Melbourne (3–12 December)

Table of Contents

We had expected to disembark the Queen Elizabeth late in the morning, but the Australian Border Force had other ideas. Apparently they wanted to process all the “international arrivals” first, and that included us alien Canadians. We were walking off the ship by about 7:50 am, and standing in the parking lot by 8:30. We had pre-cleared immigration while on ship but were told to expect a face-to-face passport check on the way out. In fact, once we’d located our luggage the only formality was handing our customs declaration card to a Border Force officer as we walked past.

Arrival day #

Karen’s cousin Louise and her partner Martin arrived shortly afterwards to pick us up. Thanks! Especially given the early hour on a Sunday. After some hugs and excited hellos (if you’ve ever met Louise you’ll know that everything is excited), we headed back to Louise’s place in St Kilda East. This is a formerly working-class suburb of Melbourne, about six kilometres south of the centre, now becoming trendy.

Karen’s family in Australia: Her Uncle Alex grew up in Edmonton, put himself through a university geology programme there, then struck out for Australia back in the 1950s. He met a girl (Aunt Margaret), married, had a long career in the mining industry, and raised four kids along the way. These are Karen’s cousins Liz (Sydney), Rob (Brisbane), Louise (Melbourne) and Rebecca (also Melbourne). Liz has two boys in their mid-late twenties, and Rob has two girls, late teens and early twenties. Unfortunately Alex passed away last year, before we had a chance to visit. Aunt Marg lives in Brisbane. We’ll be seeing them all during our visit.

Once we’d settled in and chatted for a bit, we packed a picnic and headed to the St Kilda Botanic Garden, which is quite close to Louise’s. Martin and Louise aren’t always this goofy, but apparently selfies bring out their best.

While we were eating, we were joined by this Rainbow Lorikeet. They can apparently make a pest of themselves in the picnic area, but this one seemed satisfied with the ear of corn left over from making our salad.

After lunch we took a walk around the Garden. Martin has a wide-ranging knowledge of native Australian plants. This is one of the many species of gum trees.

Karen can never not stop and smell the roses.

Nor can she stop herself from taking pictures of plants.

Back at Louise’s we spent some time getting to know her kittens Stanley and Kubrick, who were eleven weeks old. Stanley is the darker one on the far side of Karen. Yes, that is a skeleton behind her; Louise is a Pilates instructor (and instructor trainer) who runs her business out of her home. One room is completely given over to Pilates machines; the skeleton is a training aid.

The kittens were pretty rambunctious, but occasionally slowed down enough to cuddle, especially Kubrick.

We spent the afternoon chatting and then had a lovely meal cooked by Martin. As an appetizer, Greg broke out the snack that Koah Fong had given us in Singapore, which definitely lived up to the “dangerously addictive” note on the packaging.

In Europe we were travelling pretty much every fourth day and packing a lot of sights in. We’ll be setting a more relaxed pace in Australia, travelling between cities less frequently, visiting with family, and doing more work (Greg) and not quite so much touristy stuff. So, rather than a day-by-day story, we’ll sometimes just post highlights or themes. You have been warned! This entry has a bit of both.

Phone cards #

When we were travelling in Europe, and for port visits from the ship, we relied on data-only eSIMs from Airalo, which were cost-effective and simple. However, for Australia it made much more sense to get local phone plans with a higher data allowance and actual phone numbers. So, we picked up some SIM cards from ALDImobile at the local ALDI grocery store.

ALDI had a good sale on their new 5G plans, including double data for the first three months – which is perfect, because we’re only in Australia for two and a half. The plan we’re on here gives us each 50GB of data per month, with unused data rolling over, plus free calls and text messages to 20 countries, all for $29 Australian per month. That’s about $26 Canadian, which is an amazing deal compared to what we’d be paying at home. And with Airalo, $29 Australian would get us no phone numbers and just one fifth the data.

An annoying side note: it seems like a lot of companies keep lists of “valid” Australian numbers and choke when they see one not on the list. This includes things like restaurants that want a phone number for reservations, as well as WhatsApp for activating an account. And guess what? Our ALDImobile numbers still aren’t on the valid list, more than a month after we got them.

Life at Louise’s #

Louise very kindly gave up her bedroom to us (over our objections) and slept on the futon in the lounge. As a side benefit this meant we could keep the door closed and the kittens out of our stuff, which was nice since they’re still being house-trained.

Louise teaches Pilates six days a week, both in-person and online from her home studio, and also does home visits with some of her clients. Running the business makes her schedule a bit scattered: sometimes she’s free in the mornings, sometimes the evenings, sometimes not at all. So, we mutually planned our days around her availability.

Greg was very happy to be able to run on land again. He hadn’t run much while we were in Europe, mostly for the usual not-very-good reasons, but partly because it’s just hard to run the old city centres. On the ship he’d re-started running, on the treadmills in the fitness centre. He’s not fond of treadmills, but that beat the only alternative, which was dodging walkers on the promenade deck. Louise lives just a couple of kilometres from St Kilda beach which allowed for some rather nice runs.

As with all good visits, much of our stay revolved around food. We’ve already mentioned Martin cooking a nice dinner on the day of our arrival. Greg made pizza twice, and we also trialed some of the recipes that Louise had planned for the family Christmas gathering in Sydney. And we went to dinner at Martin’s one evening, where he prepared a delicious Spanish meal.

This mildly bizarre statue is in front of the St Kilda Town Hall, a short walk from Louise’s place. There’s no plaque explaining it, but a bit of internet research suggests it’s in honour of Keith Miller, a champion cricket player and World War II fighter pilot from St Kilda. Allegedly the emblem on his plane was a hydra. But the plane in the statue doesn’t seem to be one of the aircraft he flew, there’s no obvious cricket reference, and what’s that building at the lower left? Greg’s theory is that the statue commemorates an obscure Samuel L. Jackson film called *Plane on Some Snakes*.

Louise lives in a strata (condo) building that has a garden along the edges of the property. None of the other residents are willing to care for the garden or spend the money to hire a gardener, so Louise has taken it upon herself to look after things. She had an afternoon free from work one of the days we were there, so she and Karen spent several happy hours weeding, trimming back overgrown bushes, and setting up a watering system. Karen very much enjoyed the opportunity to get her hands back into the dirt.

Less luggage! #

One of our major accomplishments at Louise’s was thinning out our luggage. We’re travelling Australia by train and coach (bus), and the weight and size restrictions here are much tighter than they were in Europe. Essentially, you’re allowed one full-sized bag and one smaller-than-airline-carry-on bag.

By judicious selection, we were able to do away with one carry-on sized bag of stuff each, which we shipped to Karen’s Aunt Marg in Brisbane for pickup before our ship to Honolulu. (At a quite reasonable price: about $70 Canadian total.) That left us with just one large backpack and one small one each, and twenty kilograms less stuff to haul around Australia. Win-win!

Karen with everything we’re carrying in Australia. This photo was actually taken in Wagga Wagga, which will be the next entry, but we didn’t think to take one in Melbourne.

How did we do it? Some of what we were travelling with is just for use on the cruise ships, like Karen’s fancy dresses and Greg’s jacket and tie and dress shoes. Some of it we could make do without, like our portable backgammon board and Tak set. Some of it we could reduce quantities, as long as we do laundry more often. For example, Greg was travelling with eleven t-shirts, but thinned down to six. Plus Karen was carrying spares of her favourite Shiva’s Delight soaps, and all the souvenir magnets she’s accumulated along the way.

Of course, some things are non-negotiable, so Greg still has five juggling clubs, six juggling balls, and his full portable office setup. Karen still has her sewing projects and her poi. And of course we have our beloved Aeropress Go, because some places we’ve stayed don’t come with a good way to make coffee.

Sightseeing, part I #

On December 5th we decided to head into the centre of town to do some touristy things. The best way to get there from Louise’s was by tram. In Melbourne, access to public transit is via a dedicated card called the myki. To save us having to buy cards, Louise and Martin each lent us one, which we recharged at one of the tram stops in town.

After wandering through the downtown core, our first stop was the Old Treasury Museum. As the name implies, this was formerly the Treasury building for the state of Victoria, but has now been converted into a local history museum. Like most museums in Australia, admission is free. And the museum’s web site has extensive discussion of its exhibitions.

One of the ongoing exhibitions at the museum covers the history of the Yarra River, the freshwater body around which Melbourne developed. We were pleased to see extensive discussion of the Aboriginal (“Traditional Owners”) use of the river, which they called the Birrarung, prior to the colonial arrival, as well as the negative impacts colonial use of the river had on both the aboriginal and settler inhabitants.

There was also an exhibit covering the history of Australia’s gold rush, which started in 1851. This is a replica of the Welcome Stranger nugget, discovered in tree roots under just three centimetres of dirt. It yielded about 71 kilograms of refined gold, which today would be worth $6.3 million Canadian. Unfortunately the museum was closing before we had a chance to explore all of the exhibit.

Just up from the Old Treasury is the Parliament of the state of Victoria, built in 1856. Note the bridal party crossing the street, presumably to get photographs at the Parliament, as well as the protestors demanding justice for Palestine.

Near Parliament is a preserved original tram stop. There are others like it scattered around Melbourne.

This sculpture commemorates the 1891 Women’s Suffrage Petition, also known as the Monster Petition. At 260 metres long, it is believed to have been the largest petition of the 19th century. Non-aboriginal Australian women were granted the rights to vote and to stand for election federally in 1902. However, Victoria was the last Australian state to grant women the right to vote in state elections, in 1908. Aboriginal Australians, men and women, were denied the right to vote until 1962.

Sightseeing, part II #

The next day we ventured out again. This time we started with the Shrine of Remembrance, described as “Victoria’s national memorial honouring the service and sacrifice of Australians in war and peacekeeping.” It’s a combination monument, memorial, and museum, covering the full history of Australia’s armed forces from first formation to the present day.

We spent over an hour exploring the Shrine, learning about Australia’s participation in the first and second World Wars, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam war, and many peacekeeping missions.

The upper level of the Shrine offers spectacular views of the city.

After visiting the Shrine we had lunch just outside the Royal Botanic Gardens and then proceeded into the Gardens themselves. Once again, here’s a picture of Karen taking a picture of a plant.

The Gardens are quite extensive, featuring both native Australian varieties as well as plants from around the world.

Just outside the Gardens is this lovely grotto, formally known as The Grotto (of course).

We continued walking through the park that surrounds the Botanic Gardens. This floral clock surprised us by actually having the correct time, 4:23 pm.

We caught a tram north into the city. Here’s Greg, figuring out how to get from Flinders Station to the juggling meeting he was headed to that evening. Apparently the Flinders Station clocks are a common place to connect: “I’ll meet you under the clocks”. The clocks show not the current time, but rather, the times that the next trains on each line are leaving.

We said goodbye to each other near the Parliament, Karen heading back to Louise’s and Greg heading to the weekly meeting of JuggleLab, a juggling club run by our friends Dale and Dani. During the school break (remember, it’s summer here) they’re meeting at Circus Nexus, which is in the north-east of the city and extremely inconvenient to reach by public transit. Making things worse, the train Greg was supposed to take was out of service (apparently due to someone stepping in front of a train) and replaced by buses. The queue for the buses was almost a kilometre long, so Greg improvised his way north by a combination of walking and trams, ultimately arriving about 45 minutes later than planned. However, he was still in time to do some club passing with Dale, Dani, and Iain, who we know from past European Juggling Conventions.

Pub dinner #

Juggling, again! #

On Sunday, December 10th there was an afternoon juggling meet up, also at Circus Nexus. Fortunately for Greg, the trains were all running that day – but it still took an hour and forty-five minutes to get there. Dale had to work, so he wasn’t able to come out, but Iain and several other jugglers were there, plus a few acrobats. Iain and Greg got in some good passing play.

After juggling Karen met Greg downtown and we went to the Boilermaker House (“… a blues filled temple devoted to malt whisky, craft beer and innovative cocktails”) for dinner and drinks. Since it was Sunday evening they didn’t have their full menu available, so we shared a couple of small pies and this rather enormous charcuterie platter. Their craft beer selection was excellent.

On December 13th we said goodbye to Louise and Martin (who we’d be seeing again in Sydney for Christmas) and boarded the train for Wagga Wagga. And that’s the next story!