Melbourne with Harold's Boots

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Days 7-9 4-6 Jan Melbourne
We’re glad we came back to Melbourne. There’s always a danger that a repeat visit anywhere will disappoint, but we left wishing we could stay longer. We did the mundane things you do in a beautiful, fascinating and civilised city in the sunshine. South Yarra is a very comfortable part of Melbourne (where Jo and Christian set up home in 2004). For coffee-drinking, newspaper-reading retired wrinklies, who like to walk in shorts and short sleeves through the Botanic Gardens to the city and hop on a tram or train back home when the eyes droop or legs begin to seize, it’s a paradise. (Note to self: Risk of overuse of that word.)

The city skyline is stunning - it’s not a New York, but with wide open green spaces a-plenty, it’s very pedestrian friendly, with ubiquitous top quality coffee and snacks including panini’s filled with every kind of tasty stuff. Italian, Greek and Thai influences are strong and often fused. (God, that sounds like a poncy food reviewer) We paid a return visit to Prahran Market to stock up on travelling food and an Esky. Can still taste the smell of the market . Get your macadamia/cashew nuts here. All ‘Produce of Australia'. Focaccia? Which of these 16 kinds do you prefer? Cheese. Everything from Italian smellies to slabs of mild Australian cheddar. Fruit? Peaches, strawberries, nectarines, 17 kinds of plum, all in season. Fresh mangoes and pineapple just been ferried to Melbourne through the floods in Queensland. All Australian produce except for the Kiwifruit - produce of Italy. What????

Didn’t go the moving Immigration Museum (done that) or the Melbourne Museum (seen the Neighbours kitchen) or St Kilda (no time to revisit), but did wander past the Victorian civic splendour of Flinders St Station, the Town Hall, and into the Victoria State Library. Big streets and big trees are always a good combination. Melbourne has plenty of those, and a decent river for people to enjoy. Pull an oar, pay for your cruise - your choice.

My highlight was a visit to the Holy of Holies, the MCG. Melbourne must be the most sports-mad place on earth. But they put their money where their mouth is, at least for spectator venues. The facilities for playing and spectating make you wonder - can Seb Coe & Co pull it off like Melbourne surely has done and could again? (And Sydney did, to be fair). Melbourne revamped swimming stadia (yes, plural) for the Commonwealth Games in 2006, rugby has the Telstra Dome. Imagine Twickenham (the stadium, stupid) next to Euston Station. The Aus Tennis Championships have a mass of blue courts and the Rod Laver Arena (remember the Rocket ? Quicker than Ronnie O’Sullivan, I reckon). Enough parentheses. What else? There’s a public golf course in Albert Park (=Hyde Park with Silverstone inside it), which is where Lewis Hamilton and his petrolhead mates go joyriding every March. Now Melbourne Park is building a new 32000 stadium (that’s people not dollars) in the same area, for rugby and soccer. As a football fan I hate that word, but ‘footy’ here is AFL, or Aussie Rules football, and in Melbourne it’s number one sport. Both AFL and cricket (Test matches and Victoria State games) share the fantastic stadium that is the Melbourne Cricket Ground or MCG or even just the ‘G’.

Rosie declined my invitation to watch the Aus v NZ ODI (if you don’t know what that is, you won’t care) , even when I suggested we could eat our last meal in Melbourne watching live cricket from a snack bar, enjoying a sausage roll smeared in ketchup (and probably Vegemite on special order), as it was her birthday the following day.

To return to a tone more respectful of the culture of cricket: I did negotiate an afternoon at the MCG without R, who was inspecting the entire contents of Myer (=Selfridges), particularly those items which carried the fatal 70%!o(MISSING)ff label. Advice to all shoppers: 70 %!i(MISSING)s not a good deal if it refers to a lawn mower or a chair and you’re trying to keep your weight down. Baggage, I mean not body fat. Dammit. Wrong tone again.

New paragraph out of respect for Noel, a member of the MCC (=Melbourne Cricket Club). Noel was our guide for the MCG tour. I and a lovely family of cricket fans, from northern NSW were treated to a two-hour tour around all parts of the empty 90000 stadium. Empty apart from a couple of guys putting out the boundary markers for the NZ game, a couple desecrating the pitch by spraying some god-awful colour on it to persuade you to buy more Vegemite or something. Then some action on the pitch. Ben Hilfenhaus emerged with a couple of gofers and threw ball after ball into a small fielding net.

Noel oozed tradition and respect for the cricket establishment. His best line for me was the imagination-catching ‘Here’s the Hugh Trumble Cafe, named after Hugh Trumble’. His stripy, faux-public school blazer and deferential tone were enough to giggle at, but also to admire. Here was a man whose life is cricket. He spends one day of his retirement week (empathy rules) being a volunteer guide around his club. He’s just one of 23000 members, all of whom are entitled to a seat at any event at the MCG. It’s a good job they don’t all turn up at once, which they don’t, except for the Boxing Day Test. That’s when the cricket great, good and those who think they are great and good turn up and watch the match in air-conditioned, waiter-served 5-star comfort (yes really). The shiny escalators, members’ dining room, (jacket and tie oblig - thongs and singlets that way, mate) media centre, upholstered seats (for members, at least) and fantastic views remind me a little of Doncaster Rovers’ old Belle Vue ground. By that I mean they both had some nice grass in the middle.

Now I can say I’ve sat in Shane Warne’s favourite seat in the Aus team box. I’ve seen the giant blow-up photo of the scoreboard of the 1987 Centenary Test (remember Derek Randall’s 187?). Did you know that Australia won by exactly the same margin as in the first ever England v Australia Test? (by 45 runs, if you’re really interested.) I’ve seen Harold Larwood’s boots with holes in the toe (remember the 1932 bodyline series? It’s a wonder Jardine got out of Australia alive!). All trivial things, particularly when I’m writing this to the background of the terrible bush fires, but to be here at the MCG which I first heard of whilst listening as a little lad to the exploits of Trueman, Tyson, May and Hutton in the 50s, it was great to feel 10 years old and star-struck again. This time I had no human hero to worship (remember I was the lad who got Bob Appleyard’s autograph on Filey beach). This was a pilgrimage, to the place from where John Arlott spoke to me and other insomniac cricket nuts all those years ago. (‘Get to sleep, Michael. You’ve got school tomorrow’)

We had a great evening with some new/old friends whom we met on the road three years ago. Ivor and Helen invited us over to their home in Box Hill for an evening together to catch up on each other and further our friendship. Ivor’s al fresco barbie and wicked sense of humour, Helen’s talent as a nationally respected and acknowledged portraitist and their wonderful hospitality made us feel that we were more than just Pommie tourists passing through. Check out the name Helen Edwards. Buy her pictures. We’re so grateful for their advice to tune in to ABC radio to keep us informed of the threatening ‘extreme alert’ bushfire situation.

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