Melbourne

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Melbourne is the second most popular city in Australia and Oceania and it is easy to see why. With the CBD (Central Business District) in the centre and the city spanning out it all directions Melbourne really does have everything.


Before Europeans arrived in the area it had been occupied by three Aboriginal tribes: Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The area was an important meeting place for them as it was a source of food and water.
The first European settlement was established by Colonel David Collins in October 1803 near Sorrento but the ground wasn’t suitable for farming so the settlement moved to Tasmania in February 1804. It was another 30 years before another settlement attempted to stay in that area.
In May and June of 1835 John Batman claimed to have purchased 600,000 acres from Wurundjeri elders. Batman selected a site north of the River Yarra and upon his arrival back in Tasmania declared it would be the village. In August 1835 a different group of settlers left Tasmania and arrived at the mouth of Yarra in August 1835. Today the site is the Melbourne Immigration Museum. Batman and his group arrived early September 1835 and the two groups agreed to share the land.
The settlement was originally named Batmania after Batman but less than a year later was changed to Melbourne after the British Prime Minister William Lamb 2nd Viscount Melbourne. On 13th April 1837 the settlements general post office officially opened with that name. Queen Victoria declared Melbourne a city on 25th June 1847.
While we were in Melbourne we saw a lot of its historical parts and a lot of its modern parts that all go to make Melbourne the vibrant city it is today.


The first day we arrived late in the afternoon. After finding somewhere to park we made our way to the night market. We watch a street act who asks Laurent to be his assistant. He has to hold his unicycle and later when the man is on his bike, throw knives and sticks that are on fire to the man!
After walking round the hundreds of food stalls about three times we finally decided what we were going to have. Laurent had a kebab while I had a meat raclette.


The next day we walked around part of the outskirts of Melbourne but it started raining so we found the closest train station and went in to the city centre. After walking around a while we found China Town and decided we would be coming back another day to eat there. That night we headed to St Kilda and spent the evening at Luna Park enjoying ourselves playing a few arcade games and having a game of air hockey.
As we were in St Kilda we spent the next morning exploring that area. We walked around the shops and then along the beach. St Kilda is famous for its pier where penguins live. But unfortunately for us we didn’t see any penguins that day. Weheaded back towards the city and spent the rest of the afternoon doing a treasure hunt. We have clues telling us where to go sent to my phone then when we reach the destination, have to answer a question about that specific place. It was a lot of fun and we saw a lot of new places. During the hunt we stopped for dinner. We had seen an all you can eat Indian for 6.50$ (around £4/4.50). They give you two mild curries, rice and a popadom and you can go up as many times as you’d like. It was so filling!

We decided to visit some of the places we had been to on the hunt. The first stop was Fitzroy Gardens. We walked around the park and saw Captain Cooks Cottage, the fairy tree, the dolphin Fountain and a mini Tudor village. After the park we went to St Patricks Cathedral. Because of the sun and the stained glass window the cathedral was orange/yellow inside and was beautiful. The catholic community in Melbourne at that time was largely Irish so the cathedral was dedicated to Ireland’s patron saint St Patrick. After the cathedral we headed to Carlton Gardens. These gardens are the home of the Royal Exhibition Hall - the grand building erected for the 1880/1881 International Exhibition. In 1880 the international Exhibition was the largest the world had ever seen attracting more than one millions visitors. A second and even bigger world fair was held here in 1888. The building is now used for a few things such as a base for Melbourne university students to sit their exams and is currently the home of Melbourne Fashion Show. Melbourne Museum is also in the Park. Unfortunately when we arrived the museum was due to shut soon so we didn’t go round. We then headed to Eureka, Melbourne viewing tower. 279m (975feet) the tower becomes a point of recognition. On the 88th floor 285m above sea level is the Eureka sky deck. The highest public vantage point in the Southern Hemisphere. With panoramic views of Melbourne we definitely had amazing views. The ocean one side and the city the other. While in Eureka I did The Edge experience. This is a glass cube that slowly moves out of the buildings 88th floor and I was suspended nearly 300m above Melbourne City in a small completely glass box it was amazing. After watching the sun set and seeing the city at night we headed back to the van. The Eureka tower building can flex up to 600mm in high winds. To stop excess swaying there are two 300,000 litre water tanks on levels 92 and 91. The top 10 levels have 24 carat gold plated glass. This is to represent miners. During the gold rush miners were forced to pay excess fees and taxes with no guarantees of any gold. Over 1000 miners got together in protest and burnt their tax books and stopped mining. This worked for a few days until the miners started missing their families. A lot left leaving just over 100 miners. The British Army then decided to do something. The battle lasted 15 minutes with 20 miners dying and one solider. The miners had to go to court. The sentence should have been death. However the judge understood the miners frustration and found them not guilty.
One evening we watched a comedy show. The show started with four up and coming comedians, two famous (in Australia) comedians and then one who is participating in Melbourne Comedy festival and was trying his new material out. The whole evening was great fun and the comedians were all hilarious.

We finally made it to a museum. This is a fun museum though; it’s ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) an interactive museum about film, T.V and video games. We played xboxes, PlayStations, Nintendo’s, had a virtual reality experience, made a ‘matrix style’ bullet time video and learnt a lot about the moving image. It was fantastic! After that we took the free tram to the Melbourne Star Observation Wheel. The Southern Hemispheres only Giant Observation wheel and one of only four in the world. The view was amazing and completely different to any others we’d seen of Melbourne. The journey room took around half an hour and it was great. While walking back to the tram stop we saw a Glow in the Dark Crazy Golf and had a game. It was great fun even though I lost by a lot!


We had heard the Victoria Market is one of the best in Australia so we spent the morning finding out. We went up and down miles of rows of fresh produce. Fruit and veg, pastries, meat, fish, cheese, bakeries, then there were loads of non food market stalls. The market was huge! After choosing some fresh fruit (mainly for Laurent) and some fresh Squid and Salami (mainly for me) we headed to the library. We had seen adverts for a free walking tour and had decided to spend the afternoon doing it. The tour was fantastic. The guide was really knowledgeable and even though we had been to most of the places it didn’t matter. We learnt new things about the places and saw things we had missed the first time around. The tour ended at Melbourne’s Opera House balcony where you get an amazing free view of the city.


That was our last day in Melbourne. The city is amazing and comes highly recommended by both myself and Laurent

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