On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Deputinize America
I found the architecture striking. The Gold Rush there brought a great deal of infrastructure investment during the Victorian era.
One of my favorite teachers from my social justice oriented, blue collar Catholic high school had gone to Australia at some point after I graduated in order to become a chaplain at another Carmelite high school for boys there. We had been planning to go to Dark Mofo in Hobart in June of 2020 and then visiting him in Melbourne after the bacchanalia (odd juxtaposition, I admit). We’d been speaking about it even though he was ill, but then COVID hit and everything got shut down. He passed away from his underlying condition, but I finally did get to go and pay respects to his coworkers, and bring a little money. He was kind of a big deal – he’d gotten an Order of Australia for his charitable support of the aboriginal people of Bathurst Island. it was a bit of a hike to get there – a couple of tram transfers and a train ride out the Donvale line, followed by an Uber.
Everyone was lovely. It was kind of funny – the principal was gregarious, introducing me to everyone, and there was a family there with a boy looking to maybe go to high school there for the next term. I could see the sparks in the dad’s eyes when they introduced me as in “hoy shit, Carmelite school experiences must be great if somebody is willing to come 10,000 miles to pay respects to the memory of his teacher from 45 years ago”.
The boys all liked like Harry Potter extras in their coats and ties, lol.
Anyway, this was just one little memorial to him. The faculty were having a birthday party for some staffer and they all wanted to talk to me about him and my school here.
On another day, I went to the Melbourne Aquarium with every second and third grader in Victoria. I didn’t EXPECT to be there on a big field trip day and I felt a bit awkward, but it was fun. This salty croc is named Pinjarra, and is 6 meters long.
No trip to Melbourne is complete without going to wineries in the Yarra Valley. It didn’t disappoint.
So Much Truth That I Teared Up Watching It
Baud
I didn’t make it to Melbourne on my trip to Australia. Looks lovely.
eclare
A croc six meters long? Yikes!
Deputinize America
@eclare:
He was a big, big, big boy. Spooky – I wonder how much he eats daily.
sab
@eclare: Yikes indeed. We couldn’t even fit him into our living room without bending his tail.
WaterGirl
Holy shit. Now I wish I hadn’t googled 6 meters to feet. Shudder. 3 times the length of a very tall man. The stuff of nightmares.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: Melbourne, Florida is just as good. The Space Coast!
HinTN
@Steve in the ATL: And it’s only a short drive to the Alligator Alcatraz.
Steve in the ATL
@HinTN: yeah! Suck on that, Melbourne, Australia!
Gin & Tonic
Loved Melbourne both times that I visited. I have two cousins there; naturally we see each other very rarely. (Also, their father left the family, and Australia, under very bad circumstances long ago, leading to some understandable friction.)
Madeleine
This is a long dead thread, but I have to write. My then future husband and I spent several days in Melbourne in 1988 (bicentennial). We went for an international music conference, but had enough time to expore qui a bit of the city and to get our to see fairy penguins starting breeding season (very funny). Gardens, including the botanical garden, the zoo, . . . and wonderful food and wine. Sigh.
We also spent a couple days in Sydney near the Harbor. Again botanical garden was great and Manly.
Also birds!
currawong
I moved to Melbourne in 1998 for work and loved it. In fact we lived not far from Whitefriars College and several of the children from my kids’ school went there. The other advantage of living in the Eastern suburbs was that we were 40 minutes from the Yarra Valley and always took our visitors on a wineries trip.
My advice to visitors to Australia is to fly into Sydney, catch a ferry to Manly and walk through to the beach so you will have seen then harbour, opera house, bridge and a typical Sydney surf beach. Then, get the ferry back to the city, train to the airport and fly to Melbourne.
Atticus Dogsbody
You should’ve visited Bendigo. The world’s richest goldfields at the time made it the richest city in the world in the late 1800s, so there’s some amazing architecture. There’s currently an excellent Frida Kahlo exhibition at the gallery. Also, Bendigo is Australia’s first UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy.