Animals and acrobats

We both had this Friday off and so decided to take the bikes out to Werribee, a suburb about 45 minutes by train southwest of Melbourne. From the station we cycled about 5 miles to Werribee Open Range Zoo, a place that stylises itself as a piece of Africa outside of Africa. They have lions, hippo, rhinos, giraffes, zebra and... meerkats. A safari tour brought us around the enclosure but of course the flipside of being able to observe animals in their (simulated) natural habitat is that you don't get particularly close to them. Still Cass was able to tackle her avian aversion and bravely eye-balled an emu until he scurried off and also showed great composure when approached by a lioness. A lioness suffering from sun-stroke, but a lioness nonetheless.

Despite their diminutive status, the meerkats actually proved the best value for money. Their enclosure spans the entire length of the restaurant window, so you can simply sit inside and watch them scurrying around. Cute and all as they seem, a troupe can apparently rip a tiger snake to shreds within minutes and will often devour birds stunned from flying into the window of their enclosure.

As mentioned, there is always some sort of festival or event going on in Melbourne and this weekend was no exception with not one or two, but three different events overlapping. This week Melbourne was playing host to an Food and Wine festival and a Jazz festival and but perhaps the most high profile event was the FINA championships. Not sure what that's supposed to stand for but it's all about swimming at any rate. Anyway, never one to miss an opportunity for festivities, Melbourne had a whole weekend packed with various shows, concerts, circus acts, puppet shows and general bizarre behaviour in Federation Square and in Birrarung Park down by the banks of the Yarra river. Quite what any of it had to do with swimming is anyone's guess but the upshot was that there was plenty of things to see this weekend.

There were several highlights including a french orchestral group called Ulik and le SNOB. Dressed in long black clerical robes the members glided around the riverside terrace on hidden wheels (possibly Segways) playing various compositions by Philip Glass, Michael Nyman and others. To add to the generally bizarre look of the set, each of the members had some kind of gas lamp attached to a wire suspended over his head which was lit by the "prioress" of the outfit. It sounds weird, and it was weird, but also strangely beautiful.

Over on the circus rig, two groups of acrobats did two different circus routines. The first was called "Dislocate," although for reasons that will become obvious in a moment, that might have been a better name for the second group. Dislocate comprised of three members, two men and a woman, who tumbled, stood on each other, did pratfalls, trapeze and other high-flying feats. They were clowns as well as acrobats, in that they made it look like their amazing stunts were all almost by accident. They squabbled and kicked at each other, falling in a way that (I have to assume) didn't hurt them but looked very impressive indeed. One of them swung on a rope suspended 30 feet in the air. In mid swing he slid down to hang only by his feet to gasps and screams of the audience. The woman climbed up and down two hanging pieces of fabric, twisting and spinning artfully.

The second troupe (for acrobats, like meerkats, come in troupes) was called "Circa: 31 Acts in 30 Minutes." It does exactly what it says on the tin - they raced against the clock to perform 31 different circus acts. Some were basic circus staples - juggling, trapeze, hoop-jumping. Some were much more quirky - two of them raced against each other to remove their underwear without removing any other item of clothing. Some were very cringe-inducing - two of the performers had double-jointed shoulders. One put his hands on a bench and then walked through them, causing his arms to pop out and then back into position. The other pulled his arm out of its socket and put it behind his head so that it was parallel with the other arm.

We saw their show twice, and the second show was "46 Acts in 45 Minutes." During their 30-minute show they nearly ran out of time, and had to do four acts in the final eleven seconds, resulting in one juggling while a second spun by her neck and the third juggled upside-down through his legs. The third then threw a ball at the juggler and followed it up instantly with a ringtoss that landed a ring on each of their necks for the grand finale. It was a very impressive display, and they made their time (just). The 45 minute show was a little more relaxed (as relaxed as you can be when you're juggling knives and racing against the clock). They managed to get all of their acts in singly, and we could see the final acts individually. They were actually more impressive when executed as they should be, though the countdown frenzy of the 30-minute show was also exciting.

In and around these more traditional acts, various roving performers were doing their very best to up the overall weird quotient. People dressed in blue lycra with shark fins stuck to their heads marched around for no apparent reason as did three bouncers on stilts and two huge puppet creatures in a cart. Among the unique and wonderful performances, Strange Fruit rated. 6 dancers were attached to 20 foot poles by their waists and from this height performed quite an elegantly choreographed "waterdance."

After dark, events got more creative still. In a couple of sections, video footage of human faces was projected onto the trees that skirted the park in an installation termed "Humanature". The wind rustling through the leaves brought the features to life in a most peculiar way.
On a barge situated in the Yarra itself a cellist (for want of a better term) played some bizarre type of instrument that appeared to be connected to gas flumes behind him. With every chord he struck and jet of flame lept into the night sky. When he got into full swing the flames raged all about him and he appeared as some demon musician playing in the depths of some apocalyptic inferno. It was truly mesmerising effect.

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike

I haven't heard anything more from the paper that contacted me last week, but I'll ring the guy today and see what the story is.

This past weekend was full of bike riding. The title of the post, by the way, comes from the Queen song, and I hum it to myself almost the entire time I'm out on the bike. The bike, I hope, will prevent me from evoking that other Queen song, "Fat-Bottomed Girls."

On Saturday we went for about a 15-mile cycle. The bike path along the coast is absolutely beautiful. It overlooks the sea the whole way, and we stopped once to wade in the ocean. At times the path goes high on cliffs over the sea, and sometimes it's right on the beach.

It's not all sand and sea air and the glow of health, though. Coming back Saturday night, I felt like I was going to die. I came upstairs and had to lie down because my legs wouldn't support me, and I was shaking and freezing cold. Les made me some tea, and I felt better in a few minutes. I think it was that it got cold in the evening, and we'd been excercising and sweating and then suddenly got cold.

Undeterred, we decided to go for a cycle twice as long the next day. We cycled 15 miles out to a place called Mordialloc (which really sounds like a villain in a fantasy novel). The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is on at the moment (there always seems to be something going on here), and on a pier in Mordialloc was one of the events. There were various stalls set up with foods from around the world, bands, a few carnival rides for kids, and generally everyone having a good time. It was worth the 30 miles, round-trip, and a nice thing to do on a Sunday. And I felt pretty good coming back Sunday night.

Music, Moomba and spending the night with bats

We've become band groupies of a Melbourne band called Buttered Loaf. They're a jazz/ska/ rock band. We saw them first at a night market we went to several weeks ago. They were the jazz band in the jazz/ bellydancing combo, in case you remember earlier posts. It's easy to be groupies of Buttered Loaf, as they don't have a CD and don't gig very much. But last week they played at Veludo Lounge, a bar in our neighbourhood. The gig was free (I think all of Buttered Loaf's gigs are free, again making them a good band of which to be a groupie), and the bar was cool - loads of comfy couches and a balcony overlooking Acland Street.

On the subject of bands, I'm going to use the opportunity to give a shout out to the Scissor Sisters. They're my obsession at the moment. Make sure you read the tag at the bottom of the post - I don't think Leslie would want anyone to think that he likes the Scissor Sisters. But he's not home at the moment - he's at a job interview.

A job interview? Tell me more! No, you'll have to wait. We have some more pictures of the Moomba Waterfest, and so I'm going to have to write some copy as an excuse to use them.

The Birdman Rally is apparently a well-watched ridiculous event. Aoife said she saw it on the news. Although, there is a lot of really awful journalism on Australian television news. We watched a purported news programme that was doing an "investigative piece" on Mormons. The reporter in her intro called the people of the town "pure evil," and asked her interview subjects why they "committed child rape" and "kept women as slaves." Regardless, though, it does seem that the Moomba Festival is a major event in the Melbourne event calendar.

There were fireworks all three nights of the festival, and they were really spectacular. There were half a dozen or so barges in the river, and first a guy came out on each of them and danced with fire. Twirled it, threw it, lit other things from it. It was cool, especially since it was choreographed with the other barges. Then the sky lit up with a huge fireworks display. Having experienced the NYC 4th of July and New Year's fireworks, I have exacting standards for fireworks. These made the grade.

The carnival rides also looked cool lit up at night. I don't have much more to say about that, but I wanted to use the picture.

The Aoifes have left. Aoife and her friend Aoife flew to New Zealand this morning. We met up with them in the botanic gardens for a picnic before they left. The botanic gardens here are very impressive. While the rest of Melbourne's greenery would be more accurately described as tannery, the botanic gardens are lush and green and absolutely stunning. Walking through them feels like walking through a rainforest, but better, because there's nice wide paved paths (which is about the level of Nature I'm willing to take). You don't have to worry about snakes as you stroll among trees with six-foot-diameter trunks. Or at least it doesn't feel like you have to worry about the snakes, as this jungle is nicely tamed. At dusk dozens of large bats fly from their cave somewhere deep within the gardens to seek out unwary night-flying creatures. The gardens officially close at 8:30, but when we got to the gate at 8:20 an over-zealous security guard had locked us in. There are no attempts to sweep the gardens and get everyone out - a bell rings five minutes before closing, and if you don't make it out in time, well, that's your problem. It was a problem, indeed. Leslie wanted to go cross-country and try and climb over or through the hedge, but the Aoifes and I knew that you shouldn't go into the underbrush and you shouldn't separate from the group when you're locked somewhere you shouldn't be after dark. We've seen the movies. The snakes, which seemed such a remote possibility during the day, now seemed like a real menace. Aoife (it's impossible to distinguish since I don't know their last names) was afraid of the bats and while when they first came out it seemed silly, now that we were facing a night with them they no longer seemed quite so harmless. We went round to other gates and found that they were locked as well, but we managed to squeeze out of one. So we didn't spend the night with the bats after all, though it was touch and go for a moment there.


He also turned down a different job he was offered. He's not really sure what the job was - he didn't get further than "so you dress up like a superhero..."

I have some news on the job front too. I got a call last night from a guy from Fairfax Media, a large media chain that owns a large percentage of the newspapers in Australia. They might want me as a sub-editor on one of their community papers. They have a few people trying out at the moment, but if they don't get it or if they need someone else they'll have me go in for a few trial shifts next week.

Are you ready to Moomba?

Wednesday afternoon we took a four-modes-of-transportation odyssey out to a suburb where there was rumoured to be a good second-hand bike shop. Okay, it wasn't so much rumour, it was more your man in the first-hand bike shop suggested it, after realising that despite his eager efforts we just weren't in the market for$500 bikes. So out we went to Bicylce Recycle, which in my opinion should be pronounced (BI-cycle RE-cycle to make the assonance work). We found a smallish warehouse full of bikes and a very friendly salesman who started with the all-important question: "what's your budget?" Instead of shaking his head and muttering that we'd never be able to find something suitable for so low, as the previous bike salesman had done, he set about helping us find something suitable for so low. Leslie is now the proud owner of a second-hand Shogun Trail Breaker bike and I have a brand-spanking-new Malvern Star. Both are mountain bikes in very good condition, and they both ride well. We came away with a whole packet of goodies - the two bikes, two helmets, two bike locks, two water bottles and holders, one bike pump, one bike repair kit. He was very reasonable on the whole kit and caboodle (I was convinced it was kitten caboodle when I was a kid), and knocked off easily $80 or $100 from the total for us.

Melbourne is a good city to cycle in, as there are bike lanes on most roads. And unlike in Dublin, you don't have to share the bike lane with buses, which seems to me to defeat the purpose of the bike lane. "Oh, here, cyclists, you get your very own space where no cars will bother you. Except of course for those multi-ton giants with poor visibility from way up there, but that's no bother, right?" But here in Melbourne, you get the bike lane to yourself, and cars seem to respect the bike lanes and not encroach.

We've discovered that there is a beautiful bike path all along the coast. We can get onto it from St Kilda Beach, at the foot of our street, and it goes for miles. It's truly beautiful. It's a dedicated bike path, with no cars or pedestrians. There are usually trees blocking sight of the road in most spots, so all you see for miles is beach, palm trees and open ocean. It goes past a marina, where loads of yachts and other boats are tied up. We cycled about 5 miles out and 5 back on it yesterday, and about half that distance the day before. The path is perfect for cycling - mostly flat and well-paved. We went as far as Brighton Beach yesterday, which does not appear to be full of old Russian people, unlike its Brooklyn counterpart. Today the headwind was incredibly strong and we were stung with sand, so we didn't manage to get as far. Tomorrow we may explore the path going in the opposite direction to see what sights await.


This weekend was the Moomba Water Festival. It's apparently 52 years old and involves one of the largest water skiing competitions in the world. Over a four day weekend (Monday is Labour Day here) a variety of different water based activities take place along the Yarra river and in the docklands. A carnival with rides is set up, and there is a stage with live music all weekend. Yesterday we sat on the banks of the Yarra and watched the water skiers for a few hours. They were really spectacular, especially the jumping competition. They soared up a ramp in the middle of the river and flew off at great speed. The farthest anyone got was 60.3 meters. The judges seemed disappointed with that distance, but we were well impressed.

Today was the Birdman flying competition. Competitors leapt off a high platform into the river in their self-built flying machines.. They got points based on entertainment value, aerodynamic design and distance travelled. Most just jumped off the platform and plummeted straight into the river, but a few hung in the air for a few seconds before crashing into the water. Quite a few went for the cape-and-a-silly-costume motif, and some of these had no apparatus at all but just jumped off the platform in tights and a cape. The one that got the crowd's approval the most had a very impressive-looking machine made of aluminium and plastic. It had a large wingspan and looked like it might glide and go a ways. As soon as he jumped off the platform, however, the wind caught the glider and flipped it upside down, with his legs flailing in the air. He hit the water on his head with the glider on top of him. It was a hell of a fall, though it wouldn't really be called flying. The longest anyone managed to stay in the air was a few seconds, so it was really a question of how fast they fell, not how far they flew. It was extremely entertaining - all these lunatics launching themselves off a 25-foot platform in ridiculous outfits and contraptions. In Dublin they have a similar event sponsored by Red Bull.

Yesterday we also went to see a strange play, which was unconnected to the Moomba events. Called "Small Metal Objects," it was set in Federation Square, which is the main Square in Melbourne. Four actors wearing microphones interacted in the public space, and the audience watched them with headphones. But if you didn't know which people in the crowd were actors, it looked like the audience was watching nothing, since the actors blended well into the crowd of people who are always milling in Fed Square. Indeed it took a while to figure out who the actors were. Kind of like playing a live version of "Where's Waldo?" (Wally for the Europeans) except that Waldo has had plastic surgery and a change of wardrobe. Passers-by were very confused by the group of people raptly watching nothing, and many a "what are they doing? What are they watching?" was asked. The play itself was about people with mental disabilities and how they interact in the world. It wasn't a phenomenal play, but the setting and concept were intriguing enough to make up for it and hold the attention.

Finally, for those of you who care (and we actually did get a couple of requests for this), here's a floor plan of our apartment. Leslie is not an architect and takes no responsibility if this isn't 100% accurate. It's pretty close regardless.

Night of the Possums

Saturday night, on a tip from Aoife, we went down to Catani park (which is set back about 20 feet from St. Kilda Beach) on a possum hunt. We had heard that they only come out at dusk (about 8.30pm here at the moment) and we were a full hour early so we walked along the beach and watched one of Melbourne's magnificent sunsets. It's probably got a lot to do with the lack of rain, but most evenings the sky is truly spectacular for about a 20-25 minute window.

Every evening the entire length of the beach is peppered with people flying these huge kites which look capable of carrying their owners off into the ocean and indeed every now and then a particularly strong gust will drag one of them into the water, kicking and splashing. Looks like great fun and we'll probably try and rent one or something at a later date.

By 8.30, armed with an apple and a stale crumpet (thank God for small miracles, they sell crumpets in the supermarket next to us!) we settled ourselves in the park and waited for the possums. The first one we saw saw us too. Peering out of the top of a twenty foot palm tree it let out out a low threatening guttural growl that gave us a moment of pause. Despite looking like a cuddly obese squirrel he sounded like what I imagine a Tazmanian devil warming up would sound like.


We backed off for awhile and let him climb down and soon noticed that most of the trees were shedding at least one possum. One must have lost his footing as he came down like a coconut, but despite the thump picked himself up and waddled off. Kind of like cats but without their grace. Once on the ground and fully awake, they were a lot less edgy and would come right up to you to be fed, taking food right out of your hand. The strength of their eyesight is questionable. They appeared to be hearing the food hit the ground, only seeing it when they came close.

About half of the trees in the park have a strip of hard plastic sheeting wrapped around the circumference of the trunk about 16 feet or so above the ground. Ostensibly this is too keep the possum population down by denying them access to these trees, although quite what anyone would have against them is any one's guess. Still, one person's fat squirrel is another's climbing rat. Last week, Aoife met two old women who were spear-heading a movement to protect the present possum population (the PPPP?) and tried to recruit her to go with them to city hall and lodge their complaint against the measures being taken to keep them down.

We noticed also that in the case of many of the branded trees, someone had fixed a length of metal tubing, about 10" in diameter, half way around the trunk and a couple of feet below the plastic. I suspect that these may be counter measures launched by the PPPP to ensure that the possums have somewhere to sleep.

We checked them out on-line after and apparently they're the common Brushtail Possum. There were no warnings of diseases or anything so we went back the following night and this time used up four apples and a hunk of bread. Cute little things, but we held off from actually touching them in case they turned nasty.

Ok, for those of you not wholly gripped by all things possum, here are some other things that we've been doing. I started college today. It was mostly more orientation but, this time, of a more detailed and useful variety. We were also given our schedule for the year. For the most part we're in class from 10am to 2pm, Monday to Thursday. All other time, including Fridays is dubbed Prac time during which we are to use darkrooms, studio space, go location shooting or anything else that takes our fancy. So, I'll be able to get a part-time job and still leave plenty of time for "prac" without too much difficulty. There is also quite alot of hands-on training scheduled throughout the year, which promises to be very rewarding.

Cass is continuing to get temp work by the day, though consistently enough to fill out a week. She's vying for typing work (over envelope stuffing) as it'll pay better. We went bike shopping today as we have a half plan to go on a cycling trip this weekend. We were given the address of a second-hand dealer which we'll check out tomorrow.

Finally, we started the 1-2 week process of getting broadband in our apartment and when we do, we'll be fully Skype-able. When we do we'll stay in more personal contact. Maybe.

Envelopes and intolerance

"Really enjoying your blog and all the great photos and the account of life down south. Never mind Dave, it's not a bit boring, and I love all the detail of life in Melbourne." -- Anne-Marie Quinn

"Love your blog. And I love the pictures!" -- Karen Freeman

"Nice blog btw." -- Rob O'Connor

"Your blog is so cute, with the photos and all!" -- Frances Haworth

"What a fantastic blog its makes me want to jump on plane." -- Christabel Atkins

"BORING!" -- David K Lappin

"The individual protests against the world, but he does not get beyond protest, he is just a single protestor." -- Friederich Durrenmatt

I had a temp job yesterday stuffing envelopes. I have no idea what was in the envelopes, but there was some sort of registration form. Vast swaths of the rain forest were going into this mass mailing, and most of the letters would doubtless go into the bin. Still, next time you encounter junk mail, think of the effort (and papercuts - I should get combat pay) that went into posting it to you.

There were a few other temps with me, so it wasn't too bad - we were able to have a bit of banter. At least at first. All was going well until this English girl started talking about how tolernt and gay-friendly Melbourne is. She concluded with "It's disgusting. They're not normal." Um... say that again? She said she "hates gay people." I've always suspected that this is what intolerant biggots whisper to each other over late-night vodka sessions with other crazy conservatives, but to admit to people you don't know that you're an intolerant biggot? I just didn't think that was done.

Baiting her, I said "Huh. How about blacks and Jews? You hate them too, do you?" She owned that they were all right, because "they can't help being black or Jewish." Where to begin with that?

There was nearly a brawl over it. I said she was a biggot, and told her I'd never met someone who was openly homophobic with strangers. She said she was entitled to her opinion. Another temp stepped in and quieted us down, making us drop the subject.

It raises the question, though, if she is entitled to her opinion (and we good liberals believe she is), how do you tolerate intolerance? We'll allow different points of view, different opinions, but what about those that don't tolerate us? This isn't a tricky call, like abortion or the death penalty (which came up later - she thinks people in prison should be tortured and killed - but I didn't rise to it, having caused enough trouble). This is the fundamental dignity of every person. Are there things too heinous to accept? People can make their own choices and make their own decisions, but you're not allowed to be racist/ sexist/ homophobic/ anti-Semetic? I'll accept you, but you have to accept me too. If you don't, I won't accept you anymore?

I told them about blood diamonds earlier in the day, and argued against the purchase of diamonds unless they are certified by the Kimberley Process. They'd never heard of conflict diamonds, but I hope I was at least able to make them think the next time they hankered after diamonds.

Last night Les and I went to see Children of Men and Catch A Fire as a double-bill at the Astor Theatre. It came up in conversation with my fellow temps what we were up to in the evening. They'd never heard of Catch A Fire, so I outlined the plot, a story about a man during South African Apartheid who was arrested and tortured for a crime he didn't commit, and becoming radicalised by his experience, became a freedom fighter against white oppression.

I think I became known as the crazy liberal.

Moving along

Another day, another piece of Ikea furniture. Our hall is now cluttered with empty flat pack boxes and our kitchen drawer full of Allen keys. In addition to a bed we are now currently in possession of a coffee table (aka dining table - it's that kind of apartment), a chest of drawers, two footstools/sitting stools and a wardrobe (referred to locally as "robes"). Our apartment has a faux-blondwood Swedish furniture motif. We've spent the last few days shopping around, gathering and eventually assembling these pieces of furniture. As in New York, people here often leave pieces of furniture outside their houses when they're trying to get rid of them and they're considered fair game for anyone who wants them. Most are understandably horrible, but we managed to get a swivel chair for the study in this fashion. We're looking to get a sofa-bed on eBay at the moment and once we do, we'll be pretty comfortable.

The electricity and gas didn't come on until Tuesday so we were straddling both the hotel and our apartment for a couple of days. We finally moved out of the hotel on Thursday morning and not a day too soon as we were both covered in some kind of bed bug bites by then. They don't itch too much, but they take forever to heal and so we both look like a couple of lepers at the moment. Cass wants to post a photo to illustrate this but I've been trying to dissuade her. Dave's friend Aoife says that they're pretty common here. Something to do with the climate perhaps. Anyway, we're out now, thank God.

The fridge is now successfully installed as well so that last night we were able to have our first meal in our new apartment. With so many markets selling fresh produce, we're spoiled for choice here. The Prahan market has a stall that makes it's own pasta, so we've been trying that. Absolutely delicious.

Cass has got some temp work already and is currently out winning bread by stuffing envelopes. She worked 4 hours yesterday at a reception desk in the city. She's registered with a temp agency while continuing to apply for jobs in journalism.