Night Market

The Queen Victoria Night Market is something I'd been wanting to visit since I heard about it during my first couple of weeks in Melbourne, and this week I finally made it there. A dull day turned into a beautifully bright evening, perfect for a stroll around. Inside the market the stalls are more spaced out than during daytime trading, allowing for bigger avenues to walk down and plenty of chairs and tables to sit and socialise at. The newest area of the market was also open; String Bean Alley, a row of old shipping containers which have been transformed into workshops and stalls selling all manner of things. The market has an abundance of food and drinks - one of the first things to hit me when I walked towards it from the tram stop was the sound of the bustle followed closely by the amazing smells and aromas. It truly was a sensory feast. 

I had a good browse of some of the stalls and made mental notes of those I wanted to revisit for closer inspection later on, noticing with slight astonishment just how bloody cool these Melburnians are. Seriously, almost every person was wearing something amazing in whatever style it was, and (it must have something to do with the weather) had such a carefree and happy look on their faces. At first I felt ultimately uncool, but decided to try and take it as a cultural lesson in how to be chilled out and have that happy vibe..I'm working on it! 

It took me a good half hour of wandering up and down to even begin to decide what to eat...I eventually settled on a Sri Lankan pan roll from Lankan Tucker- lots of finely chopped vegetables and spices wrapped in what looked like an extra thin crepe or pancake, then fried and served with sweet chilli and tomato sauces. Despite being quite small, the amount of vegetables packed in and the intensity of the flavours filled me up nicely, well, with room for dessert of course. I opted for a Belgian waffle with the classic topping of melted Belgian chocolate, from The Waffle Club. It was just the tinest bit crispy on the outside and lovely and spongey on the inside, and with the sweetness of the chocolate just the best flavour. For my second round of the stalls I needed some liquid accompaniment, and having seen dozens of people wandering round with pints of what looked suspiciously like sangria, I went off in search of it. Next time I'll try the white version but playing it safe I went with standard red, from the Running Bull Sangria stall.

Suitably refreshed I delved back into the treasures that awaited...and by the end I'd got a pretty henna tattoo and a silver pendant, from Silver Addict, who's whole collection I'd be getting if I could afford it. I was reluctant to leave the market, as it seemed like the party was just getting started; hundreds more people were hanging around the food vans outside in the glow of the evening and a DJ somewhere in the crowd was pumping out some great tunes...this place would definitely make it onto my list of recommendations for any future visitors, or locals who've not made it here yet.

Here and There

To catch you all up on what I've been doing and seeing lately - 

The Fitzroy Gardens are located just East of Melbourne's CBD, and are one of the many beautiful gardens surrounding the city. The first feature I got to was the conservatory, which, full of flowers attended daily and a little water feature, smelt amazing. Also in the gardens is, apparently, Captain Cook's parent's house, relocated and rebuilt brick by brick from Yorkshire. The queue to go in was a bit ridiculous and there were so many other tourists there, pushing and shoving to get photos of it from the outside that I relented and decided to go back another day, hoping for less people and more room! I was amazed, and quietly impressed with myself, that I managed to get a picture of the house without any other people in. The result of a combination of many attempts and some luck I think.

One Sunday afternoon I busked for a while just outside Flinders Street Station, and when packing away I heard some music coming from across the road, in Federation Square. The reason for the noise and the huge amounts of people wandering over there was a Festival of Anatolian Culture. The stage in the square was showcasing traditional music and dancing and the riverside below was filled with stalls, mainly of Turkish food and drink. I delighted in watching a couple of performances and trying some Turkish pistachio baklava, yum!

The arts and culture section of The Age has lots of suggestions and recommendations as to what to go and see in any given week/weekend. On its advice, I checked out the Federation Square Christmas Market...but was sadly a little disappointed. There's a possibility I walked right past the main event, but I looked around the square a good few times and all I came across were a few food stalls, vaguely Christmas themed...so I wandered instead over to the market outside the Arts Centre, which was a little more entertaining. Seeing as it was a lovely day, Southbank seemed like a good place to carry on my aimless wander. I will definitely be going back there; cafes overlooking the river and a bustling yet calm atmosphere, just regular people enjoying a sunny Sunday. My chosen spot was a cafe located on the river, literally. Ponyfish Island is built around one of the pillars that hold up a footbridge over the Yarra, so I got a slightly alternative view as I sipped on an ice cold blood orange juice. I also found that Melbourne has its very own 'love locks' bridge...something that apparently a world city is not complete without.

By the time I had run a couple of errands it was time for a bite to eat, and I have learnt already that the laneways of Melbourne are always a good bet for something tasty. No. 5 is on Centre Place, close to Flinders Street Station, surrounded by alleys full of cafes and some of the city's infamous street art. I had a great seat looking out onto the street, perfect for watching the world go by; seeing people of all ages, from young travellers, recognisable by their carefree attitudes, braids and tanned glows, to so-cool-it-hurts hipsters that seem to make up a large proportion of Melbourne's population, to middle-aged couples enjoying a relaxed Sunday coffee, to families on holiday, sun hats, backpacks and tour guides galore. 

The huge range of other people that I see is one of the reasons I love hanging out in the city. You never know what you might come across, and one of my favourite things is to sit and take note of who walks past...not in a creepy way, just in a way where I can build up my own personal thoughts and impressions of the people that live, work and visit here. 

The Beach

There's not much you can do when it's above thirty degrees and you're offered a lift down to the beach for the day, apart from say of course!

We drove down the Mornington Peninsula, which forms the Eastern edge of Port Phillip Bay, the ocean like bay that Melbourne sits at the top of. The peninsula is only a couple of kilometres wide at some point, which means popping from back beach (on the ocean side) to front beach (bay side) takes only a matter of minutes, and both sides are full of amazing little beaches, hidden from the road and only accessible along sandy tracks through the bush. One of these inlets is home to a huge rockpool which only really exists when the tide goes out and the pool is left, under an overhang of rocks that are perfectly positioned for jumping off. The sea was incredibly vivid shades of blue, green and everything in between, made even better by the contrast with the pale coloured rocks and sands. I stupidly forgot both my camera and phone that day, and so the only surviving evidence is from my cousin's phone...but I'll be back to places like this to get some snaps of my own soon enough.

Out West on the Coast

One of my cousins here works in sales and has to travel to stores all over the state and beyond. For him, this means tons of time away from home and a lot of driving. For me last week, this meant a road trip along the coast and some sightseeing!

Our trip went from Melbourne - Colac - Camperdown - Warrnambool - Portland - Port Fairy - Warrnambool - Great Ocean Road - Melbourne. The weather wasn't great, lots of rain, pretty cold, windy, but with a few good patches where I grabbed the opportunity to snap away.

Apart from wandering round each place - they're mostly small towns with only a couple of main streets - we had a few side adventures. I saw my first echidna on the way up Mount Leura just outside Camperdown, I stepped foot on a beach in Australia for the first time, saw the Twelve Apostles (of which only about seven are still standing) and went to the lighthouse that was on the tv show 'Round the Twist', a childhood favourite of mine.

There are quite a lot of photos to get through here, but I couldn't cut them down any further...this coastline is too good not to have an abundance of photos of it!