When I retired from teaching, I set a little goal for myself. Every month, unless I was travelling, I’ll go and see something new. I call them “Little Adventures.”
What with Mum needing so much attention, this had slipped my mind, until my dear friend Scott, an AVID reader of the blog (haha!), arranged to meet up with me in Melbourne a couple of days ago. He is working here for a few weeks, taking British tourists on a couple of Australian tours.
“It’ll be good for one of your Little Adventures,” he said.
I’m glad one of us was on the ball.
Of course, we arranged to meet under the clocks at Flinders St Station, the most iconic place in Melbourne to meet. We had the whole day ahead of us – or at least until 3 PM. I had to get back to Bonbeach in time to pop in on Mum.
We decided to have a quick look at Hosier Lane, so we set off. It’s a hop, step and a jump from the station. It’s a dedicated place for graffiti, or ‘street art’, and it changes all the time.
We crossed the road and were passing by St. Paul’s Cathedral when Scott said, “Do you want to have a look at the church?”
How funny. I’ve lived in Melbourne my whole life, as has Scott for most of his, and yet neither of us had ever gone into the cathedral. I guess whenever I go into the city, I’m always there to go somewhere specific, never to just wander around exploring the sights. So in we went.
This is looking back towards the front door. See the stripes? The grey is basalt from the western districts. The architect thought a stripey cathedral would be a point of difference.
We fell into the clutches of a window guide, who insisted on telling us the story of Jesus stopping the storm on the Sea of Galilee. Fortified by this tale, we headed back outside in search of street art.
A lot of the graffiti was political this time. People aren’t impressed with Iran at the moment.
But there were a few Dad jokes there, too.
Then it was back down the lane and across the road to the Ian Potter Gallery of Australian art.
Scout!
This was in the bark paintings section. Look at their faces. Scary.
He looks depressed.
I was excited to see this one again. I didn’t know that it had been moved from the main art gallery to this one. It’s a classic, telling the story of a pioneer family on the outskirts of Melbourne.
The first one shows their arrival in the bush. She looks overwhelmed by the prospect of life there, doesn’t she?
The next shows them as a family, living in their little cabin.
The last one is sad. Time has passed, the cabin is gone, and the new city of Melbourne can be seen through the trees. The husband is visiting the grave, alone.
‘The Pioneer’, by Frederick McCubbin, painted at Mt Macedon.
Another absolute banger was nearby:
‘Shearing the Rams’, by Tom Roberts (1890), is huge and contains so much detail. I stood there for ages, looking at all the faces. I think we had some coasters with this on them when I was a kid, because it was like bumping into an old friend.
Sometimes the stories behind the paintings are what clutches at your heartstrings. ‘Jessie with Doll’, by her brother Hugh Ramsay (1897).
Less than ten years after this painting
was finished, Hugh Ramsay’s younger
sister Jessie, nursed him at home after
he returned to Australia from Paris with
tuberculosis. Jessie contracted the
same illness from her brother, and died
a few years later at twenty-two years of
age.”
‘Ouroboros’, by Heather B Swann. Love it.
Then it was lunch in Fed Square (or Federation Square for non-Aussies). Apparently, you can’t get a chicken parma (or chicken parmigiana for non-Aussies) in Europe for love nor money, so Scott was loading up while he was here.
We still had some time to kill, so we elected to do a very touristy thing. We’d go to the Eureka Skydeck.
The Eureka building is now the second-tallest building in Melbourne, standing at 297 metres tall.
We paid to do ‘The Edge’, which is where a glass cube moves out from the side of the skyscraper and you are standing on glass, WAAAAY above the street below. Terrible for people who are scared of heights, of which I am not.
There you go.
Look! I zoomed in on where we started the day – the copper dome of Flinders Street Station, and St Paul’s Cathedral.
After that, I jumped back on the train and headed back to see Mum. She hadn’t had a very good day and was already tucked up in bed watching TV when I arrived. Scout and Hazel were pleased to see me, though Hazel, who is a communicative little thing, voiced her displeasure at missing out on lunch.
I can’t believe how often I’ve seen Scott in the last few years, considering we live on opposite sides of the world. Life is a funny thing sometimes.
Dad joke of the day:
We DO have so much to see and do in our own backyard 🙂
True. These Little Adventures are good in forcing me to get out and see new-to-me things.