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Published: October 1st 2012
A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles..." ~ Tim Cahill
SHE SAID... This wasn't just any old weekend. It was my birthday weekend and a milestone birthday at that. We live in Tasmania but I'm from Melbourne, and we visit my family and friends often (but they would probably say not often enough). We also have a few Melbourne based clients, so we are well drilled in the drive to the airport and making the one hour flight over. The regularity of this is evidenced by the fact that the security staff at Hobart Airport know our faces. 😊
I have always LOVED my birthdays, and as a child I remember being excited for weeks in advance. Nothing’s really changed as I've got older, except maybe that I don’t have a month long countdown clock anymore! I used to try and convert those around me to the idea of celebrating a birthday month, but when that didn't catch on, I cut my loses and now enjoy a birthday week.
My first birthday wishes and present came from Andrew's mum Aileen on the Wednesday before my birthday. I was very good and didn't open the card or the wrapped present; but I just couldn't resist having the
chocolates.
We started our long weekend with a Friday lunch with friends who were visiting from New South Wales. The last time we saw Pete and Susie was in Rome in 2010 when we visited St Peter's Basilica together and had an unexpected visit with the Pope! Lunch at The Italian Pantry in North Hobart and the very overdue catch-up was fabulous, but unfortunately we had to rush home to drop the dogs off at Aunty Cass' (the local kennels) for their weekend sleepover. So we dropped Pete and Susie at MONA and made our way home in a heavy rain storm.
We flew into Melbourne Airport on Saturday morning. Every time a plane that I'm in lands at Tullamarine Airport, I have an overwhelming sense of coming home – it's a fantastic feeling. After negotiating slow walkers with overloaded trolleys and hissy-fit-throwing toddlers writhing on the carpet, we picked up our luggage and walked to the Sky Bus ticket booth just outside the arrivals lounge. The Sky Bus is a quick and efficient method of getting into the city – it departs from the two domestic arrivals halls every 15 minutes (look for the red booths not
unlike the old fashioned public phone boxes). The Sky Bus has authority to use the emergency lanes on the Tullamarine Freeway when there are traffic jams, so it really makes a big difference to travel times around peak hour. However, at $17 per person one way, the bus isn't necessarily cheaper than a taxi if you have three or more people to share a taxi with (usually about $55). It was a 20 minute non-stop journey to the Southern Cross train station, where we then caught the free Sky Bus shuttle service to our hotel.
This Melbourne weekend being a bit more special than our normal weekends, I was spoilt with a weekend stay at the Hotel Lindrum. I have wanted to stay here for a while, and it was every bit as lovely as I thought it would be. The hotel is named after one of its former lives as the Lindrum Billiard Centre which belonged to the family of Walter Lindrum, a champion Billiards player. The hotel was plush and comfortable without being over the top, and the interior design perfectly matched old style elegance with modern comforts. The service was impeccable and nothing was too much
trouble for the staff.
Hotel Lindrum is on the top end of Flinders Street, near the government buildings and parks of Spring Street. The CBD of Melbourne is incredibly easy to get around in; it is well planned in a grid and there are trams that service many of the main streets. There is also a free tourist City Circle tram service (with commentary) that runs on the outer streets of the grid and it's a cute way to get your bearings.
Melbourne had put on one of its gorgeous sunny spring days for us, complete with piercing blue skies and distant fluffy clouds. We dropped our bags off at the hotel and headed to Cumulus Inc on Flinders Lane for coffee and brunch. It was packed (as it always is), so we perched up at the bar and watched the ultra efficient staff at work while we waited for our drinks and food. I was a little naughty and had a Bloody Mary instead of the intended coffee. In my defence, it was my birthday weekend, and it was not that far from midday. The shared food of Spanish sardines and tomatoes on toast was delicious, the
service was attentive and the coffee was exceptional. Melbournians take their coffee seriously (admittedly sometimes a little too seriously), and cafes that serve substandard coffees don't tend to last very long in this city.
We were meeting friends at the Grand Designs Live expo (of Kevin McCloud fame) later in the afternoon, so we had a few hours to do some much needed shoe shopping at my favourite shoe shop – Zomp on Little Collins Street. For me, good shoe shops are like hairdressers – when I find one that works for me, I'm faithful for life! After the intense experience that is Zomp (I think Andrew was a bit dazed by the massive volume of shoes and my utter excitedness), we walked back to the hotel, stopping at Federation Square on the way. Fed Square is one of those places that polarises opinion on its design and functionality, however I believe it more than measures up on both fronts. I love the beautiful modern shapes and open spaces, and in summer I love meeting friends in the bars and restaurants that spill into the courtyard – with the cooling breeze off the Yarra River wafting through and the
heat haze causing the city lights to shimmer. However, there are many Melbournians who hate it with a passion. The very modern design is believed to be out of place against a triangle of old and much loved Victorian architecture (Flinders Street Station, Young and Jacksons Hotel and St Paul's Cathedral) on the corner of Flinders and Swanston streets. I have no problem with this juxtaposition of architecture.
We walked back to the hotel by crisscrossing the larger streets via atmospheric little laneways. Melbourne is well known for its array of cute, grungy and arty laneways; however, I think having risen to 'iconic' status, the laneways are losing the very characteristics that made them famous in the first place. Hosier Lane is a prime example – it's full of beautiful street art but it's hardly a pleasure to walk through it anymore when there are busloads of tourists posing along its walls. We dropped my shiny new shoes off at the hotel and then walked towards the Convention and Exhibition Centre (affectionately known as Jeff's Shed, for the Premier who commissioned it and because it looks like a oversized shed). We walked back past Fed Square, over the Princes
Bridge, along the Yarra River, through the Southgate and Crown Casino complexes and past all the elbow-to-elbow riverfront restaurants full to the brim with the lunch trade. I fall a little more in love with Melbourne on bright sunny spring days like this. Everyone comes out to play and there's a constant smell of food and freshly made coffee in the air. It was just blissful.
I was very excited to catch up with our friends Steve, Tegan and little Willow over a quick lunch at Crown complex, and then make our way to see Kevin McCloud at the expo. I’m a bit of a fan. I don’t usually get giggly around celebrity, but Kevin McCloud is the one exception (oh ok, and maybe Dr Harry Cunningham from Silent Witness too). However, as with all things with high expectations, Kevin McCloud's presentation on his new affordable housing project was a letdown, and I was too late to line up for the book signing, so it was a double letdown. In other regards the expo was like all other housey expos, and even though we saw a few products we may explore further for the next set of renovations to
our old schoolhouse, it wasn't as brilliant in the design department as I had hoped.
We headed back to the hotel to met Tegan's parents so that Steve and Tegan could de-child themselves for the night. During a quick dress change for a night out for my birthday celebrations, Tegan gave me a very beautiful and thoughtfully put together book of photos of our outings together in Melbourne and their travels to visit us in Tassie.
It was a lovely warm dusky early evening when we walked from the hotel to Longrain Restaurant on Little Bourke street. We met my other bestie girl friends Cara and Andrea at Longrain and sat down to open more lovely presents – a cool piece of indigenous art by Lee Darroch from Cara, and a travel DVD from Andrea and a beautiful pampering alpaca wool throw (for my older knees!).
The pre-dinner cocktail menu had me salivating like Pavlov's dog. My Mojito (the drink I use as a measuring standard of a good cocktail bar) was one of the best I’ve had. Longrain is a very well regarded contemporary Thai Restaurant, and most of the dishes had a very funky modern
Australian twist. The dishes we ordered were exceptional – wraps of pomelo, mint and green papaya in betel leaf, jungle curry with duck, red curry of roasted pumpkin, deep fried snapper, mussaman curry of lamb on the bone, and green curry with barramundi. The desserts of palm sugar caramel was raved about by most of the table, but my black sticky rice and mango dessert was only half as amazing. Unfortunately, the mango was bordering on sour. I would highly recommend this restaurant for a night out. I have already started making plans to go back there!
I've noticed three negative things about most Melbourne restaurants since I moved to Tasmania six years ago – firstly and most annoyingly, most of the nicer restaurants don't take bookings unless you are in a large group; secondly, communal seating has become too popular, making conversation near impossible when there are more than two of you (luckily we had a lovely large round table for our group of six); and thirdly, I really detest the two sittings a night. We got the 6pm sitting, which meant we had to leave our table by 8pm. However, Longrain softens this forced evacuation by offering
a very cool cocktail lounge that we could have migrated to. It would have suited our needs perfectly; however, by some miracle we had managed to eat and drink in two hours, so we decided to take the party back to our hotel's lounge bar instead. We walked back to our hotel via different lanes and walkways and settled in on the very comfy couches on the ground floor of the hotel for a few more chats and drinkies of wine, sherries and late night baileys. Our trips to Melbourne are usually rushed and we don't often get the time to bond with friends like this. It was just perfect. However, we must have been louder than we realised, as a complaint was made by someone on the first floor (we had apparently woken their baby up). The bar staff were very sweet and discretely asked if we would mind moving to the back of the lounge. The lounge has a full sized billiard table (a restored 1960s table from the Lindrum Billiard Centre days) which the boys made use of. I can barely hit straight on a normal sized table so I wasn’t even going to try on this
very large table. It had been a long day and a big night (in terms of consumption), but we managed to stay up until midnight and see my birthday in! Rabid party animals that we were.
The next morning was a late start, but not too late, as we had to fit in coffee and breakfast before a birthday lunch with my family. So we ducked down a few more lanes to Little Collins street. We had both loved Hairy Canary for years, but unfortunately, this place has lost its mojo. The coffees were still fantastic, but the interior looked tired and there was just no atmosphere, so we decided not to eat there. It was a beautiful sunny morning, so we meandered back up town to the Treasury Gardens and walked through its beautiful old avenues of Moreton Bay fig trees, into the gorgeous Fitzroy Gardens.
My family birthday lunch (with Mum, Dad, my brother Ralph and sister in law Ruthanne) was in the area affectionately known as Little Vietnam – Victoria street in Richmond. Melbourne is more multicultural than most other Australian cities, and as a result we are very spoilt for choice. Not only do
we have a very large range of cuisines to choose from, but we also have good quality eateries in every price range – this is something I really miss in Tasmania.
None of us had eaten at Saigon Rose before, however the reviews I had read were good. I was very spoilt with more presents – a joke present of a family photo printed on a mug, gorgeous jewellery from Andrew, the entire DVD set of the Friends sitcom from Ralph and Ruthanne (which I had been coveting for a while) and a bundles of notes from Mum and Dad to go towards more jewellery. Like I said, I was very spoilt. We ate like our family normally eats – we ordered a whole lot of dishes and shared them. It's a brilliant way to taste as many dishes on the menu as possible. The entrees and salads were exceptionally tasty, and the tamarind duck and the spicy squid was also excellent; however, the other dishes were average. I would recommend this place for a traditional Vietnamese meal but it wasn't outstanding on all fronts. Mum had secretly organised a very delicious chocolate cake which came out with candles
and lots of very loud singing. My family knows I detest the whole cake at restaurants thing, but take much pleasure in doing it anyway! After lunch we had some family time at my brother's house catching up with my little nephew and playing with all his new toys from his recent first birthday party. Then it was back to the hotel for a much needed post-too-much-food nap.
Andrew hustled me to wake up before I slept the whole evening away – there had been talk of sitting at a bar sipping Spanish wine and eating tapas at the nearby Movida Restaurant. However, given it is a very sought after restaurant, both Movida and its sister restaurant Movida Next Door were filled to overflowing (with people waiting at the door). We didn't really feel like being jostled, so we kept walking the laneways, then into Fed Square and Southgate along the Yarra River, perusing menus but not finding what we felt like – a light and fresh dinner in a quiet location. We eventually found the small Wagamama on Flinders street with a free table. It had started to rain by now and I was enticed in by the
thought of sharing hot sake with Andrew. Wagamama serves pretty good food for what is essentially a quick-meal chain restaurant. We settled in with a crisp crab and green papaya salad, sweet potato chips with wasabi mayonnaise, grilled gyoza, a beef stir-fry with rice, sweet plum wine and hot sake. Perfect soul food after two days of heavy food, red wine and cocktails.
We walked back to the hotel and were tempted to have a drink in the lounge but decided against it, as we had a 6am flight back home the next day– our least favourite flight, but the one we seem to catch the most. However, there was a late night episode of
Miss Marple on TV and neither of us could resist curling up in bed with a hot chocolate and watching it.
Our last night in the super lovely Hotel Lindrum went in a blink of an eye. Before we knew it we were stumbling into a taxi at 4:30am, and then dragging ourselves through a long security line at Melbourne Airport. It had been a fantastic weekend, but I was also very glad to be going home to give my liver and stomach
a bit of a break.
It had been a superb 40th birthday weekend filled with good food and wine and friends and family – in a city that is not only my home, but also one of my top five favourite cities in the whole world. Double happiness!
HE SAID... It's not often that we record our travels within Australia. A trip to Melbourne in the state of Victoria is much like a trip to Hobart in our home state of Tasmania. It takes us about the same time to fly to Melbourne as it does to drive to Hobart. However, this trip was different. It was Ren's 40th birthday, so the weekend deserved to be recorded.
The day before we left for Melbourne was wet – incredibly wet. The heavens opened and the rain didn't stop until the evening. When we dropped the dogs off at the kennels in the pouring rain, we could hardly hear ourselves think – the rain was so loud on the metal roof of the dog enclosure. We drove into Hobart and met two friends we had travelled with in Italy. We took them to our favourite Italian restaurant
in Hobart (the Italian Pantry) and shared a pasta meal. It was a great afternoon of travel stories and good food while the rain poured relentlessly outside.
On the drive home, the windscreen wipers could barely clear the rain from the windscreen. It was a dreadful day to be driving. We arrived home, packed clothes and presents for Melbourne, started a roaring fire in the schoolroom and sat down with bread, cheese and wine to watch Collingwood (my Australian Rules football team) lose their preliminary final to Sydney.
We woke at 5.30am for an 8.00am flight. The rain had stopped, so the drive to the airport was much easier than the night before. The flight was uneventful and we arrived at Melbourne Airport on time. We collected our luggage, boarded the SkyBus, headed to Spencer Street Station and transferred to Hotel Lindrum in a minibus. The hotel was fantastic – there was a full size pool table, quiet bar area with an open fire, complimentary iPads and a reasonable CD collection. It was also well positioned, so we could walk everywhere.
We unpacked and headed to Cumulus Inc for a quick breakfast. We shared their incredible sardines
on toast with coffees and a Bloody Mary. The freedom of Melbourne mornings! After breakfast we walked into the city. Ren picked up a new pair of shoes while I managed to get in everyone's way in the shoe shop. We walked back to the hotel, dropped the shoes in our room and then walked to the Grand Designs Live Expo at the Exhibition Centre. We met Tegan, Steve and Willow for a quick lunch beforehand and then ventured into the masses. The expo itself was a little disappointing, although we all acknowledged it must be hard to cover so many things in a typical 'expo' environment. Kevin McCloud tried his hardest to present his new company to the adoring masses, but people lost interest when he wasn't within hands reach of their television screens in the comfort of their homes. From a presentation perspective, his PowerPoint was appalling, but he tried gallantly to engage his admirers. After negotiating the numerous prams and bored stall holders, we managed to escape and head back to the hotel. Tegan's parents were waiting to pick up Willow for babysitting duties. Before she left, we gave Willow a small inside tent for her birthday.
She had turned two a few days before.
It was time for Ren to open the first of many presents. Tegan and Steve had designed an incredible booklet of photos depicting their trips to the schoolhouse, and it was an amazing gift. After presents were shared, we made our way to Longrain for dinner. We met Cara and Andy at the restaurant and more presents were offered – an indigenous painting with dogs, a travel DVD and a wool throw.
We settled into a fantastic night of Thai inspired dishes. Our round table harboured a huge marble 'Lazy Susan', so we shared lamb, duck, barramundi and pumpkin curries, deep fried snapper and desert. The food was exceptional (and exceptionally hot)! Steve and I started with Chang beer before moving to Shiraz, although water was the most popular drink of choice (to quench the heat from the pumpkin curry)!
We all walked back to the hotel, settled into the comfort of Lindrum’s couches and shared wine and baileys into the night. We attempted a game of pool on the full size table, but in the end it became a game of chance. Anyone who could actually hit the
ball was on a winner, let alone sink anything. Steve and Clayton eventually won. The evening was drawing to a close and everyone was fading, so we retired at midnight.
The previous day had been long, but we still managed a reasonably early morning. We relaxed in the hotel room with our complimentary iPad and checked out reviews of the local cafes and restaurants. We eventually ventured out and wandered the city as tourists, and it was a very different Melbourne experience. Ren captured images of buildings and skylines that we often ignore through familiarity, and we began to realise how much of Melbourne’s beauty we miss. It was a fantastic way to spend a Sunday morning. We stumbled upon Hairy Canary for a chai tea and cafe latte before heading back to the hotel to change for lunch.
We met Eva and Roy (Ren's parents) and Ralph and Ruthanne (Ren's brother and sister in law) at Saigon Rose in Richmond for lunch. More presents were opened, including the Friends complete DVD collection, an Elsa Peretti cross pendant and a cup with a printed family photo. We shared a collection of duck, prawn and salad dishes, all of
which were great. Eva smuggled in a birthday cake which came out at the end of the meal with sparklers, candles and lively singing. We had the restaurant to ourselves, which was great for conversation. Apart from a spilt bottle of wine (thanks to an overzealous but very affable waitress), the birthday lunch was fantastic. We headed back to Ralph and Ruthanne’s for afternoon tea where we gave our nephew Ethan a toy drum and personalised placemat for his birthday. He had turned one a week before.
We shared a taxi with Roy and Eva into the city. We jumped off at our hotel while they continued on to 6pm mass at St Francis' Church in the city. After packing in preparation for our early morning flight the next day, we crashed for about an hour – the weekend was catching up with us. However, we jumped up at 7pm and headed out into the city, wandering small laneways and photographing street art. Rain was softly falling, but it didn't matter. It was enjoyable wandering aimlessly through the city streets. We pondered a few restaurant menus before settling on Wagamama – we needed something light and refreshing, and this
trusty chain didn't disappoint. Plum wine, hot sake, green papaya salad, chicken dumplings, sweet potato chips, beef and rice – it was just what we needed. We headed back to the hotel in the rain, marvelling in the beauty of Melbourne that we so often overlook.
With such an early start, we were focused on an early night. However, a late night re-run of Agatha Christie’s
Miss Marple only left us with three hours sleep... but it was worth it 😊
We woke at 3.30am, showered, packed, grabbed a quick coffee, checked out of the hotel and caught a taxi to the airport. After checking in our luggage and negotiating a single security lane, we arrived at our gate at 5am. We were exhausted. I fell asleep sitting up, which is unusual for me. It had been a long weekend...
The flight back was very smooth. I fell asleep after takeoff, missed the food trolley and woke a few minutes before landing. It was a cold day, and we felt it when we walked onto the tarmac at 7.30am. We grabbed our luggage and headed home. I was too tired to concentrate on work, so I decided
to brush cut the grass. It was a six hour job, and I loved it. The dogs were dropped off at 2pm, and they were very happy and upbeat – it seemed they'd had a great weekend too. It was great to be home, and great to know that we can enjoy Melbourne in the same way as every other city we travel to.
Another present for Ren arrived in the mail on Tuesday (Loung Ung's novel
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers). It was meant to arrive before we left for Melbourne, but the delay was inconsequential. While a birthday present of sorts, it is also part of our pre-travel reading material as we prepare for our Cambodia trip in 2013.
Well people, that's it for our musings for now.
Until next time. May you eat well and travel often! 😊
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The Travel Camel
Shane Dallas
A chocolate diversion
What a wonderful time you had - even eating at the Hairy Canary (I recall visiting their once too). Did you manage to fit a visit to Australia's finest chocolate makers - Haigh's? Though they started in Adelaide, their three stores in Melbourne's CBD and they are always a joy to visit - especially the one in the Block Arcade. Milk chocolate super frogs, white chocolate strawberry blocks, and the best milk speckles you will ever taste are strong recommendations.