“They used to say that.....
Sydney is a common tart.
Brisbane is a country girl.
Adelaide is a church-going spinster.
Perth is an over-confident teenager.
Melbourne is a classy middle-aged
mum.”
Summer, with its heat and flies, gives up the battle and lets autumn gently ease its way into
the country and the city. Quiet and still. It’s watching as the leaves become a riot of colour
then form mounds and waves of rust and gold. April into May and we wish the stillness
would last forever. Morning mist. Fog. Evening haze. Winters freezing fingers intrude and
search for a grip on Melbourne. Oh how I miss the seasons. Melbourne. I miss you.
Take any point of the compass and head off on a Sunday drive and one hour later you
could be on Mt Macedon or Mt Dandenong or in the Yarra Valley sipping wine.
Perhaps travel south east and it’s the Mornington Peninsula where the Portsea
back beach is never still. Beautiful and wild and you can feel the Antarctic howling
towards the Australian Bight. Or go west and you are on Bells Beach or Port
Lonsdale. Marvellous Melbourne is the hub with branches of delight and beauty reaching out across the state.
The wide tree-lined streets run parallel with the “Little” streets and form the grid. And
then there are the fascinating laneways dissecting the city as well. Try Hardware Lane or Hosier. You never know what you’ll find. Eight thousand coffee shops and eateries. Bars. Clubs. There’s the Lebanese and Italian sectors.
Oh, and there’s a few Greeks as well! Leaving Tasmania off the map (and that
happens often!) Victoria is the smallest state by far, yet it is the most diverse geographically. From the high country in the North East with snow-capped peaks to the flat semi-deserts in the North West. Discover Mildura or the Mallee or Bright and
Mt Beauty with the Murray Valley linking it all.
Melbourne is surrounded by history, charm and intriguing valleys. Start at Mallacoota
Inlet and circle the state: Lakes Entrance, Wilson’s Prom, Phillip Island, Point Lonsdale,
Great Ocean Road, The Grampians, along the Murray Valley (1200 kms) to Mt Bogong or
Feathertop and you’ve almost completed a lap of the state.
Every suburb in Melbourne has its own feel. And appeal. Yes, I miss it. The endless parks.
Walks along the Yarra. Running “the Tan” track around the unbeatable Royal Botanic
Gardens. A glass of wine in Chapel St or Richmond, with its 163 different nationalities.
And St Kilda or Sandringham or Yarraville or Canterbury or Hampton or Footscray or
Williamstown.
And it is all hooked together with trams and trains and bike paths (and a few ferries) that
actually do a good job of getting the population around and on time.
And, of course, Melburnians make Melbourne. They can talk about anything. If it is bubbling
overseas they are interested.
The first three blokes I met when I moved from Melbourne to Brisbane were all named
Keith and they were all “chippies”. They couldn’t talk about anything except the weather
and none of them had travelled outside of Qld. And the weather is not as good as they think
either.
Canberra has the same number of sunshine hours a day as Brisbane while Mildura has lots
more. And when summer arrives the moaning about the humidity is loud to say the least!
So when conversation turns to sport, the figures prove that, per capita, Melbourne is the
sporting capital of the world and takes the crown for the most passionate as well.
Melbournians attend more events in more different sports than any other city. They not only
know sport but they play and study it as well. They live sport. They even have radio stations
which talk sport all day every day! I really miss it all!
Melbourne is unique and it’s the home of a unique game of football as well. Love it or hate
it but just consider this: AFL (Australian Rules) was the first football game to be codified.
Rules were set in 1859 in Melbourne. Soccer was a late starter in 1880. The first game of
football ever to be played under lights took place in Melbourne under gas lights in 1882
and incredibly it was played on Jolimont park which is where “The Gee” stands proud and
mighty today.
AFL weekly attendances are the second highest in the world behind German soccer but
the AFL play games in very small centres like Cairns, Launceston or Geelong. Compare
those populations with Munich, Hanover or Hamburg or Berlin.
AFL is a phenomenon. They play the Presidents Cup in Melbourne because of the superb
sand belt golf courses but also because of the attendances. And, of course, the Melbourne
Cup is this minor horse race that 100,000 watch at the track and tens of millions watch on
television. Now there is partying and public holidays that last a week. The rest of the world
has woken up to the glamour and the buzz of Cup week.
Can I mention the Melbourne Boxing Day Test? You can literally feel it in the air. Just
consider this: Lords cricket ground in London is the home of cricket in a city of 12 million.
The seating capacity at Lords is 28,000. The record at the MCG for one day attendance is
91,000. At times when the weather forecast is “gusty winds and a chance of showers”,
60,000 cricket tragics will show up. You shouldn’t gasp with surprise because this is
evidence again of what Melbournians do!
The weather is talked about a lot in Melbourne too and why not? A spring day is
something to behold and we all wish autumn really would last all year.
Four seasons in one day is the joke but it’s highly inaccurate! Often it is four seasons in an
hour or even in fifteen minutes! So visit Melbourne and make sure you get layered. Layers
of clothing. Take it off. Put it on.
Melbourne: always something happening. Just like the music scene. The Melbourne
music scene is the Australian music scene and you have to ask why? Again, it’s the
passionate people of Melbourne. A famous U.S. writer visited Melbourne in
1890 and witnessed the crowd and the excitement of the Melbourne Cup. At this time
Melbourne was the wealthiest and most sophisticated city in the world as it roared into
the 20th century on the back of wool, wheat and massive reserves of gold. Mark Twain,
who was travelling the world, admitted he was astounded at the brashness, confidence and excitement of this city.
And let’s talk theatre. Name it and Melbourne has got it! There’s traditional, experimental,
film, children and comedy theatres. Many proudly stand in the main streets of the city but there is a plethora of suburban theatres as well. “The Princess” is the star of course but try The National or La Mama or St Martins in South Yarra.
Many theatres are major attractions in their own way as Melbourne has been a leading player (no pun intended) in saving original buildings and their interiors. The architecture of Melbourne generally has been well preserved which adds to the appeal.
To sum it up, Melbourne is simply the events capital of Australia. “Melbourne Spring Fashion Week” shows the diversity of design, fabrics and creativity and it is setting the pace
in the world of fashion. There is so much going on here it takes a week to cover it all!
And yes, I do visit often but I still miss it.
John A Wilson, March 2016
(Dedicated to Leigh Hancock who comes from Adelaide but resided in Melbourne for many
years. He also misses it).
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