Elizabeth February 10th, 2008

Part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge.

Until today I had never made it to St Kilda, which is sort of ridiculous considering how long I’ve been in Melbourne now. I’ve always loved the photos of the creepy clown entrance at Luna Park, and since it’s such an icon I was really looking forward to checking it out.

Today was Festival Day at the St Kilda Festival, which involved a bunch of stages with 50 bands throughout the day, street performers, markets, kite surfing, beach volleyball, motocross and plenty of rides. The vibe sort of reminded me of Byron Bay’s NYE Festival, although on a much (much) bigger scale. We had a great time, and fell in love with this awesome city all over again.

Part of our day involved checking out Luna Park, which was just as creepy-looking in person as I had hoped! Plenty more photos of the day to follow.

• 101 in 1001 , Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth January 29th, 2008

If you’ve just joined us, our Australia Day public holiday was spent cruising down the Yarra, grabbing some lunch at the Crown, checking out the All Of Us exhibition at Federation Square, and then…

The plan was to finally get on that tram and head home, since it was exceptionally hot and we were already really sunburned from our trip down the river. It was one of those days where being trapped in jeans was miserable, and the sun was so bright that the glare was inescapable.

As we were heading back to the tram we noticed a street performer setting up for a show, so we decided to sit on the steps and see what he was going to do. He played Indiana Jones music and cracked a whip to get peoples’ attention, and before long had a crowd of several hundred people watching him.

He turned out to be Arizona Jones, “Indiana’s second cousin-in-law, once removed and substitute B-movie stunt double” (known in real life as Tim Motley). Once the show got going he pulled people out of the audience to help him hold his 4m circus pole, and the first person dragged up on stage was Tim. He had Tim do some pretty dumb stuff in front of everybody (including having him dance around like a sexually ambiguous bird), but he got right into the spirit of things without any hesitation.

That boy has no shame, it’s awesome.

A drunken heckler

The show got really weird when two of the “volunteers” seemed unable to confirm that they could be trusted with Arizona Jones’ life, so he ended up swapping them out with two different people. After that, a homeless drunk guy stumbled into the centre of the ring and demanded that Arizona light his cigarette. He then refused to leave the stage, and kept yelling at the poor guy who was trying to do his show. It was weird and drawn-out, but he handled it pretty well.

Tim must have been on stage for a good half hour in the end, with all the weird delays and side-jokes that were going on. His job was basically to hold the circus pole while Arizona Jones climbed it, and then get out of the way while he performed a balance trick with fire sticks and a whip.

And now, whenever I need to be reminded why I waited all that time for Tim to come to Australia I can just look at these photos!

• Funny Stuff , Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth January 29th, 2008

Shortly after our fun morning cruising down the Yarra, Tim and I said goodbye to Sally and headed for home. We had planned to catch a tram from Flinders Street Station, but the new All Of Us exhibition at Federation Square caught my eye and I decided to wander over there for a look.

Click here to open a larger version in a new window.

Photographer Michel Lawrence is the photographer behind the All Of Us project, and sought to photograph at least one person from each country that now calls Australia home. Each of the candidates were born overseas, and chose to start a new life in Australia.

His installation at Federation Square consists of 220 photographs 1.2m x 1.2m high (some appear to be double height), and will be on display for the next 2 months. A large format book is also available.

The Age has an interesting article about the photographer and one of his subjects.

Aside from the fact that this exhibition is a brilliant way to graphically represent our multicultural population, I don’t think Federation Square has looked more attractive in the time I’ve lived here. If you’re in Melbourne, it really is worth seeing.

• Art , Cool stuff , Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth January 29th, 2008

Part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge.

My friend Sally stayed with us over the long weekend, after a week with her family at the Australian Open. We had an absolute blast putting together Tim’s first Australia Day (pictures to follow), and hanging out on Sunday while we recovered.

Monday was a public holiday here, and she had to be on a plane at 3pm. Since I felt like a terrible host for not showing her more of the sights, we resolved to get up early and find a boat that would take us for a ride along the Yarra.

We got into the city in the morning, and bought tickets for a 1 hour trip on Melbourne River Cruises. It was only taking us to Docklands and back, but since we didn’t have too much time to spare we were pretty happy with it. However, it turned out that something was wrong with our boat so we ended up being upgraded to the cruise that took us all the way to Williamstown and back!

Tim & Sally on the ferry

Once we left the CBD area of the river it got very industrial, very quickly. Docklands looks like a bit of a wasteland from the water, although I can see that it will eventually become a really trendy place to live (perhaps like Teneriffe in Brisbane). We were also told that a themepark is planned for the area (Movieland, I think?) and also saw the beginnings of the new 120m Ferris wheel that’s being built.

Aside from that, our view mostly consisted of shipping containers, shipping container cranes, huge fuel liners (each of them with “No Smoking” signs in letters 5 metres high) and local bogans fishing from the rocks. We also went under a bunch of really low bridges, which I imagine is impossible to do at high tide.

Passing underneath one of the low bridges that crosses the Yarra

Beginnings of the new Southern Star Observation Wheel which, at 120m high, will be similar to the London Eye.

Shipping containers, and the cranes that unload them at a rate of 90 seconds per container

Bolte Bridge

Melbourne skyline from Williamstown

I could post another 50 photos from the cruise, but the ones I’ve picked give a pretty good cross-section of what we saw. Well, except for the bloated dead body that was covered with a sheet on the riverbank, and being guarded by a police officer (I don’t think it was just coincidence that the Westgate Bridge was only 20m from where the body lay). Very sad, but it was good to see that the adults on board kept the kids from noticing that anything was wrong.

When we got back to Southgate we had to say goodbye to Sally, who was catching the Skybus out to the airport. Tim and I grabbed some lunch at the Casino, but our day didn’t end there! More about that to follow in a separate post.

Big thanks to Sally for suggesting that we “try to cross something off that list today”, and for making this all happen!

• 101 in 1001 , Melbourne , Photo Posts
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Elizabeth January 28th, 2008

Today I saw 8 bridges, a dead body, and watched my boyfriend dance like a lunatic in front of hundreds of laughing people. None of them were related to each other.

(…except possibly one of the bridges and the body.)

Photos of the less morbid events to follow later today!

• Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth January 3rd, 2008

After enduring weeks of my whining, Tim finally came with me to go on the Giant Sky Wheel on the river. It’s supposedly the biggest travelling Ferris wheel in Australia, and in a couple of weeks it’ll be on its way somewhere else.

The view was beautiful from the top - there was a clear view of the river and cityscape, Federation Square and the MCG on the other side of us. My lenses weren’t fast enough to take a decent photo from the top, but even from the ground the view is really pretty.

The Sky Wheel has extended its stay at Birrarung Marr until January 28th, if you’re yet to check it out. I recommend it for something cheap and easy to do!

Oh, and on our walk home from the tram we encountered a couple of cute possums walking on the phone lines above us. I think this is Tim’s first wild native Australian animal sighting, except for the bogan who asked him for directions on New Years Eve…

• Life , Melbourne
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