Unfortunately it falls to me to do the dull list of what we have been doing. Lilly will come along and sweep up the mess into a dazzling Top 5 in a few days.
On our first afternoon we pottered around St Kilda - a mainly residential suburb by the beach with a lot of cafe culture and cake shops. In the evening we popped by the Espy (the Esplanade Hotel), a locally famous music venue which has up to 3 bands on at once every night. Being a Wednesday they just had some bands on in the main bar (which unaccountably only sells beer by the 'pot' - half pints). Nothing great but it's a fun venue in a slightly grungy way.
St Kilda's Acland Street and the local hair-raisers
Next day we hit the centre of town by tram, the main way to get around here. We started at modern architecture victim Federation Square, visiting the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (had a very well-designed Dennis Hopper exhibit and a decent standing exhibition - why doesn't London have one of these anymore?). We tried to visit the art gallery at the Ian Potter Centre but it was one of the flood victims.
Still image
The State Library had an exhibition on the history of shopping - which unaccountably failed to include the epic set of shopping that Lilly managed to cram into the day - and a really good display featuring a history of books, illustration and design, from a King James bible to Sin City.
Judging by the price of books in Australia, this building is more valuable than Fort Knox
Lilly went to the old Gaol where she experienced what it was like to be arrested. Fortunately they released her into my custody.
Housing for the original settlers
Melbourne has an impressive amount of parkland and we walked through a couple, past the Royal Exhibition Building and Captain Cook's Cottage (his old English home, transported over here brick by brick. Not sure what crime it had committed).
Captain Cook's back. And his cottage.
On Friday we took things a bit easier, starting with a tour of the Rod Laver Arena, home of the Australian Open. The main court is only a tennis court 2 weeks of the year - it's used for concerts etc - and looks very different with a grey concrete floor, a closed roof and one end curtained off. But there are lots of permanent outer courts, including the second tier Margaret Court (named after tennis player Margaret Court - not sure if she really warranted it or if the name was just irresistible). You can actually hire this court to play on for surprisingly little - very tempting if we'd been appropriately dressed. You also get to visit the changing rooms, press conference area, trophy cabinet etc. A big upgrade is imminent - the Australian Open is actually an Asia-Pacific tournament so could technically be held in any number of place, and Melbourne understandably doesn't want to lose it.
Next door is Australia's most famous cricket ground, the MCG. We were planning to go to a day's cricket on Saturday - last day of a 4-day match - but annoyingly Tasmania surrendered abjectly on Friday to lose by an innings with a day to spare, so we have only seen it from the outside. [Edit with hindsight: we'll get another chance.]
MCG (left), Rod Laver Arena (middle), something else (right) - view from Eureka Tower
The tallest residential building in the southern hemisphere is the Eureka Tower, which has great views over Melbourne and we had a clear day. It has novel little non-magnifying telescopes to help you identify local landmarks, and an open-air section at one corner. It excitably advertises The Edge! You can see this from the open-air section, before deciding whether to pay for The Edge!, and you'll see that it's a little transparent cube sticking out from The Edge! - sorry, the edge of the building, so you can - gasp! - stand on a transparent floor. For 12 dollars. And you can buy a thrilling souvenir photo of yourself standing on a transparent floor. It was all too exciting for me and we didn't bother.*
* We later found out that there's slightly more to it, but if I told you what it was it wouldn't be worth doing. A tricky one to market.
We did a little late-evening shopping on Chapel Street - a very long suburban road with high-end boutiques at the north end (we didn't make it that far north, phew), chains in the middle and fun little shops and bars at the south end.
Our friends Rich and Suz have just moved to Australia - or back to Australia in Suz's case. They'd been planning this when we left, sorted out the details while we were in Asia, and beat us here a few weeks ago. So we were pleased to meet up with them in the evening and catch up on gossip. We picked up where we left off last time we saw them - i.e. in a bar...
With our cricket plans fallen through we decided to try a new sport - AFL (which you may know as Aussie rules). It's pre-season here but the pre-season tournament culminates in a well-attended final - 42,000 people ain't bad for a friendly (stadium holds 55,000 so it was sufficiently full to get a decent atmosphere). I hadn't realised that AFL is a massively Melbourne-centric sport - from memory, something like 9 of the top 14 clubs are from Melbourne. Because we're staying there, we had to support St Kilda (or St KFC as their badge says - surely there must be a sponsorship opportunity there somewhere...) against the vaguely named Western Bulldogs.
This is a weird sport. It seems designed to be played in cricket grounds - ironically, big AFC matches will be played in the MCG from next week when the cricket season is over, and cricket is sometimes played here - and uses the whole circular grass area, which is huge. I would tell you how many players a side but I lost count, so let's just say lots. There are 5 referees running around the field, and occasionally a couple of runners sent out by coaches with tactical instructions during play.
It's very strange to see what looks a bit like a rugby game but with the ball kicked and thrown in all directions, no offsides so players are scattered everywhere, and running with the ball interspersed by mandatory bouncing of the ball. It's also strange to see a sport where the crowd shouts "Shoot!" more than 50 yards from goal. There are four goalposts and no crossbars - any shot through the central posts is 6 points, through the outer posts is just 1, and occasionally someone will hammer one home from 50+ metres for a 9-point 'super goal'. The main tactic seems to be to catch a kick within the giant 50m D, which buys that player a free kick at goal. So it's a high-scoring affair. I can't say I got a real handle on the tactics beyond that, but St Kilda ended up on the wrong end of a hiding. They were always behind, every time they had a little spurt and got close the Bulldogs managed to stretch the lead, and at the end the Bulldogs' main goalhanger managed to take, and convert, a succession of catches in the D - he finished with 48 points as the Bulldogs passed the 100 mark and won by 40. Good fun all round.
Wildlife watch: we haven't seen any bats, though we've heard them. Spotted: parrots and a possum. First living possum we've seen - after plenty of flat ones on the roads of NZ.
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