melbourne highlights

Rather than thrust upon you an overly detailed account of our Australia trip, I've decided to mention a few highlights of each city. First up is Melbourne, where we spent our first 4 or 5 days (depending on how you count those travel "half days") in Australia. For those unfamiliar with Australia's geography, Melbourne is located in the state of Victoria, in the far southeastern corner of the country, and is just a quick hourlong flight from its rival Sydney just up the coast. Both cities are more northerly than our current home in Christchurch, which roughly shares a latitude with Hobart in Tasmania, so we experienced a welcome increase in temperature that provided the proper atmosphere for our vacation. We've wanted to visit Melbourne for a few years, as its riverside location, appreciation of historic buildings, and artsy culture make it feel like the cool older sibling of our beloved Minneapolis.

It's really a great city for walking, save for the congested shopping streets during peak times, and one of our highlights was a long stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens and back downtown via a path along the Yarra River. In the gardens we came across the magnificent Shrine of Remembrance (below), built at the end of WWI to commemorate Australia's sacrifices during the war and later updated to honor WWII veterans and later peacekeeping missions as well. It's interesting to note how the locations that feature most prominently in Australia and New Zealand's war histories vary from those that I'm most familiar with as an American: Normandy and Iwo Jima replaced with Gallipoli, the North Sea, and the Cocos Islands. The dappled red facade of the visitor center beneath the memorial is actually a representation of poppies, an appropriate symbol of warfare as poppies were often the first signs of life to emerge from the blood-soaked battlefields. We just recently learned about their significance, as April 25 was ANZAC day and many New Zealanders wore a poppy pin in commemoration.

Highlight number two was a day spent at the melbourne zoo, apparently the third oldest zoo in the world and home to plenty of cuddly (at least in appearance) creatures native to Australia that Bryan had especially been looking forward to seeing. Their kangaroo exhibit allows visitors to get surprisingly close to the animals, as you can see in this picture of Bryan and his 'roo. We'd taken the tram to the zoo, but as the increasing number of strollers edged us toward the exit, we decided to walk back into the city in order to take advantage of a welcome opportunity to indulge in decent Italian food, abundant along Lygon St, and to pass through the University of Melbourne on the way. Back in the city, we ended our day at the Old Melbourne Gaol, where the famous outlaw Ned Kelly ended his days as well, to view his death mask and famous body armor. This appealed a bit more to Bryan than to me, but I found plenty of engaging anecdotes to retain my interest, such as the poor immigrant who, as a result of not speaking any English, didn't find out about his own execution until the morning of the event.

My final highlight is our brief exploration of the National Gallery of Victoria, a world-class art museum with such interesting artifacts as an ancient stone lion muzzle, with which I was much enamored. I used to think that I'd like to discover a cylinder seal while on an archaeological dig, but I've now upgraded this desire to a genuine lion muzzle instead. I'm also a big fan (though a complete amateur in my knowledge) of Japanese painting and calligraphy, and found much to admire in this one, Walking through a Pine Forest in Moonlight, Kuncan (1660). How can you not love Japanese scroll art? If I had Mary Poppins abilities, this is the kind of scene that I'd leap into. Those craggy mountains, the tumbling water, the little buildings settled right into the midst of it all...I admire the imagination of these artists.

It was a great trip, as you can see, and should we find our time in New Zealand extended we'll hopefully find our way back to the adorable laneways of Melbourne. We know we've missed out on things that we really should see, like the seaside suburb of St. Kilda, but they'll have to be saved for this future trip.

-rachel