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| Luna Park, St Kilda Beach |
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!
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