For some time now I've been considering the idea for a non-fiction book, for which I never seem to have the time to pitch to an appropriate publisher: a travellers' guide to what I consider the real Melbourne.
The original idea struck me while browsing through a bookshop in the London suburb of Bloomsbury in 2005. "Fuck," my brain said, in its traditionally crass and vernacular way, "why the hell do Melbourne guide books tell tourists to visit such pissweak 'attractions' as Captain Cook's Cottage when there are so many more interesting sites to be seen off the beaten track?"
Should I ever get around to writing or editing such a book, I'd suggest to tourists that they take a full-moon tour of the Melbourne General Cemetery for example, or drink in the front bar of the Espy watching the sun set over Port Phillip Bay. Others might suggest a visit to the Red Hill Market, or lunch on Victoria St, Richmond, followed by an afternoon at the Immigration Museum.
Thus, I throw this post open to you, dear reader. What do you think should be numbered among Melbourne's must-see attractions? When you have interstate or international friends visiting, where do you suggest they go?
Lurkers are especially welcome to contribute!
28 comments:
Weeeiiiird...
I was just saying the exact same thing just a few days ago, and I also endevoured to put together such a list, both for my own benefit and to help others.
I think this should be expanded into a buildable format. A wiki? or something similar...
In the meantime;
* Drive up to Sassafras in the Dandenong Ranges, eat at Ripe (award winning slow-food cafe), go to Tea Leaves (with 600 varieties of tea), browse around Gepetos (old-school toy store), check out Sassafras market and end with tea and scones at Miss Marples Tea Rooms (themed around the Agatha Christie character)
* Spend the afternoon in Readings in Carlton, especially down the back, buried in the music section, get a quick lunch at Threshermans, wander over to the Cinema Nova and end with dinner at Trotters.
* The NGV. Need I say more?
* Red Hill market may be interesting, but I prefer the St Andrews Market (small town a bit further on than Eltham). Especially good is the Chai caravan. Get a few cups of homemade chai in plastic mugs, browse through the book market and sit on the hill listening to slightly shit musicians. End with a beer in the St Andrews Pub across the road.
* Bar Hop. Start anywhere (and don't attempt on a Sat night), but I suggest; Supper Club, Loop, Pony, Miss Libertines, Gin Palace, Canary Club, Kitten Club and many more. Seperate list needed for this one.
* People watch on Brunswick St, Fitzroy. Flip through Brunswick St Bookstore, try and get a look in at the Rose St Market, drop in at Polyester and end with a drink at the Black Pearl.
* More to come...
Vi Markets foodhall ... when I first moved to Melboure that was one of my favourite things ... nothing like it up North where I is from.
That's the Vic Markets, of course.
The Vi markets are hard to use and everyone knows Emacs is better. (If you get that joke, I am sorry).
a-ha!
*rolls eyes upward to see cartoon lightbulb appear*
tim norton's comment alerts me to the possibility that you might need to organise these suggestions in multiple taxonomies. that means a wiki would be more useful than a book [that might come later] because you can link and label. i know someone who could help with this...
for instance, you might group activities according to age, music tastes, walking vs p.t. vs driving, singles/couples/families, interests [e.g. food, drugs, games], relaxing vs energising, and spending money [cheap fun vs decadent expensive fun].
does this make sense or have i had too much coffee?
oh, and JOLLY GOOD IDEA COUNT ME IN CAN'T WAIT etc.
Did I hear the call of someone asking about a Wiki?
You meant me, right?
Don't Wiki it, I'll publish it Richard!
You be editor. You could rally enough content from online folks to have it drafted in a month, edited a month later. I guess publishing takes a bit longer. Run it like Cheap Eats or one of those things - lots of contributors, with you pulling it all together.
The Wiki would have a simultaneously launch (cos it's all about the launch party, right?) and be a continually updated thing.
Easy.
Go on then.
oh how marvelous I have absolutely nothing to add (Richard knows the sort of venue I frequent) but this is such a great idea. I am going to try to do several of these ideas in the five or so weeks I have left in Melbourne!!
shamil
Shanghai Dumpling is the first stop, usually followed by the aquarium. Frankston Savers is often popular with my grimy, poor, studenty interstate visitors, also. As is a leisurely late saturday lunch of pizza and Bloody Marys at Bimbos, followed by ice cream from Trampoline and a hearty round of 'hipster or homeless person?' on Brunswick St.
Damn you all and your enthusiasm, now I might actually have to approach this as a serious project.
Toby, please call me to discuss Wiki idea. Wednesdays are best; Tuesday is production day on the paper and I'm invariably mad.
Sublime-ation: seriously? Email me please, if you'd be so kind: burntime AT netspace dot net dot au.
Tim - you realise now you're going to have to write up some of these suggestions as short, succinct and flavoursome essays for me?
Lovely KP - if I'm counting you in, you'd better suggest a few sites then, darling' and your shower during a party doesn't count, unless we're writing for your neighbours. ;-)
Shamil - if you embark on any or all of these, we want feedback, please.
Damn you Born Dancin', stop encouraging me - it will only lead to ruin, madness, liver cancer or me demanding you contribute something, you realise.
Rachel - ooh yes, yes! Are there rules for hipster or homeless person, please, and can one play it as a drinking game?
WHO'S NEXT!!??!!
You cant write a travelers guide to Melbourne without adding a few of Melbourne's pubs and bars. A good old fashion pub crawl is a Melbourne tradition.
Now if you need someone to help research this section guide, I will be more than happy to help. A second opinion is always helpful!
soap-box sunday outside the state library - listen to old socialists, lay philosophers and the mentally unsound debate disagree and make personal slights about each others' intelligence and moral character. expect solutions to problems you didn't even know existed and please enter the discussion at your own risk!
Yes, yes, tell!
From the last time I met you, Richard, for a coffee (me, not you; you had a red wine), I haven't found out much.
Except the paranormal tour by Drew Sinton, and two tours to the Melbourne General Cemetery.
And that Vali Myers' old studio had closed down before I managed to learn about it. *kh cries*
So perhaps kh should introduce himself and then make a request to Richard's mates:
'Hi, I'm from Singapore... And couldn't ya have something to shock/surprise me right off?'
thankie,
kwokheng
Have you seen the Moleskine DIY city notebooks? There isn't one for Melbourne, but surely it's only a matter of time.
I think you should make it a guide for locals, not tourists. Melbourne is not a tourist town. And, I’m not sure tourists would be all that interested in a game of ‘hipster or homeless person’ on Brunswick Street (but, as a former Melbourne resident, it sounds like a great way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon).
Maybe, in the first instance, you could make it a regular column in MCV. Sounds like something I’d like to read.
Melbourne is all about the eating and drinking. The most unique Melbourne bars are the ones which look like death traps and fire hazards (these would never be legal in Sydney).
Has Shanghai reopened yet? How I miss dirty dumplings. How about the “Pay the Time” dinner at The Lounge on Mondays… $6 steak at 6pm… maybe I’ll skip lunch.
Finally, though it was much more appealing prior to water restrictions, a newcomer to Melbourne cannot go past the horror that is the Carlton Gardens fountain. Snapping turtles, creepy cherubs, lizards and pineapples.
Marvellous idea, can I play too?
Some suggestions:
* a graffiti tour of inner Melbourne - obvious things like Hosier Lane and less-obvious highlights (at least the ones that survived the white-paint brigade during the Commonwealth Games.
* The La Trobe Reading Room at the State Library.
* Ceres environmental park in Brunswick.
* Preston Market (the Vic Markets of the apocalypse).
* Further afield, places like the Glenlyon General Store, Wesley Hill Market in Castlemaine, and of course the annual ferret race down the main street of Kyneton during the Daffodil Festival.
... and probably more, if I weren't at work
CAN WE PLEASE CALL IT THINGS TO DO IN MELBOURNE TIL YOU'RE DEAD?
They do ferret-racing in Kyneton? Why has no-one told me this before? I'M THERE!
kp - hmmm, snappy!
The Percy Grainger Museum was one of the most incredible and eccentric places in the country. In the last few years the curators have wrecked it by opening up the middle as a courtyard and doing away with so many of Percy's original exhibits - AND HIS HAND WRITTEN CATALOGUE CARDS!!! (clothes worn by composer colleagues in the early 1900's, photographs of the eyes of composers blue-eyed composers, scetches and prototypes for 'free-music' machines and a few of the bits and pieces of his SM gear were all on display)but its still worth a visit.
Sorry, but what's 'ferret-racing'?
kh
Kid - a ferret is a smal carnivorous mammal similar to a weasel or a stoat...
what about traipsing through the laneways for some obscure (and questionable... hello chinatown) cheap eats?
or retail therapy in little collins street, especially towards spring street?
or bar-hopping in the hardware lane areas?
or you can always just spend an afternoon (or day) in any inner city streets doing random people watching?
and i agree, would be an interesting regular mcv feature.
good thinking, ninety-nite!
and of course, that should read "ninety-nine"!
damn these fast fingers and the lack of a proof-reading editor. ;)
Fairfield Boathouse is a divine little oasis. i visit two or three times a week to clear the clutter from my head.
'Readings'? No way, much better bookstores than Readings. Borders is better for range, and any secondhand bookstore is better for charm. Try 'Grub Street Books' and 'Basilisk Books' on Brunswick Street, or - even better - Penny Sybers on Chapel Street, or David Sybers in Elsternwick (I forget where).
For eats: Scherezade in St Kilda. They've been there since, like, forever. Their famous schnitzels are large and ridiculous, but their borscht is beautiful. And you've got to love the staff.
For arts: any of the Collingwood galleries on Smith Street - I went to one yesterday that had a string quartet playing.
For theatre: The Athaneum is absolutely fantastic, as are many of the other old Melbourne theatres in and around Collins Street.
For film: The Astor for classics, the Westgarth for quality new films.
For drinkies, with entertainment: The Eurotrash bar.
The Rainbow in Fitzroy on either Sunday (6pm-9pm) for the Grand Wazoo or Monday (9:30pm-1:00am) for the Paul Williamson Hammond Combo... both 10+ year institutions and always attended by the strangest mix of ages. Quite often packed to the rafters, and free!
sigh...
can anyone be so good a lad or gal to bring me to some places? (so that i dont fall tizzy from getting lost—which i spent some months doing in the city when i first came here.)
i promise not to be an anal-retentive singaporean but just my quirky self (which i only show in melbourne anyway).
please?
kh
p.s. to richard: i finally tasted a bit of absinthe last week. via the blue waterfall. yes, it's got quite a nice taste actually. though it is very strong. and no, absinthe is banned in singapore.
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