A winery in the Yarra Valley, just outside Melbourne, on the sunniest day we spent in Victoria.
Melbourne is a graceful Victorian city with a temperate climate. That is to say, it felt like we were spending a cold, wet week in London. Great food, wine, and beer, friendly people who call you mate all the time, shopping, theatre (their International Comedy Festival was on), fine architecture, a veteran’s parade (it was ANZAC day), the Queen’s head on all the coins, dull skies, chills, and a little drizzle. If it weren’t so spread out - Melbourne, like most American cities, grew up in the age of motorized transport - I’d have sworn we were in London.
We started our Aussie trip in Melbourne at random; it was the first flight available when we decided to leave Indonesia. We loved the Aquarium, and Federation Square, and the Aboriginal art at the Ian Potter Centre, and strolling up and down Brunswick Street. But after five months in South-East Asia Melbourne was such a first-world oasis that I soon wanted to get out. It felt as if we’d come home early. Summer did not miss the mosquitoes, squat toilets, and bird flu as much as I did, but she was 10°C/18°F colder than she had been in Indonesia, and that’s well below her recommended operating temperature.
We decided not to travel up the densely populated east coast. That seemed too much like an American road trip. Instead we wanted to head west into the outback, to see a landscape that is unique to Australia. So we booked an ‘adventure tour’, a coach trip that promised a meandering ten-day journey to the centre of the continent, with lots of stops along the way for hiking and sightseeing. I thought that it would be more of an adventure to drive ourselves but Summer objected on a technicality: she did not want to die in the desert.
Two pieces of advice if you are ever go to Melbourne (which you should). One, go in summer - theirs, not ours. And two, as we discovered while waiting for our bus out of town, if you need a transvestite hooker, go to Carlisle street in the suburb of St. Kilda’s. But go early, they quit at 7 a.m.