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Blender Lane
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Before I disappear into the mountains for six weeks Sam and I decided to head into Melbourne for a night of r&r. Of course there's only so much shopping and eating I can take before I start to think of doing a walk, so with Sam keen to join me we decided to head up to Victoria Parade and do the Carlton & Queen Victoria Market Walk, more or less as written up by Julie Monday in Melbourne's Best Bush, Bay & City Walks. We were staying at the QT on Russell Street so we just ambled up a couple of blocks, passing the Old Melbourne Goal on the way and joined the described walk at the 8 hour reserve.
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Old Melbourne Goal looks a lot more welcoming now days.
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Solidarity Forever.....
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Once on our notes and map we headed down Franklin Street towards the bustling Queen Victoria Market, passing the Melbourne institution of Dracula's Theatre Restaurant, the City Baths and then squeezing passed the construction area for Melbourne Metro, which will hopefully be finished in my lifetime. Heading along Franklin Street we happened to glance down Blender Lane and discovered a great little lane full of street art. A lot of the small lane ways full of street art are now also full of tourists so it was great to find this little gem and be able to enjoy it on our own.
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Half of Melbourne has probably visited this spot over the years I'm guessing.
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Behind the blue cladding on Franklin Street the new Melbourne Metro is finally starting to be built.
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Sam, perusing the street art in Blender Lane.
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That's a little scary for the little ones....
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...and that's a bit scary for the big ones!
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Street art is like most other art in my eyes, the more you look the more you see so it pays to take your time and allow your eyes and mind adjust. Eventually we decided that we'd better make a move for the Queen Victoria Market. The Queen Victoria Market site has been used for a few different things over the years, from Melbourne's first cemetery, a school, a military drill hall and of course a market. The market is heritage listed and there is an ongoing redevelopment squabble going on, I don't know enough about the redevelopment to really comment much, although with property developers involved I'd be very dubious of the outcome being better for the public than it will be for the property developers bank balance.
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The heritage listed Queen Victoria Markets.
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The Queen Victoria Market consists of a series of low buildings and are a popular attraction in their own right. We wandered through a couple of them today checking out the sights and smells of the produce and fresh meats, if you lived locally this would be a great spot to shop. Making our way out of the markets we headed up Therry Street and Bouverie Street passing the bluestone facade of the old Melbourne Brewing & Malting Company on the way, the old building dates back to the 1880's but only the facade survives today.
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The Queen Victoria Markets are a feast for your senses.
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| Only the blue stone facade of the old Melbourne Brewing & Malting Company survives. |
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Reaching the small park of Lincoln Square we passed through and then headed up Pelham Street towards the slightly more substantial Argyle Square on Lygon Street. Argyle Square had what looked like cherry blossom trees blooming, although treat that as Feral Fact. The white blossoms floating down certainly looked nice anyway, whatever they are. Lygon Street is another of those Melbourne institutions, it's Melbourne's own little Italy and is home to some great eateries all with there own Italian flair. Despite the beautiful smells emanating out of the eateries we managed to make our way along Lygon Street today without succumbing to temptation, turning east down Elgin Street at the end of the strip.
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Lincoln Square.
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Argyle Square
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Lygon Street has no shortage of temptations.
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| Lygon Street |
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The next section of our walk had us walking through some more residential stress as we made our way towards Carlton Gardens. The terrace houses and workers cottages being the best feature of this part of the walk, along with the occasional remaining bluestone lanes between the terraces houses. After gently climbing up Barkly Street we entered Carlton Gardens beside the old gothic Carlton Gardens School Building, I'm thinking the children would of appreciated this fairy tale like school back in the day.
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Heading up towards Carlton Gardens the terrace houses were a feature.
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There are still a few blue stone lanes around.
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| The historic Carlton Gardens School. |
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Carlton Gardens is home to a few more of Melbourne's icons. First up we passed the very colourful Imax Theatre, before making our way through the park between the super modern Melbourne Museum and the UNESCO World Heritage listed Royal Exhibition Centre. The exhibition centre dates back to the 1880's although now days has been superseded somewhat as an exhibition centre by the more modern Jeff's Shed down on the Yarra River at Southbank. After passing the Hochgurtal Fountain with a couple of the local children frolicking in it, we made our way south through the manicured grounds of the park to meet Victoria Parade and complete our afternoons ramble.
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The super modern Melbourne Museum.....
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...and the historic Royal Exhibition Building, the first building in Australia to be World Heritage listed by UNESCO.
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The Hochgurtal Fountain, the kids are pretty keen, it wasn't a very warm Melbourne day today.
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| Carlton Gardens |
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Now as I briefly mentioned earlier Sam and I spent the night in the Melbourne CBD at the QT on Russell Street. This hotel is super modern and trendy, way too trendy for me to feel comfortable in the restaurant or bar. Like the rest of the hotel the rooms are also pretty modern, we had a Deluxe King Room, which gave us a fairly big, open plan room and bathroom, complete with sliding partitions if you want to keep the conversation going while you're luxuriating in the big bath or under the rain water shower. The king sized bed was on the very soft side which is a negative for me but the room had good wifi included which is a positive. For my $370 I think I'll try somewhere else next time we spend a night in the city though.
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The foyer of the QT.
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Our Deluxe King Room.
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| The partitions slid back for some open plan bathing. |
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The Dirt.
We did walk number 5, the Carlton & Queen Victoria Market Walk out of Melbourne's Best Bush, Bay & City Walks today. The walk comes in at around 5 kilometres so it's definitely on the easy side. The sights and smells of Queen Victoria Markets demand some time to explore, but for me Lygon Street is harder to pass through without stopping to partake in some great Italian fare. This is a nice little walk with plenty to hold most peoples interest I would of thought.
Relevant Posts.
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| A Carlton Garden Moreton island Fig Tree. |
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