Welcome to travels with Todd

I finished drafting the post about my last day in Melbourne just a few hours ago and I’m struggling as I sit to begin this post for my Olympic Host Cities and Me series because there’s usually more than a year between the time I visit a city and the time I compose the abbreviated summary that becomes part of this category. That time allows me to focus on my most vivid recollections. When I wrote the Sydney and Me post, I’d written at least 30 other posts about the rest of my time in Australia. I was so immersed in that project that it blurred some of my memories of Sydney allowing me a bit more selectivity.

In the case of Melbourne, I’ve essentially revisited that city for the past week so nearly every aspect of my time there is in sharp focus. Narrowing the aperture of the lens feels more difficult than it should be and, of course, the more one narrows the aperture, the less light flows to the source.

If you have a feeling of déjà vu, don’t give it a second thought because I feel it too

If you’re following the blog chronologically, you will have just finished reading about my time in Melbourne as I’ve just finished writing about it and you will have had the chance to see all my pictures. So, lets roll through this.

After hours of flight delays I arrived in Melbourne on a dreary late November day. Had I arrived on time, my plan was to at least see, and perhaps tour the Melbourne Cricket Ground that had been the main stadium for the 1956 Games. But that was not to be.

Walking from the Southern Cross Station to my hotel, I passed this interesting bit of statuary.

Not quite the briefcase carrying kangaroos I’d seen in Perth but interesting nevertheless. The other highlights from my arrival day were getting upgraded to a full apartment at the Grand Hotel and meeting my fellow RS traveler DB for dinner.

First Full Day

The day started with disappointing news from A B. He’s the father of a University of Maryland Women’s Basketball player and we’d met when she was playing there. I thought a reunion would be fun and that I’d benefit from having a local show off his town. Sadly, it was not to be and I had to make my own plans. These mainly involved walking. Lots and lots of walking.

I started by taking some pictures of random bits that amused or interested me like the Merry Christmas arch spanning the Yarra River

with the nearby restaurant called Afloat – that I thought was a better name than Asink given its location. The morning didn’t seem to hold a lot of promise with the fog hanging even lower in places than in the photo above.

But, I thought, perhaps as the day warmed, the fog would burn off. Ultimately, my goal was to walk through some of the alleys and byways where some of Melbourne’s famous street art scene is concentrated such as Higson Lane,

AC / DC Lane,

and, perhaps, the granddaddy of them all, Hosier Lane.

By lunchtime, the day had cleared considerably and my walking had just begun. All of the morning’s pictures are in this album.

As I’ve noted elsewhere, I frequently use Atlas Obscura (AO) to point me in the direction of some of the quirky spots in cities I visit and Fitzroy Garden was home to three such places – Captain Cook’s Cottage, the model Tudor Village and the Fairies’ Tree. There were a few other points of interest such as this Moreton Bay Fig Tree that a nearby sign called, “A Great Australian Tree”

but that was not yet quite in full leaf.

After breezing through the UNESCO Heritage Carlton Gardens, I managed to tick off several other suggestions from AO – Keith Haring’s Mural, the Princess Theatre, and the Raising the Rattler Pole that was on a corner outside my hotel.

I had an interesting and quite tasty modern twist on Aboriginal bush tucker at a restaurant called Big Esso at Mabu Mabu on Federation Square near the Flinders Street Station where I was joined by an industrious bird.

If you’re interested in more pictures from the afternoon, this is your ticket.

The Great Ocean Road starting from the bottom

I don’t know if it was my bad fortune or if all late November mornings in Melbourne are dreary but Monday the weather had been bad enough to delay my flight from Hobart for hours, Tuesday morning was densely foggy, and Wednesday the rain was torrential when I went to meet the van for the Great Ocean Road Reverse Itinerary Tour.

It was a long and full day and the weather never fully cleared but cleared enough so our group of nine could see the remaining seven Apostles,

walk down the Gibson Steps,

and stop in a rainforest

along the world’s largest war memorial.

Of the nine in our group three were single young women one of whom was from Israel. In that unfathomable way that Jews often have of identifying other members of our tribe, she seemed to discern that I am (at least genetically) Jewish. She confided in me that she’d felt uncomfortable openly identifying her heritage and nationality in Melbourne because she sensed more sympathy for the Palestinian suffering than what the Israelis had experienced and even some open antagonism She invited me to a Shabbat dinner where I suspected I would have felt uncomfortable and out of place. I was happy that I could decline truthfully that I was leaving for Aotearoa New Zealand Friday morning and I prefer being truthful even in those sort of situations where a so-called little white lie would be harmless.

As our tour came to an end, I think, even with all of the natural beauty the day’s two highlights for me were establishing a connection with A & M a Brazilian couple who’d lived in Maryland at one time and joining four guys in a rendition of My Girl outside Flinders Street Station at the end of the tour.

Since it was Wednesday, I had dinner at the Victoria Street Market

and all of the day’s pictures are in this album.

On my feet again

My last day in Melbourne was, in some ways, like my first full day had been, spent walking, walking, and walking. I started with a free guided tour with an initiation point in front of the State Library of Victoria that allowed me to take photos of two more AO curiosities – the Bunyip and Mr Lizard and Gumnut Baby.

I’d felt a little burned out before the tour began and the feeling intensified as the morning progressed so I tipped the guide and bugged out before lunch. I still spent much of the day wandering about Melbourne’s CBD not entirely aimlessly but with diminishing purpose. The final batch of photographs are hiding behind this link.

In the end, I found Melbourne and intriguing city and, on reflection think I would have liked to have had both a fresher mind and more time to explore it. I don’t think I will have that opportunity again.