A Walk In the City Parks

Tuesday (9/11), I went to a different part of the city that I hadn't been to yet. My plans were to see some alleys/lanes, arcades, a couple cathedrals, and the gardens. While on this walk, I decided to heighten the level of difficulty and planned to find 17 more of the 50 elephants around the city. 2 other au pairs joined me on this excursion, but they aren't worth mentioning unless you want to hear about how I had to pull conversation out of them, listen to them complain about how warm/hot it was, and they didn't want to go inside anything or take pictures of anything...

The Walk: Melbourne has 7 self-guided walking tours mapped out and described in brochures. Each one has a different topic/theme. The one I chose to do was "A Walk In the Park". It is a 3.75 km (2.25 mile) walk that is supposed to take 2 hours.

The Elephants: They are part of an exhibition titled "Mali in the City" that features 50 life-sized painted baby elephant sculptures inspired by Mali, the Zoo's first Asian Elephant calf, to celebrate Melbourne Zoo's 150th Anniversary in 2012. On August 10th they were placed in different locations around the city and will be collected at the end of next week (yes, I am getting a severely late start to finding them), taken back to the zoo for an exhibition there (which I will go see), and then auctioned off in mid-October as a fundraiser to fight extinction of animals.

And with that... my first official excursion into the city of Melbourne begins!! 

     At 10:23 I got on the train for the 22 minute or so ride into the city. I arrived at Flinders Street Station at 10:45. I went to the visitor's center to get the map/brochure of the walk and while there, found 3 of the 17 elephants. At 11:00 I started a walk that I had mapped out for myself using Google maps. I walked up Swanston Street to get pictures of 5 more elephants. 1 of the 5 included an elephant painted by Graeme Base (one of my favorite children's authors and illustrators!!). His elephant was titled "Night and Day" and as visible in the picture below, one half is black while the other has leopard spots. This idea actually came from a 2004 book of his titled "Jungle Drums" where the animals shift and change color and body shapes. I also got pictures of two iconic Melburnian statues. The one titled "Three business men who brought their own lunch; Bathman, Swanston, and Hoodle" was sculpted by to Melburnian sculptors and unveiled in 1994 as a gift of the people and government of Nauru. It consists of the 3 tall, skinny, small headed guys in suits, carrying bags/lunches and looking in different directions with different expressions. The Weather Vanes are the second set of statues that I saw. There are 4 weather vanes on the corner of Bourke and Swanston Streets - a horse, pig, fish, and bird. Each animal symbolizes an aspect of melbourne - culture/sport, hope/future, waterways, and parks/gardens (respectively). They are quite tall and the animals are made of copper with gold detail. The artist was actually born in the US, but moved to Australia when he was 34 . I only got a picture of the horse and pig (why? I don't know), so I plan to go back for pictures of the other two.

     Next, I walked down Bourke Street to get another elephant and to see the Royal Arcade. Then I walked down Elizabeth and Collins Street to see the Block Arcade. Both Arcades (no, not games) used color and architecture that made them look clean and sophisticated. A shade of cream was used for the main color and large columns/pillars lined the sides with finely detailed archways over the center. Directly above the archways was a ceiling constructed with a material that appeared to allow sunlight in as a lighting source. The Royal Arcade had large semi-circle glass panes over each store front, while the floor tiling in the Block Arcade used several different colors and was patterned like a Persian rug. I plan to go back and actually go in and look around at the shops.

     This walk looped me back around to Flinders Street Station. By this time it was 11:30, I had been out for an hour, and hadn't even started the actual 2 hour walk yet. I sat on a large, granite block thing listening to some guy sing and play guitar while I looked out at St. Paul's Cathedral and Federation Square to eat "lunch” (dried apple, cashews, and bagel chips). As I was eating "lunch" here I tried really hard to wrap my head around the fact that I was really really in Australia... but I couldn't do it.

With Graeme Base's Elephant

The Royal Arcade

     After this short break I began the (what should have been) 2 hour walk through part of the city. I started with some pictures of Flinders Street Station, which has got to be the coolest train station ever. For a train station, it is unimaginably large. When inside it feels very modern and kind of looks like a mall, but when you walk outside, it's age becomes much more apparent. Along with its size, the yellow, green, and red coloring and the many fine details make it a frequently photographed building. Another cool feature of Flinders Street Station are the several world time clocks along the front. When looking at the picture below, right above the opening there are several small white circles - those are clocks showing the different times around the world. FUN FACTS: Flinders Street Station opened in 1854 and was the first city railway station in Australia. 

     Next on the list was St. Paul's Cathedral. The Cathedral is done in brick so the coloring was brown and dull. It was the details and towers however that made it so amazing to look at. There were several arched windows, 3 large towers, and change in color of bricks to add design. The outside was enough to try and take in, but then I walked to the front doors. I felt like a Keebler elf walking up to a home of the people that eat their cookies.. Or in other words, I felt small. The door was underneath and archway that was at least 2.5 times my height. And while the door wasn't that tall, the stained glass pattern on the door continues past the door to make it feel much bigger. As soon as I stepped inside I felt like a 2 year old in a candy store - eyes wide and taking it all in. Not to mention, I now felt more like a Borrower (Google it) in the home of a "big person" than a Keebler elf. I have never been in a Cathedral before, so I was blown away. Everything was large, detailed, dark, old, and historical. Down the center was a long aisle of colored, detailed, tile floor with two deep rows of pews on either side. Along the sides were large stone archways opening to aisles along the edges. Above these archways were many smaller archways, and above those were several arch shaped windows. Along the edges/side aisles there were different historical pieces such as a baptismal font (that had been there since the Cathedral was built) and the "Chapel of Unity" where a pope prayed with an archbishop. The front was filled with several detailed, wooden seats, benches, a pulpit, a table, and an alter. FUN FACTS: The foundation stones were laid in 1880. It was consecrated and opened in 1891, and the spires were completed in 1933. The tallest tower is 96.7 metres (317 feet) tall. I didn't get to spend as much time inside as I would have liked and didn't get to ask any questions, so I plan to go back when I have more time.

     I really can't believe that for some people these large, historical, detailed buildings are just a part of their everyday lives and they no longer even think twice about them. 

Flinders Street Station

St. Paul's Cathedral

Inside St. Paul's Cathedral

     Next on the walk was The Treasury Gardens. Here I found 1 more elephant along with a JFK memorial. The pond portion of the memorial was closed, so I plant to go back for that. I thought the pond would just be a little circle area of water with a fountain maybe, but it was much more. The pond area is more like a large stream that forms a free flowing shape weaving around a sitting area. It is lined on one side with a short rock wall and on the other side with bushes, plants, and flowers. There was also a huge stone portion to the memorial which had JFK's face on it and a plaque.

     The next stop was the Fitzroy Gardens (where I should have found another elephant, but over looked and had to come back for later on). Here I saw the conservatory which was small, but very beautiful and smelled wonderful. The conservatory had many of the same type of small (daisy like) flowers, but had them in different shades of pink, purple, and blue. There were a couple benches, a short rock wall for sitting, and a small, cute wood and black wrought iron bridge. Cook's Cottage is also found in the Fitzroy Gardens. It is a very small cottage made of brick with a garden around the back. Captain Cook made the first European contact with the east Australian coastline in 1770. I plan to go back and actually go inside. FUN FACTS: It was shipped from Great Ayton in Yorkshire and re-erected in Fitzroy Gardens in 1934 as a Victorian centenary gift. I also saw Sinclair's Cottage. This cottage was also made of brick, but seemed slightly more modern than Cook's. This cottage is not open to the public, so I just had a quick look at the outside. FUN FACT: It was built in 1864 and was home to James Sinclair and his family. James was a renowned horticulturalist and established the Fitzroy Gardens in the 1860s. 

     Further into the gardens I came to the Fairy Tree. The Fairy Tree is about 2 times my height, and has no branches or leaves. It does have, however, carvings of fairies, dwarfs, gnomes, and Australian animals around the bottom of the trunk. The tree is over 300 years old and is one of the original Red Gum trees in the Gardens. FUN FACT: The carvings were done in 1931-1934, years after the death of the tree, so in 1977 the tree was removed for chemical treatment and removal of rotted wood, then remounted on a concrete base. Next to the Fairy Tree was the Model Tudor Village. This was a small area with a fence around it, closed off to the public. Within the perimeters of the fence was a paved walkway, several tiny bushes and trees (as well as a couple larger ones), and several miniature houses and other buildings made out of a kind of dried clay like substance. FUN FACT: The Model Tudor Village was presented to Melbourne by the citizens of Lambeth, England in appreciation of gifts of food dispatched from Victoria to England during food shortages following World War 2. Before leaving Fitzroy Gardens the last sight was a fountain called River God, which was sculpted by Melbourne's foremost early sculptor. FUN FACT: The sculpture/fountain is not currently in it's original location as it was removed at some point, stored, and then relocated some years later to where it is now.

     Both the Treasury and Fitzroy Gardens were absolutely beautiful. It was crazy to look between the leaves of a tree and see all the skyscrapers, but then look elsewhere and just see grass, flowers, fountains, trees, etc. It really felt like an escape from the city. It was neat to see how many people where utilizing the gardens for reading, chatting, eating, exercise, sunbathing, etc. rather than just taking these beautiful things for granted.

JFK Memorial

Cook's Cottage

Fairy Tree

Model Tudor Village

Fitzroy Gardens

     Next on the walk was St. Patrick's Cathedral (which can be seen in the picture above - the tall red/brown tower). This Cathedral was just as big as, if not bigger than, St. Paul's. It was also just as detailed. The window on the front was much larger though. The brick color however, was much darker. I didn't get to go up close to really feel the massiveness of the building, but you can and you can go inside, so I plan to go back to do that. There was also some kind of construction going on, so that affected the pictures a bit. After the Cathedral I saw some of the government buildings. [Side Note: At this point it was 2:30 and I broke away from the other 2 au pairs and went on my own.] I needed to break away from the mapped walk and find three elephants that were slightly out of the way. I found one with no problem. I headed back to the Fitzroy Gardens to find the one I overlooked (which I found with a little difficulty).
     Now it was time to find the elephant in the Collin's Place valet driveway. I had the location, I had 2 different maps, and I had Google maps out on my phone and I found Collin's place, but no valet driveway. I went in stores nearby and asked people, no one really knew. I walked in a couple small circles and turned around several times. I finally decided I was going to just walk into Collin's place and ask someone there. It took me so long to make this decision because everyone that I saw walking in or out of there was dressed in their nicest clothing and I was in jeans and a tee. I didn't want to break some unwritten rule that I knew nothing about and be THAT tourist. Anyways, so I walked in and asked someone working the counter at a CD/movie shop and he didn't know what I was talking about, but luckily the guy in line knew what I was talking about. After trying to give me verbal directions and seeing me fail to understand, he gave up and said, "Ah, forget everything I just said. I'll walk you there, just come with me." Luckily, it was like a 20 second walk and it was right there. There was no way though that I would have found that on my own. To my delight, the elephant was beautiful and worth my trouble. 

St. Patrick's Cathedral

The Hidden Elephant

     By this point my feet were screaming, I was for sure there were blisters, I was sweating, and wishing the walk was over and the train was right next to me. The last sights were on my way (sort of) to the train station and I had come this far, so I had to finish it. The next stop was Birrarung Marr, which is Melbourne's newest park. I saw this massive mosaic sculpture that was 33 feet tall and kind of had two heads. I snapped pictures of 3 more elephants and some aboriginal art. I saw the Federation Bells which are 39 electronic bells ranging in size from a small handbell to a bell that stands 1.8 metres (6 feet tall) and weighs 3.5 tons. The next and last stop was a bridge over the Yarra River which gives a great view of the city. On the way to the train station , I am just exhausted and my feet are in a lot of pain, I walked by an ice cream place and did a double take. I decided I seriously deserved some ice cream after all the hard work I put in. I got a single scoop of cookies'n'cream ice cream and was admittedly pleased by the fact that the cup and spoon were my favorite color. 

Federation Bells

City View From Bridge

My Sweet Treat     

     I had no idea what time the train was coming, so I just went to my platform to wait for it. By the grace of God I arrived at my platform just 2 minutes before my train home arrived. 2 minutes later and I would have had to wait an additional 10 minutes. As soon as I got home (around 4:00) the shoes and socks came off and blisters showed up - no wonder my feet were in pain. I went upstairs to cross the elephants off my list and realized that I freaking missed one!!! After all that trouble, I was right across the street from one and didn't get it!! In addition to that, I discovered that one of the elephants had a different scene on both sides and I didn't know that and only photographed the one side!! While I was mad about the two elephants, I was pretty proud of myself for successfully getting out (and back) on my own and seeing so much in one day. Now I have a good list of what I need to go back and do more extensively - and hopefully I can do those things with someone (preferably someone fun)!!