Updated By Paul We’ve been in Sydney now for nearly five months, if you can believe it (and even, come to that, if you can’t). I’ve got used to the Sydneysider way of life; mixing beach-side living with the close proximity to a major city. It’s a good relaxed combination of chilling out in the sunshine whilst still having access to all the modern conveniences of the 21st century i.e. 24 hour supermarkets with 24 hour transport to get you home from the 24 hour bars! Its not just these conveniences that make life seem well balanced here but also the little things like the fact you can go anywhere wearing flip-flops (or thongs as they are called over here!) and even that the local supermarkets will very kindly post you a leaflet in your letterbox telling you all the special deals you can get this week – how very thoughtful! I’ve become addicted to some of the different foods eaten here – as dull as it sounds, my favourite now is avocadoes – they’re not the expensive luxury items they are in England but just an everyday fruit as common as an apple or orange and just as cheap. I could eat these green wonders every day if I could!
All this convenience and comfort has made me complacent though and taken my eye off the travelling ball, which is what the whole experience being Down Under is supposed to be about. Therefore a trip was in order to feed that travelling hunger and where better to head than to Australia’s second largest city – the Victorian capital of Melbourne! After banishing the idea that everyone would be wearing top hats and have handlebar moustaches (its disappointingly not a victorian city caught in some 1800’s time warp but the capital city of the state of Victoria) it was time to experience the wonders of Australian low cost airlines with the fantastically named Singaporean airline – Tiger Airways.
With the increased security at airports across Europe and the US, it often feels like you have to show so many forms of ID and submit to so many checks you might be better off just agreeing to a full DNA test to prove who you are, your nationality, line of parentage and shoe size. When it comes to getting through security you’re under so much scrutiny from overly zealous security guards who force you to discard anything that might possibly be used to construct a bomb (including, but not limited to such dangerous articles as toothpaste, orange juice, or showergel) it therefore certainly came as a shock when we pitched up at Sydney airport, showed no form of ID or ticket and breezed through security along with my potentially lethal supply of shaving foam and a razor blade. Not so much as a raised eyebrow from the security guard slouched in the chair reading a copy of Airport Babes Monthly or something equally distracting.This all seemed a bit too easy –I assumed we must have to show some ID at the gate before boarding the plane surely? No, of course not, that would be far too secure – by simply waving a printed boarding pass from the internet which could have had anyone’s name on it we boarded the plane – we could have been anyone!
Now I’m not in any way suggesting that an internal Australian Tiger Airways flight is high on the international list of terrorist targets but it can’t take too much effort to hijack and divert a plane when no-one checks your identitiy. I don’t want to give any ideas to would be Al Queda readers of this blog but if you can fashion an explosive device from an old coke can and some shaving foam, no-one at Sydney airport is going to stop you!
Melbourne was certainly going to be be different to Sydney. The rivalry between the two cities goes quite a way back and has been known to be as fierce as Celtic versus Rangers, David versus Goliath, Tom versus Jerry and even Blondes versus Brunettes! In 1901, as all six British settlements joined to create the federation of Australia, both Sydney and Melbourne laid claims to be the capital of the new country but with all the squabbling between the two, no decision could be reached. Rather than let the other win - in a spirit of not so great compromise - a purpose built city was constructed approximately halfway between the two, off the rail line, near an old sheep station at Yass, that would not be convenient for either of them. It was named Canberra (the aboriginal term for ‘meeting place’). Melbourne’s stipulations were that it had to be at least 100 miles from Sydney and that Melbourne would be the temporary seat of power until it was built – talk about bitter!
Even the sports in the two cities are different – Sydneysiders love their footie. Not what I would call footie (that’s annoyingly known by the American term of “Soccer” here) but it is rugby league – the sport popular back in England in such glamourous northern towns as Wigan, Widnes and Warrington. Melbournites on the other hand prefer their own version of Footie – Aussie Rules Football – the sport where coming off with a broken nose means you’ve had a quiet game. As for buying a beer forget it – you’ll be feeling drunk and confused before you’ve even had a drop of drink. The standard glass size in Sydney and throughout the rest of New south Wales is a Schooner – a drink size approximately three quarters of a pint. The excuse they make for having a smaller drink is that because the weather is so hot a pint would get warm too quickly before you finish it. My solution to the problem? Drink the bloody pint quicker! In Melbourne you’d get a very funny look if you ordered a schooner – it’s pints or half pints only, except in Melbourne its not called a half pint, its called a pot! If you tried to order a pot in Sydney you’d soon get shown the door because its called a middy – confused? Yeah, I know, it’s enough to turn you to drink!
Walking around Melbourne you can certainly see the more logical design of the city compared to Sydney; the streets are wider, the grid design makes it easy to find your way around and the tram system provides quick and easy transportation. It becomes pretty clear that whereas Sydney was designed by soldiers and convicts who landed in the first fleet, Melbourne was designed later by architects and engineers, mainly during the Victorian gold rush of the later nineteenth century. In fact for many years Melbourne was always seen as the grander city of the two particularly during the first half of the twentieth century. The crowning glory was when Melbourne hosted the 1956 Olympic games – rubbing Sydney noses in the dirt. The effect of this though was only to spur on the Sydney passion for civic pride. Restrictions on the height of buildings were lifted so that Manhattan style skyscrapers could be built. A competition was held to develop an old tram garage station by the harbour bridge into an opera house to provide a cultural centre for Sydney. What is interesting though is that the winning design for the Opera house was originally rejected by the judging panel. It was only when a further expert was called in that he looked through all the original plans and pulled out the sail design for the distinctive Opera house as we now know it!
It wasn’t long before the the big corporations moved their headquarters to Sydney; supporting the suburban population growth and urban regeneration. The final victory for Sydney came as Melbourne lost its bid to host the 1996 Olympics and Sydney gloriously staged the 2000 games against a backdrop of gleaming skyscrapers, the harbour bridge and the Opera House!
In the centre of the numerous heritage buildings in Melbourne lies Federation Square – a modern complex of galleries, office space and restaurants built around an open, sunny central square on the banks of the Yarra river. Built to commerate the one hundred year aniversary of Australian federation it was supposed to be opened in time to mark the occasion on January 1st 2001. Finally opened in October 2002 and four times over budget it makes the much delayed Wembley Stadium building project look like the smoothest operation ever! All the galleries and museums are free and so it seemed like a good way to spend a few hours – I particularly liked the Australian Centre for Moving Image where you can make your own Matrix style motion capture sequence – way cool! The galleries were the usual collections of European style art – nothing too exciting and no aboriginal works on display but the tour of Melbourne Old Gaol was well worth the visit.
Supposedly haunted after 135 hangings were conducted in the gaol, you could opt to tour the buildings at night by torchlight, or if you are too much of a scaredy cat you can take the daytime tour with a live re-enactment of the Ned Kelly story thrown in! Ned Kelly, for those of you not fully versed in your Aussie folklore history, is the legendary anti-establishment murderer convicted of killing British police officers in Victoria, jailed in Melbourne and finally hanged in 1880. His skull was kept at the jail but stolen in 1978 so if you happen to be in Melbourne and see a skull lying around it may well be ol’ Ned’s Noggin!
Two other things Melbourne is famous for are great shopping and great food. I refuse to spend any time discussing the merits of shopping, wherever it is in the world, but I am reliably informed that in Melbourne it is good. (Thanks Anna).I’ll more than happily talk about the food though! There is a real café culture in Melbourne – very much like a European city – which you don’t get so much of in Sydney. The restaurants are smaller and more exclusive, the bars are probably more hip and cooler but you certainly do pay more for this exclusivity! Put it this way, the flight down to Melbourne cost $24, cocktail drink after dinner (as you do!) - $25 (around 17 pounds). Ouch! The food itself followed the same trend – everything looked great, very fancy, very expensive and very well presented but every meal we ate was disappointing. It was all either overcooked, underdone or just didn’t taste of anything. Give me the local fish and chip shop by the beach back in Manly anyday!
I think the problem with Melbourne is encapsulated in that description of the food. The city looks great, is very nicely presented, has pretensions to be European but is overly expensive and ultimately disappointing. If you want to be in a European city, why leave Europe?
The day after spending $200 on dinner we went to a Thai festival that was being held in Federation square. For lunch I spent $8 on a thai curry and rice from a food van which was infinitely better than the dinner the night before. Getting food this good at that price is a rarity in Melbourne whereas in Sydney it is common – in fact, I know a place in Glebe (in Sydney’s innerwest area) where you can get a kick-ass pad-thai for just 5 bucks! If only Melbourne would be brave enough to embrace other cultures as much as Sydney has done it would be a much more vibrant and lively place for it. But then I guess that’s what it is trying to do by holding the Thai Festival!
I’m not knocking Melbourne, I do like it there, but it reminds me too much of living in London (albeit a less crowded and dirty London) and heading to the Edwardian beach resorts of Bournemouth or Brighton for your holidays. Being in Sydney is more like being in Manhattan by the beach in Hawaii! Melbourne is definitely the classier, smarter, more cultured brunette of the two but is high maintenance and when you scratch beneath the surface isn’t quite as satisfying as you thought. Sydney on the other hand with her glamourous, golden blonde surf beaches and twin assets on constant display (the Harbour Bridge and Opera House!) certainly seems shallower and dumber but underneath the surface is actually quite cultured and sophisticated. Where else can you go and see a Shakespeare play performed in the open air at the Botanical Gardens or chill out at night with a beer in a disco amongst the exhibits at the museum!
I was happy to be returning back to Sydney, but will definitely return to Melbourne at some point. I didn’t get a chance to visit the MCG – the mecca of cricket in Australia – or hire a car and head out on the Great Ocean Road. Still with bargain flight prices it won’t take too much cost and effort - so long as the plane is not hijacked with a razor blade and diverted to Libya!
Anyway back in Sydney now, the sun is shining so heading down to the beach but not before a quick trip to the supermarket. A leaflet has just been put into the postbox, half price special on avocadoes – today only. Better slip into my thongs and head down there!
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