Free walking tour
State Library
Prison and Ned Kelly
Gold miners and their rich kids
Parliament
World's oldest standing original China Town
Modern Melbourne
Tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere
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A few of us from the tour group were spending some extra time in Melbourne. Someone had found a free walking tour. Normally these cost around $30 (£15) but one company has set up on a donation based system. Apparently they'd been excellent in Sydney (wish I'd gone on it) so we all met up at 10:30am outside the State Library to spend a morning exploring the city.
We past the old court house and the gardens which include the Victorian-era exhibition centre (one of the few Victorian buildings not pulled down in the 60s & 70s) were closed for a rose and garden competition. Inside the courtyard of the old prison our guide showed us were Ned Kelly the Bushranger (outlaw, some would say Australia's Robin Hood) was hanged. I would later go to see his armour in the library exhibit about him.
The Parliament building stands at one end of the original grid system the city is based around. The grid itself was built when Australia was still a British colony. This is the reason for the lack of public squares and parks in the city- the Empire had learned that rebellions started in squares. No square no rebellion. Easy. The state parliament building stands at the top of one of the major roads running through the grid system. It was once planned to be used as the federal parliament, back when Sydney and Melbourne were competing for the title of capital. Instead Canberra was picked as a point between the two and given its own mini-state.
Today Melbourne is no where near as big as Sydney. Yet it was once Austrilasia's largest city. This was caused by two economic boom periods. The first was when gold was found nearby causing thousands to descend on the colony (seems this happened to a number of places in the Southern Hemisphere back then) until vitually all of the gold was found. However, many of these miners were frugal, unlike their children. The second boom came a generation late when the kids took the cash and spent it all. Once all of this was gone, however, it left the city with a myriad of grand architecture and parks. A few of these protected buildings still remain, though many were destroyed for "progress". Thankfully they left behind places such as the library and the arcades- Victorian/Edwardian shopping malls, with many up market shops and cafes which have been there now for many decades.
Melbourne has, arguably, the world's oldest China Town. There's some contention with places in California, but theirs burnt down where as much of it here is still standing. We had a quick wander through before stopping for coffee and snacks.
Good, cheap, food isn't so easy to find in Australia, let alone the cities. There's no Greggs here, and Aldi's only just started to invade. But I found BreadTop! It's a really good, cheap, bakery, where everything looks fresh, the dough is light and fluffy, and there's things I could never imagine. Most of its $2.50 (£1.25) when here I'd expect to pay 50-100% more than that. I've since had sausage donuts, a tuna and egg thing, and a spiced chicken bun here, but on this day I got a naan bread covered in lightly spiced sauce and caramelised onions plus an almond and custard donut/bun/slice/thing for lunch. Love me a decent bakery. :)
We walked though some of modern Melbourne, including the new city square and down to the tallest building in the city. As we walked we pasted by Melbourne's new popular cultural past time art project. It used to be illegal to put graffiti on any building. Then people were allowed to put it on there own. Now many companies pay professionals to spray great art works onto their walls. The city now also provides spaces in small alleys for anyone to practice their skills. Thus street art has become a tourist attraction in its own right, people flocking to these alleys to see what's new. In fact there's so many people it's hard to get a decent picture of the art without people in the way!
Let's be honest, there's not all that much in the Southern Hemisphere compared to the north. So when someone says the biggest/smallest/widest/oldest/most popular "in the Southern Hemisphere" it's only mildly impressive. It does sound great the first few times, but after 5 times in a morning the awe gets lost somewhere. However, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere is still impressive.
After the tour we went into the Eureka Tower- 297.3 metres (975 feet), 91 floors, it stands over Melbourne in blue glass, with white lines running across its surface. Kind of looks like a ruler. At the top some windows are coloured gold with a little line of red running down. The design is based around a workers strike near the site during the late years of the British Colony. The workers' flag was blue with white stripes. Some of the workers were shot, hence the red line.
It is the largest building in the Southern Hemisphere, and the world's largest residential building. At observation deck there's a little cafe, photo booth, gift shop, and Australia's highest post box (there's probably a higher one in the Andes, so no SH title there). We also chose to go into a small box they have which slides out of the side of the building, with a glass floor, so you can see all the way down to the ground!!! The floor isn't perfectly clear and the fog was rolling in at this point so the view was only mildly worrying. Great spot to see the city from though.
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