Welcome to Marvellous Melbourne….

….we were greeted as we touched down on the tarmac at Melbourne airport. Matt and Steve had a meeting to go to and Matt had surprised me with tickets to go along to discover the delights of another Australian city - my second ‘interstate’ experience.

Melbourne, I discovered, is very different to Brisbane. It feels a lot older or more established. Its gothic buildings and tree-lined streets have an austerity that Brissie just can’t manage. It’s also a lot more like Europe, the streets and gardens are filled with Plane trees and Oaks which, along with the icy Antarctic breezes, reminded us of home.

A Melbourne Tram

It is also far more multicultural, the city is home to thriving Chinese, Greek and Italian districts packed with culinary delights. This ethnic diversity is actually amazing considering Australia’s rarely talked about political history. We visited the Immigration museum and found out a lot more about the ‘White Australia Policy’, which until the 1960’s was very much in force and prevented, through dodgy language tests, anyone of any ethnicity other than ‘white’ to get into Australia. I was really shocked that Australia, Down Under, Oz, Land of the ‘tinny’ and the barbie, was for over a centuary, built on massively racist ideals.

Still they seem to have got it sorted now, apart from John Howard’s interesting views on detaining innocent asylum seekers for years and years – he’s obviously been talking to Tony…..

Our first mission was for food and to the Greek quarter for some souvlaki in the ‘Stalactites’ restaurant. The name comes from the over-zealous use of aertex paint on the ceiling, which adds that touch of kitsch Greece and makes the souvlaki taste even better.

For pudding we decided to check out the Victoria markets, which we had read on the plane, served the best jam donuts in the southern hemisphere, but after an expectant walk up to the markets we were sorely disappointed to see the ‘sold out’ sign on the van.

Unhappy Steve next to the donut van

So anyway Melbourne….It has a brilliant tram system and more theatres, shops, cafes, restaurants than you could wish for. On our first night we hopped on a tram and went to meet Walter, a friend who used to live in Oxford and now lives just off Brunswick street in Melbourne’s North side. The Street is lined with funky boutiques and trendy looking restaurants and bars. We ate in a hotel/restaurant which served great pizzas and the nicest tiramisu I have ever tasted. Afterwards we went back to Walter’s house, a turn of the century terrace with big old fireplaces and huge ceilings, we felt like we were back home.

The next day, after a huge Breakfast on Southbank, the boys went off to their meeting and I checked out the shopping facilities. In the afternoon we decided to go out to ‘Cook’s Cottage’, which confused me for a bit as, having read my Australian history, I knew that Cook had hardly ever set foot on Australia let alone live in a cottage, in a park, in Melbourne.

It turns out that, in a bizarre act of heritage appropriation; Melbourne council bought a cottage in Yorkshire that was built in the 1770s by Cook’s parents. They then shipped it out and rebuilt it in a park in Melbourne and declared it to be the oldest building in Australia. Already cynical, the $6 entrance fee gave us no option but to forgo the delights of the charlatan cottage and we legged it back into the city to the observation deck of the Rialto Tower – a huge skyscraper.

Before we were allowed up the tower, we were lured into a 20 minute video presentation described as a ‘cinematic experience’, which it certainly was. It was a promotional video of Melbourne complete with a soundtrack sung by people who we so ecstatic to be living in Melbourne that when they sang ‘Melbourne’s a great place to be’ you could sense that they were grinning from ear to ear. It’s not as if Melbourne’s a boring place, there must be loads of films about Melbourne that are perfectly entertaining and informative, but this one was BAD. They had obviously stumbled across the only film maker in Australia whose sole visual influence had been 1960s promotional films on Milton Keynes, who admired Andrew Lloyd Webber and who felt that aerial shots of happy people waving from bridges, and lots of them, was the route to a successful film. The second half was especially bad as they had obviously run out of footage ( having spent too much money on aerial shots of happy bridges) and so just repeated bits we’d already seen but in a different order.

We left the auditorium shaken and were happy to be herded into a really speedy lift and catapulted to the 84^th floor for a view of the real Melbourne, though disappointingly there were no happy waving people on any of the visible bridges.

Looking south west across the city

The next Morning, Matt and I got up super early to make it to the donut van. We were getting a train out to Glen Waverley in the Western suburbs to meet up with Pat and Colin, relatives and good friends of Caroline and Boo. They met us from the station and whisked us up to the Dandenong Mountains, which rise suddenly out of suburbia and are covered in beautiful temperate forest of tree ferns and eucalypts.

The trees are about 50 metres tall, with strips of bark peeling down each trunk.

(Photo courtesy of a friend of Colin’s with a clever photo package)

After watching the Crimson Rosellas flock to the pieces of donut that Colin ‘accidentally’ scattered on the floor around us, we walked through the forest and were amazed at how different it felt to the tropical eucalypt forest in Brisbane. After stopping at a big, hollow tree to have our photo taken in it ( a family tradition) we continued on our walk and came across a female Lyrebird, which are very rare.

We then saw a ‘Yabby’, a small freshwater crayfish with the brilliant Latin name of Cheerax destructor. Australia, I’m sure, is the only place in the world that it is completely normal to find a bright blue lobster wandering around in woodland undergrowth.

Pat and Colin were incredibly organised and we had a lovely picnic of sandwiches, hot cross buns and donuts ( which were incredibly lardy but tasty)!

After lunch we went up to Belgrave, a small town which is home to Puffing Billy an historic steam train, originally built to open up the remote mountain areas for settlement and after a brief period of closure remarketed as a tourist attraction. It is still run and maintained by a group of volunteer enthusiasts. Being a girl, I cannot begin to understand the absolute fascination that men have with steam trains, but I suspect it may have something to do with the dirt, grease and smoke. A recorded message announced the imminent departure of our train in a 1950’s BBC accent, being historic apparently equating to speaking in stupidly posh Queens English. This being a sharp contrast to the modern day Aussie English, a great example being a sign on the station politely reminding us not to drink and drive, which declared: ‘Drinking and driving: Don’t be a bloody idiot!’

The atmospheric sound and smells of the engine were a superb backdrop to the beautiful forest and amazing views down the valley, all it was lacking was a fat controller. When we arrived at Emerald Lake, Colin had laid out the picnic table for afternoon tea and a billy can was boiling on the gas stove.

Pat and Colin have lived in Australia for 40 years have got picnicking down to a fine art.

On the way home we took a minor detour to Ramsey Street – where the others quietly marvelled at my enthusiasm for crap Aussie soaps whilst I was thrilled to see Mrs Mangle, Madge and Harold and Helen Daniels’s houses all looking exactly as they did 15 years ago.

For supper we ate a fantastic chicken lasagne and laughed and laughed at Pat and Colin’s stories of errant children and their life in Australia. On the train home we decided that although we hadn’t managed to get to the comedy festival which had just started in Melbourne, we couldn’t possibly have had a more entertaining day.

In the morning we realised that it was Good Friday and everywhere in Melbourne was closed, including the tourist information centre. It was also very cold and the cardigans, that in the Brisbane heat we had imagined would keep us warm anywhere, were now almost useless against the chilly wind. Imagine then, how pleased we were to stumble across and Kylie exhibition which was not only open and warm, but free and full of real, fantastically tiny and spangly Kylie outfits. It was brilliant, although her choice of songs may sometimes be questionable; you have to admit that the girl's got ambition and a LOT of clothes.

Once we were Kylie’d out we wandered round the brilliant botanic gardens and then stumbled across a mini festival with skaters who didn’t seem to mind falling on their heads from a great height – they were superb.

We got back to the heat of Brisbane that night and decided that we liked Melbourne a lot. Steam trains, blue lobsters, Kylie and suicidal skaters had provided an eclectic mix of entertainment, but we resolved that next time we would pack warmer clothes and be far more discerning in our choice of cinematic experiences.

Oh and by the way, you don’t have to register to leave a comment anymore – so if you think we’re talking drivel you can tell us straight away!

Pies

On Friday Matthew needed a pie. It was the end of a long, hard week ( in the Australian sense) and nothing would ease him into the weekend better than a nice plate of pie and chips, with or without mushy peas and gravy. Having experienced pie-urges myself, I understood and was happy to accompany him on a pie mission into town.

Brisbane, we reasoned, is a growing cosmopolitan city, liberated of its ‘banana bending’ roots and thronging with stylish restaurants and nightspots, as any guide book will tell you. The hip young things of Brisbane must eat pies, we thought, and set off in search of our meal.

Our first port of call was South Bank, the closest area to our flat and full of junk food purveyors. Beautifully landscaped with lawns, rainforest and a bougainvillea-covered arbour, South Bank is a tourist Mecca, complete with a weekend tat market and a fake beach, which is usually crammed with families barbequing and backpackers eagerly roasting themselves from ‘bronzed’ to ‘shedding and patchy’. South Bank is also home to bags of burger bars and numerous over-priced and flashy eateries, one of which was bound to sell pies – or so we thought. We wandered down through the arbour, amid the markets and, although we managed to successfully not buy a Kangaroo-scrotum lighter, or a spray-on tattoo, we weren’t so lucky with a pie shop.

Our pie-potentials exhausted in South Bank, we decided to walk along to the next suburb, West End. A far earthier and colourful suburb, West End is home to a lot of trendy eco types, a variety of ethnic populations and quite a few tramps. It is also filled with great little restaurants and bars which are cheaper and much nicer than the fare of South Bank.

Our favourite place to eat in West End is a Vietnamese place which is run by a really enthusiastic and tiny lady. It’s BYO ( Bring your own) and is certainly no-frills, but the food is delicious and a meal for 2 will usually cost about $15 ( or £6).

But tonight Vietnamese was definitely not on the menu, tonight we needed pie and chips and we would let no one stand in our way. We started on the left-hand side of the street and started scouring menus for the offer of meat in pastry, served with chips and optional peas and gravy. The first few were a bit trendy. Pie and chips, had it featured on the menu, would have probably been served with a ‘melange’ or ‘trio’ of seasonal vegetables and gravy, dumped for a ‘jus’. At the next place, the menu looked good, we were offered a seat in the garden and the opportunity to listen to a ‘great band’ which under further interrogation played Coldplay songs. But, no pie, we moved on.

Three or four Greek, Mediterranean, Italian and Australian restaurants later and the closest we had come was a Spanakopita, which didn’t count apparently. Eventually after over an hour of searching, the rumbling of our bellies overwhelmed our drive and our quest was over, we settled for fish and chips. Disheartened and incredulous, we ate our fish and chips and discussed the wildly apparent gaping hole in the gastronomy of South Brisbane.

I haven’t looked yet, but I reckon that ‘Pie maker’ will feature on the Australian ‘Skills in Demand’ list – maybe someone should tell the grumpy teenagers in the Banbury Cornish Pasty Shop?

The wildlife of the mountains

Another weekend, another mini-break! This time, up north to the mountains, in the ‘Sunshine Coast Hinterland’.

First stop was the Glass House Mountains which, according to ‘walkabout.com’, are ‘a series of spectacular volcanic plugs rising dramatically from the coastal plain’ – couldn’t have put it better myself. They were named by Captain Cook, who seemed to do a remarkable amount of looking and naming on his way past this area, without getting off his boat, still I suppose speed is of the essence when you’re a discoverer….

The Mountains

Mount Beerburrum was the first hill we came across and we decided to climb up to see the view. The climb was very steep and hot, but we were well-rewarded with a fantastic sweeping view across the mountains and out to the sunshine coast.

After recovering from the climb we set off to Maleny which is in the Blackall range of mountains further north. Maleny is a small, thriving community that has, amongst other delights, a cheese shop. This was especially exciting as we missed the Great British Cheese Festival last year and I was delighted to find that it sells Tasty Lancashire, which is made in Tasmania, but is still tasty. Maleny also has a co-operative run organic shop and café, that sells strange dandelion tea and delicious paninis.

We stayed at a place called Witta, on the ridge of the mountain range. Our wooden cottage overlooked a tiny but beautiful valley with 2 small dams filled with lily pads. We spent a lovely evening eating cheese and warming ourselves by the open fire (because both Matthew and I had forgotten to take anything warmer than a t-shirt).

The cottage

The Browns

On the first evening we were visited by a very friendly Kookaburra who sat with us on the veranda until we were too cold to stay outside. The next morning he came back and we discovered the reason for his acquaintance – toast!

I’ve never been eyed up by a kookaburra before and it’s quite scary. I’d parted with my vegemite on toast before I’d had time to think about the ethical considerations of feeding wild birds…they’ve got very pointy talons you know…

Breakfast

After a replacement slice of toast and a brisk walk in the long grass around our cabin, we drove round to the Kondalilla Falls National Park, which is home to an impressive waterfall surrounded by a forest of Piccabean palms and Bunya pines. We walked down the valley to find the rock pools at the top of the falls full of Aussies doing dive bombs.

Feeling hunger pangs, we drove up to Montville, touted in the tour guide as ‘the most picturesque place on the mountain’. We arrived to find a sort-of Ambleside-inspired dystopia. The pavements were crammed with hoards of tourists consuming their way through scores of tat-filled boutiques and overpriced cafes. The architecture of Montville could be described as Tudor-cum-Disney-cum-‘Heidi of the mountains’, which is interesting – especially the ‘historic’ waterwheel circa 1980.

We stopped in at the relative serenity of the Poets Café and after a very quick walk along the main street and a brief run in with a rubbish photographer selling postcards in frames for $50, we ran away, back to Maleny for a bit of normality and an ice cream from the cheese shop (but not cheese flavoured).

Matthew and I got back to Brisbane feeling a bit itchy and it has taken us a few days to notice that the ‘bites’ we are covered in are actually ticks enjoying a slap up meal at our expense. We are now dab hands with a pair of tweezers, having spent a few happy hours picking ticks off each other like chimps.

We will definitely be wary of long grass in the future, but the lure of the cheese shop is strong and another trip to Maleny is certainly worth the risk of a minor infestation.