Melbourne, Victoria

I've just spent a week in Melbourne - 4 days in the city and 3 days in St. Kilda, 15 minutes south by tram. I really enjoyed my time in there. Melbourne is the Australian centre for sports and arguably for the arts too, although Sydney is trying to the art crown off them. Melbourne is home to: the Aussie grand prix, the Aussie Open tennis, the Melbourne Cup horse race, Aussie Rules football, the MCG for cricket & Aussie Rules, the Telstra Dome for Aussie Rules, the spiritual home of the Socceroos fan base due to the huge Greek population in Melbourne (2nd largest population in the world to Greece), and probably more I don't know about.

I did quite a lot of cultural things, which was a good way to spend a few hours indoors when it was raining! I visited the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and its visiting collection of Guggenheim works from 1940s to now. They had some interesting art from people like Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichenstein and Jeff Koons. The NGV was also showing an exhibition on Sneakers and how they have evolved and reflected changing society over the past few decades, really interesting and loads of classic trainers that take you back, like the Reebok Pump!

More culture came my way at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), which contained a "Pixar: 20 years of Animation" exhibit. Maybe not as high brow as the gallery, but more fun. Apart from all the kids who were there on school holidays to scream at me! I also went to the Melbourne Museum which was good value, it contained exhibits on Aboriginal people, mammals, bugs, dinosaurs, the human body, the rainforest, a famous Aussie race horse called Pharlap, and much more.

Apart from culture, Melbourne has a european-feeling coffee culture with coffee shops all over the place and lanes dotted all about with outdoor tables to chill out at. It also has a load of top bars, I spent one night in Fitzroy on Brunswick St which is chock-a-blok with pubs & restaurants. If I was staying for longer (and had people to drink with) I would have spent more time there. St. Kilda was also cool, there are some dodgy pubs full of backpackers and tramps, but also plenty of nice places with good atmospheres. I found a really good hostel too in the Lonely Planet, called Olembia if you are ever in St. Kilda. It was much cheaper than the city hostel and quite small, so quiet, and clean and friendly.

One thing that slightly put me off the city bars was the old man who decided to have a pee in the corner of the pub next to the table I was sitting at with a couple of people from the Great Ocean Road tour. We left soon after that.

I would like to thanks Amanda for showing me around and inviting me out for drinks with her brother & sister one night. Meeting Amanda was a strange story - the chef and his wife at the place where I stayed on Fraser Island were really friendly and our group got talking to them about travel stories. On hearing I was going to Melbourne soon, the chef's wife, Aileen gave me her daughter's number in Melbourne and said I should give her a call when I got there. By chance her daughter, Amanda, worked at the Telstra Dome where I was headed to watch Aussie Rules, so I gave her a call and we met up to say hi at half-time. The next day Amanda and the others took me to Brighton Beach to see the famous huts, we had a coffee, then met up later to watch Australia beat South Africa in the Tri-Nations. We also played some pool - myself and her brother Chris tried to beat a couple of Croatians to win the table for the 4 of us to play. After being soundly whipped twice in a row, the Croatians felt sorry for us and let us have the table anyway!!

All in all I enjoyed Melbourne and am looking forward to seeing how it compares to Sydney - there is a big rivalry between locals from the 2 cities.

Melbourne, Victoria