Australia 2009 - Melbourne

This is my first visit to Melbourne. The most common thing I heard about Melbourne is the '4 seasons in a day'. During the 3 days that I was here, I did not get the summer, but it was cold throughout the 3 days. And it rained in the evening of the first day.

Throughout the 3 days, temperatures were ranging from 11 Celcius to 20 Celcius. That for Malaysia would be considered as cold.

Doing the tourist stuff in Melbourne for 3 days is quite easy.

Day 1 - Melbourne CBD and Docklands
Day 2 - Yarra River and Southgate
Day 3 - St. Kilda's

The best thing about Melbourne for tourist in terms of transport is their free City Circle Tram and Tourist Shuttle. The tram made a loop in both directions around the City Center, stopping at every tourist destination along the way. And it is very easily recognizable. The Tourist Shuttle - a bright red colour bus - runs a little big farther than the City Center and it goes across the bridge to the Southgate Precinct.

The best thing about Melbourne trams are they stop at every road intersection, either before or just after the traffic light at each road intersection. Thus you don't need to walk far to a tram stop. However, it also because of this, traveling in a tram is very time consuming.

Melbourne Docklands is a newly developed suburb in the west of Melbourne city. And it is one very interesting area. Very artistic with colourful buildings and interesting sculptures.

The Melbourne Jazz Festival coincides with our visit. For this year the festival started on 26 April 2009 - the second day of our arrival. They have an opening show at the square at Federation Square. It was a very cold evening and it drizzled half-way through the performance, but none of those watching made a dash from the square. The weather rewarded them by stopping the drizzle and the show continued. We left half way through the second performance due to the very cold weather.

Southgate precinct - just south of the Yarra River - is also a Art Center. It houses, among others, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Arts Center. We took the opportunity to visit the National Gallery and the featured Bugatti exhibition. Southgate also has a very nice food court area. Asian, European and Mid-east foods are all available.

St Kilda Beach, further south of Melbourne City, is easily reachable by tram. I noticed a very sizeable Indian population in this part of the city. The beach was practically deserted due to the cold weather. Luna Park, an amusement park, was also closed. But I can imagined the place to be crowded with people during summer and it would be a very busy place.

Queen Victoria's Market, another interesting place in Melbourne. A very big market that sells food and non-food related stuff. But I was more interested in the food area. Though there are many stalls, but the varieties are very similar. There are the fruits and vegetables on the open air section. The meat and poultry sections are indoor. I bought two type of salami (cured sausages) back. I think Australian sausages are pretty tasty.

My impression of Melbourne - A slower pace city compared to Sydney or probably even KL. Less vibrant. Lots of Asians. The city center is surprisingly small for a well-known city. Newer developments around the city such as Docklands and Southgate make it more vibrant. A mixed of modern and older buildings in the city itself. I will not choose to live in Melbourne. The following photos generally depicts Melbourne and its night scene at the Yarra River.