of very good bird pictures. The dam that was part of a failed agricultural project (see the Humpty Doo Rice Trail (sic!)) is all that remains of a project to make rice growing into a major agricultural export commodity in the NT. The dam was built during that project to control water flow to the rice fields which are now long gone. What remains is an important preserve for birds and other fauna .... e.g. you weren't supposed to walk on the dam as there are aggressive crocodiles, and then there's the snakes too. Anyways, we visited a couple of times and really liked seeing the birds. And really liked not seeing any crocodiles!

Back in the city we did a harbor tour one morning and learned a little about the harbor history. Pearling, as in Broome, remains an important venture. Originally the pearling was to harvest mother of pearl from the shells which was then used to make buttons. That folded with the invention of modern buttons. What remains is cultured pearls where the oyster is tricked into making a pearl. It's still an important business in Darwin -- see Paspaley Pearls. There's lots of development around the harbor. One area is all fill from the cleanup of the city after Cyclone Tracy. Stabilising that area to allow for building will be a challenge. Our guide showed us the mud flats and mangrove groves which border the area.

We returned to the area of the Fogg Dam to take a boat cruise on the Adelaide River to see jumping crocodiles (see The Original Jumping Crocodile Cruise) one morning. It was a small boat and you were definitely up close and personal with the crocodiles. Kate wrote about this:

We went on a river cruise to see jumping crocodiles today (and we did - close up and personal). As we were starting, the skipper was giving the safety talk and told us where the life jackets were because they were legally obliged to do so (they appeared to be under some bolted down flooring that would take a screwdriver to open. But then he said, "If we tip, the last thing you want to do is put on a life jacket because they are red and crocs are attracted to red. So if we end up in the water, all you need to do is swim away from the old man in the orange shirt (i.e., Reg). Reg was pretty pissed about being called an old man -- I was more worried about whether I would be one of the rats swimming away from the old man in the orange shirt!

There were only a few of us on the cruise that day. Several were young kids, just a bite sized snack for some of the bigger crocs! I found it a little frightening, they were that close and really can jump awfully high.

After the cruise we stopped at the "Window on the Wetlands"  on our way back to the city. This is a museum on a bit of high land with panoramic views of the surrounding country side. During the wet season the land is often flooded, in the dry it's dry and parched. There's quite a bit of farming in the area but it is challenging. e.g. crocodile captures are often because they are harassing the cattle!

Our final adventure on the Saturday was a walk around the historic down town area with a tour of the NT Parliament. The parliament building is called the "Wedding Cake" -- it's tiered and looks a bit like a white wedding cake but others tell us it's called that because it's "full of fruits, nuts and a bit of rum"! The guide for the day was a nice older retired lady, Jenny Armour, who had worked in the State/Legislative Library which is housed in one part of the parliament building (a wing originally set aside to be the Senate of a bicameral house). She was very knowledgeable and helped acquaint us with the NT flag, the NT Coat of Arms, the politics of the NT, the construction of the building (opened in 1994 and designed to withstand the next Cyclone Tracy) and much more. One of the interesting items in the library is the Darwin Commemorative Quilt -- it's a very large patchwork quilt with nearly 2,000 names of people who had spent time in the Northern Territory (NT) during the war years. Patches were signed by people attending the 50th anniversary celebration of the Japanese bombing of Darwin in 1992. The patches were assembled into a huge quilt on display in the State/Legislative Library. Kate asked who made the quilt (thinking that it might have been some local Women's Institute or the like) and Jenny informed us that she had made the quilt!

Our last night in Darwin was a nice dinner at a Thai restaurant in the CBD not far from the Parliament (we couldn't have fish and chips every night!). While there the clouds opened and a huge deluge followed. We were getting out of town in advance of the next cyclone of the wet season.