Arrive Curious, Leave Inspired
Motto seen around
Australia
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| Even wet - the city is beautiful at night. |
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| Very hilly and contoured lush green farmlands |
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| Even the roads are quite tortuous - Very seldom did we see clear skies during our month stay |
Julie - if you read this - THANK YOU again for such a great visit - we loved it. We would also like to thank our AirB&B hosts who prepared delicious Nepalese hot tea each morning, getting us ready to face the bleak weather.
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| Close up of the stinging leaf |
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| Each fine hair - - - so fine yet so wildly itchy |
OK – this is a lot about plants we saw while touring the
countryside because I am a plant loving kind a person but I think they are an
integral part of culture and history.
What you eat, how you share, what you make with them, what you trade for
them, etc…
One of the members of the drier rain forest is the Giant
Stinging tree (Dendrocnide Excelsa). Its
large green leaves glisten with fine white silica-tipped stinging hairs. When touched they cause a pain that can last
for days, even months. Think nettles on
steroids.
Crinkled, dry and brown – beware dead leaves still
sting! Amazingly, dried leaf specimens
collected in 1910 can still cause pain.
If dead leaves are disturbed, stinging hairs can float in the air. You wouldn’t want to inhale them, so leave
them undisturbed on the ground.
So next time you see a sign in Australia that suggests you
wear closed shoes, it is usually the reason why. They do not want you to walk in these prickly
leaves barefoot.
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| Moreton Fig and Mike between buttress roots - wearing shoes |
Moreton Bay (Ficus Macrophylla) fig’s extensive root system
is good at protecting creek banks from erosion.
They are called strangling trees because they start from above a host
tree (probably from bird carried seed) and send long cable-like roots that
eventually enclose the ‘host’ tree, restricting its sap, sunlight, etc. The host tree slowly dies. They can grow to 48m (160 feet) with branches
spreading 30m (100 feet), its roots radiating 12m (40 feet) across the ground.
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| Forest of Paper Bark Melaleuca trees |
It is believed that various eucalyptus or maleleuca trees
which continually shed their bark do this to avoid the strangler fig attaching
and killing them.
They have a very long history of using pollinator wasps,
maybe 60,000 years. That wasp is only
3mm (0.1 inch) long! Each time you eat a
fig, even the cultivated ones, a tiny wasp is found within…
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| Bunya tree - very distinguishable from distance |
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| Bunya Pine 'Cones' the size of footballs |
Another interesting
tree we encountered was the Bunya Pine (Araucaria Bidwillii). The tree has ‘pine-cones / fruits’ that
somewhat look like green pineapples that the natives gather every 3 years when
the harvest is good. Excellent food
source… A conifer but not a true pine it
is often called the false monkey puzzle.
The cones are the size of footballs and contain dozens of nutritious
kernels. The kernels taste somewhat like
chestnuts and can be eaten raw, boiled, roasted, ground, or fermented. When boiled, the water turns red and is
offered as a delicious tea. The wood is
renowned for making very good acoustical instruments.
In short, you can just about grow anything you want in
Australia and the food we found was of very good quality from the meats to
fruits, vegetables, and cheeses…
Australia is a net exporter of food.
Some of the best yogurts are made here (Noosa is sold in the US), coffee
is superb, and even corner stores (the likes of 7-11 in the US) carry a very
decent collection of good food, in addition to a small amount of prepackaged
crap.
Point Nepean National Park, a little more than 70 miles from Melbourne
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| Point Nepean from the air |
Point Nepean is renowned for the outstanding beauty of its
scenic landscape and its rich history, playing a very important role in shaping
the early settlement, quarantine and defense of Victoria, Australia. Located at the very tip of the Mornington
Peninsula, the park contains panoramic views of Bass Strait, the heads and the
expanse of Port Phillip and was established in 1852.
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| Looks ominous to me with the chimney etc. |
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| But beautiful setting and grounds |
Because of its isolation, it became a good and necessary place
for a sanitary station against typhus, dysentery, measles, Spanish flu, and
many other diseases endemic at the time (mid 1800 to mid 1900).
In those days, boats flying the yellow flag would be
quarantined for 40 days. The word
quarantine comes from the Italian for forty days: quarranta giornio… Glad that only the yellow flag, not the 40
day requirement is still in use today!
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| From jetty, luggage carried on tracks to be fumigated |
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| Heavy doors separate all areas |
A large bath and wash house for reception of infected
clothing and distribution of clean clothing was built. Interestingly enough, the people in 1st
class on the boat would be treated better than the folks in 2nd
class, even here. Pregnant women were
treated differently and located in separate quarters because many could not be immunized
during pregnancy.
Lepers were handled here too and for some reason were
cremated separately only on Wednesdays.
Cattle quarantine also took place here but was eventually
moved to the Melbourne Zoo.
Foul luggage was carried on tracks coming from the jetty and
passed through into the disinfecting building and then into the Clean Luggage
Store. Items had to be sorted for either
fumigation by steam or formaldehyde.
Even mail was fumigated with a mix of formalin and potassium
permanganate. That process would usually
take a whole night.
The park is narrow so we can see water on both sides, open
ocean and wild on one side, bay and calm on the other. The junction is a good place to surf, with a
mixture of sponge gardens, kelp forests, and emerald sea-grass beds.
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| Old Fort very close to the ocean |
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| Tunnel to fortified areas |
Point Nepean is home to the most heavily fortified port in the Southern
Hemisphere. The very FIRST WWI shot came
from here toward a German vessel that surrendered: 12:45pm on August 15th,
1914, only 3 hours and 45 minutes after the war was declared.
Australia’s Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared while
diving/swimming in December 1967, a mystery that was never solved even after
the largest search ever executed.
Speculations from being drunk to paranoid kidnapping abound. While we visited for a day we watched what
looked like a helicopter water rescue happening, a very treacherous area.
The Boonwurrung people lived here thousands of years
ago. The same story is told around the
world. Native population is moved out
from the best areas when settlers arrive…
Flinders Street Station
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| Famous clocks of the station |
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| Seen from above on a sunny day |
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| Card from 1905 |
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| The day we were there... |
Meeting
your date under the clocks at Flinders Street Station is an old Melbourne
tradition. As the 1905 postcard above shows, people were meeting there
even before the current station was built. The graceful front steps with their
elegant brass rails are the perfect place for people watching.
What
about the Clocks themselves? They have plaques on them dating from 1916, but
that's just the first time they were overhauled. In fact they are much older
than the current station - they were first installed over the old weatherboard
station in the 1860s, only 40 years after the city was first thought of and
they’re still working. The things they must have seen!
Up
until the 1970s, they were changed manually, by a man with a very long stick.
Then, in 1983 the railways had a brief flirtation with the idea of digital
clocks. There was such an outcry they reversed the decision and simply set the
old ones up to be computer operated.
Apparently Melbournians love their clocks. Today, digital clocks can be seen inside
alongside the original clocks, best of both worlds.
Coop’s Shot Tower
Originally built in 1888, the tall
brick tower was used to create shot pellets. Such structures were not uncommon
during the era as the process of creating the little lead balls involved
letting droplets of molten metal fall the length of the tower into pools of
water that would flash-form them into their spherical shape. During its heyday,
Coop's tower could produce around six tons of shot a week. Luckily, the need
for so much fire power dwindled over the years and the site diversified into
other metal works. While the tower was never abandoned, the metal working at
the site eventually ceased and the 164-foot tower became just a landmark.
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| Tower under cone of steel and glass for protection |
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| Mixing of old and new |
Rather than letting the old spire
crumble, in 1991 a giant cone of black steel and glass was built over the
tower, completely enclosing it. A museum regarding the history of both the
tower itself and the history of Melbourne in general was opened inside the
building. The museum has been kept remarkably well, updated with new
technologies such as gesture-controlled displays being installed in the historic
tower.
All around are a thriving modern shopping
center, Melbourne is a master at mixing the old and the new. Everywhere you look, old buildings or part of
old buildings are integrated in the design of new ones.
Interesting Melbournian Tidbits
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| Lots of street art in Melbourne |
- In 2010, Melbourne was named by International Business Times as one of the best cities in the world for viewing street art.
- World-famous "Aussie" beer Fosters was first brewed in Melbourne in 1888 - by brothers from the USA, William and Ralph Foster. Nearly no one in Australia drinks it. Mike did not see it for sale in any of the liquor stores he shopped at.
- Vegemite was invented in Melbourne in 1922 after months of laboratory tests by food technologist Dr. Cyril Callister. Our first host gave us some to try in Caloundra. It is very salty, use very little. This iconic Australian spread is still only manufactured at the Vegemite factory in Fisherman's Bend, Port Melbourne.
- Melbourne's famous tramway system is the largest outside Europe and the fourth largest in the world. We can attest to how comfortable, efficient and convenient it is.
- Before Melbourne was called Melbourne, it was named Batmania after John Batman, a colonist farmer from Tasmania who landed in Port Philip Bay in May 1835.
- In the 1880s, the Yarra River was a cesspool and the city was nicknamed Smellbourne. In 1897, after one typhoid epidemic too many, the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works built a sewage system to transport wastewater to Werribee, 30 km away. Today, work continues to keep cleaning up the river that runs through the center of the city.
- Melbourne has been ranked the world's most livable city since 2011 (and among the top three since 2002), according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
- In 1880, Melbourne was the richest city in the world.
- Melbourne has the world's largest Greek population outside of Athens.
- They play bike polo instead of horse polo.
- Moomba, Australia's largest free festival, held in Melbourne, means 'up your bum' in many Aboriginal languages.
6 O’Clock Swill
Six o'clock closing was
introduced during the First World War, partly as
an attempt to improve public morality and partly as a war austerity
measure. Hotels catered for a short but
very heavy drinking period after work before the early evening closing by
extending their bars and tiling walls for easy cleaning. The phenomenon changed
Australian pubs as rooms in the building were converted to bar space, billiard rooms disappeared and bars were knocked together.
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Young and Jackson Hotel across street from Flinders Station
Where men rushed for the 6 o'clock swill
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| And to see the famous and risqué painting of Chloe |
The law was intended to reduce drunken
mayhem and alcohol consumption but it encouraged them because of the short time
men had to consume alcohol between "knock off time" and 6pm.
The rush to
drink = Six o'clock closing often fueled an
hour-long speed-drinking session, as men raced to get as drunk as possible in
the limited time available. Early public house closing times had only limited
success; they did not have a significant effect on reducing alcohol consumption
and contributed to the growth of "sly-grog" venues and the illicit alcohol trade. In many cases, patrons would buy alcohol at
bottle shops to consume at home after the six o'clock swill.
Tiddly oggies. A
Cornish pasty with crust similar to kind of bag in which miners carried their lunch;
they resemble somewhat a Mexican empanada.
In meager times only filled with potatoes, in more prosperous with meats
and other vegetables. Tiddly (naval
slang for proper) aka Proper Cornish Pasty (baked pastry).
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| Today's version of Tiddly Oggy is quite scrumptious |
Royal Arcade and Gog and Magog
Opened in 1870, the longest standing arcade (a covered passageway with arches along one or both sides) in Australia. From mosaic flooring to glass roof and rows
of arched windows, it is stunningly well preserved and beautiful.
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| Evening light version |
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| Day time version |
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| Gog and Magog |
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| Father Time aka Chronos |
The most
striking feature of the arcade is the magnificent Gaunt’s Clock which is
flanked either side by two giant statues of the mythical figures of Gog and
Magog. Since 1892, these mammoth statues (each 7 feet tall) have struck chimes
at every hour, and are still heard today resounding throughout the arcade.
Several myths surround Gog and Magog, including one where they were guards of
the underworld and gods of dark spirits. They are replica of the ones in the
Guildhall in London. Chronos (Father
time) is posted at the other end of the arcade.
The beautiful stock exchange and Bank building
More mixing of old and new gracefully.
ANZ’s Gothic Bank.
Gothic revival, a rare heritage from the prosperous Victorian era, it
was built in the 1880’s and restored in the 1990’s. Unusual partnership between a banker (Sir
George Verdon) who preferred art to banking and an architect (William Wardell
eventually followed by William Pitt) who was better known for designing
cathedrals and public buildings resulted in inspired structures. Influenced by Venetian and French Gothic
tradition, it eventually expanded to host the Stock Exchange. There are heavy glass tiles in room to help
light up basement below.
More mixing of old and new gracefully.
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| Newly renovated atrium |
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| Inside bank today |
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| Detail of the amazing workmanship |
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| Not to feel awe with an entrance like this |
Went through a $20M restoration in 1989 and it shows. Stunning!
Well - with only two days to visit this most enchanting city that is all we have to share except for one last tidbit.
- Proud Mary's owner, Nolan Hirte, is coming to Portland in November 2016 to show the NW how real coffee is done. See article here and lucky you Portland...
A brolly is an
umbrella… so bag your brolly with this rain in Melbourne.
Come enjoy your stay…
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