The final night in Melbourne

After sleeping for a good 6 hours. I woke up to a sunny day and sat down to a breakfast of Vegemite on toast. A lot of people I know don’t like it, but I have sort of developed a taste for it. On top of that, I always try to eat local food and drink local beer when I go somewhere, so Vegemite had to be on the agenda. Still in my pyjamas (which consist of black cargo shorts and a black t-shirt before you get any silly ideas) I walked across the street to the supermarket to buy shampoo, when my phone went. It was a guy named Steve, who I had met a couple of times in Dublin through a mutual friend. He was wondering if I was interested in going for a beer that afternoon. Asking me for a beer is a bit like asking the pope if he would like to read the bible, so we agreed to meet in the afternoon in the Fitzroy area of town. I then took a shower and got ready for my last full day in Melbourne. As I was planning to leave Melbourne the next day, I walked over to a hostel a couple of streets from mine where, so I was informed, I would be able to book a bus trip to Sydney.

Why would I take a bus to Sydney rather than flying there, which would only cost me about 100 AUS$ or taking a train, which would be much more comfortable? Well, first of all, if I took a plane, I would have to get back to the airport, which would cost me another $16, check in my backpack (another $20), wait, fly to Sydney and get a bus from the airport (another $12,-). That would take the price of the trip to around $150,- . If I took the bus, yes, it would take me 10 times as long to get there, but the costs were much lower. Apart from the fact that the bus ticket was only $58,- and I could take my bags for free, I also had the option of taking the overnight bus, saving about $25,- that I would normally have to spend on a hostel. This would take the net price for the bus trip to $ 33,- which made the flight nearly 5 times as expensive as the bus. On top of that, the road trip seemed like much more fun than yet more time on planes and I would get to see some of the country, whereas from a plane you only see clouds. And, another reason for the bus trip was that I had never been on a Greyhound bus before. Either way, I booked my ticket and took the tram back to Fitzroy. As I was a bit early, I walked around for a bit, had a beer at Bar Open which, as it turned out, was not actually open, but the door was open and one of the guys that was inside served me a bottle of VB and didn’t mind me hanging around while they were doing maintenance, removing empty kegs and other stuff you get to do when you work in a bar. The fact that I was drinking sort of inspired the people who were supposed to be working and soon no work was being done and everyone was enjoying a beer break.

I then went over to a different bar, met up with Steve and had lunch. We caught up on what had been happening in the past year since he moved back to Melbourne from Dublin, what was going on with mutual friends and the state of the Aussie Rules football league. After lunch, he showed me around parts of the neighbourhood that I hadn’t visited yet and then went for another beer.

489. The Spread Eagle.

No, I am not joking. This was really the name of the pub. I thought this was really funny somehow. As it was sort of chilly by now, we sat at the bar inside and discussed the quality of Australian beer which, up until then, I had been very impressed with. Steve then had to leave because he had another appointment so I was left in the pub on my own. This gave me the chance to look around for a bit and I discovered a very interesting map on the wall. It was an historic map of Richmond, the part of town I was now in, and showed all the pubs that were there in the past. I was impressed because there were nearly a 100 pubs on that map alone. I entertained myself for the remainder of my pint by looking at the map and trying to find pubs that were still there.

When I had finished my beer, I walked around Richmond for a bit and then decided to take the tram to South Yarra. This was the area where I had watched the football final over the weekend and I wanted to check out the neighbourhood some more. By the time the tram had wormed itself through the evening rush hour traffic I was sort of urgently looking for a toilet and walked into a bar called

490. The Lucky Coq.

Yeah, strange name, but the big rooster that was painted on the wall explained it. I rushed to the toilet and after that to the bar. I ordered the house ale, called Blonde Coq, and I must say it tasted really nice. While I was looking around, I started to get a strange sense of déja vu. I was 100% sure that I had never been in this bar before, but it somehow looked strangely familiar. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out why, and I finally caught on when somebody walked up to the bar to order food and left the menu on the bar. The menu, I noticed, was exactly the same as in Bimbo Deluxe, the Fitzroy bar where I had been a couple of days earlier. It then all made sense. The house ale was called Blonde Coq (Blonde Bimbo in the other place), they had the same science-lab type of bowls with flavoured vodka above the bar and the place was not so much decorated exactly the same, but you could definitely see that the same designer had been at work. Somewhat proud of my Sherlock-like deduction skills, I finished my beer and headed out the door.

I then set out to find another place I wanted to visit and I walked by it at least 4 times before I finally figured out where it was. The reason for this confusion was, again, the description in my Lonely Planet book, which had labelled it as “the Rock&Roll atmosphere is genuine- it is owned by the drummer of local band Something for Kate.

491. Yellow Bird.

Now, if I think ‘genuine Rock&Roll atmosphere’, I get a picture in my head of a place with flyers and posters in the windows advertising future gigs, band logo stickers on the door, a dark interior with loud guitars blasting from the speakers. Long haired guys, dressed in black, are sitting at the bar drinking lager and Jagermeister, or playing pool or pinball machines. One of the regulars has put his head down on a table, passed out from too much alcohol. What I do not picture, is large floor to ceiling windows, pleasantly lit by coloured lights. Neither did I picture a bar with cheery girls behind it, dressed in colourful tops, mixing fancy drinks, while the diner tables are filled with groups of women dressed in what is probably in fashion at the moment, drinking white wine from a bottle in an ice bucket.

This is the reason I had missed this bar completely the first 3 times I walked past it. I had even looked inside through the window on one occasion. Anyway, this is not to say that it isn’t a pleasant place. It actually was quite nice, and the food looked really tasty. But Genuine Rock&Roll? No.

I had a bottle of Melbourne Bitter and went in search for a bite to eat. I didn’t have to go far, because when I crossed the street, I saw a place with a name so dumb that I just had to go in there.

492. Mad Mex

Yes. Mad Mex. You do not get a price for guessing what kind of food they sell here. I walked over to the counter, ordered a shredded beef burrito and a bottle of Sol and sat down. The burrito was really tasty and I buried it in hot sauce. At only $6,95 this was a real steal, and I enjoyed every bite of it. While I was eating, I noticed that I could make some serious money. All I had to do was smuggle my beer bottle out of the restaurant and return it to a shop in Quebec to pocket the 15 ct. deposit. Now all I have to do is get to Quebec.

I took the tram back to the city centre and made a short stop at my hostel. One of the great things about hostels is that they exist in a sort of parallel time warp to the real world. I got back to my hostel at 11 PM, went to the living room/kitchen area and found this sight: one guy who obviously just woke up was eating breakfast cereal, dressed in his pyjamas. Next to him was a guy who looked like he was planning to go to a corporate board meeting, dressed in a white shirt, black suit trousers and shiny polished shoes. He was also drinking cheap red wine straight from a 1.5 litre bottle. Across from him was a Japanese girl dressed in jogging pants and a pyjama top. She was drinking straight whisky from the bottle and kept urging her friends to go downstairs to the bar to party. A scene like this, you will only encounter in a backpackers hostel. A group of Irish guys then came in with a case of beer and 2 bottles of Bacardi, declaring the party was now officially opened. As I had no intention of spending my last night in Melbourne in the hostel, I finished my last can of VB and headed into town. I spent the rest of the night pub crawling through central Melbourne, and at around 4 AM ended up in the hostel bar, where the party was still in full swing. I had more beer, shots of Jim Beam and then more beer. I don’t remember going to bed but it must have been late. My final day in Melbourne had been an interesting one.

Yummie, VB tinnies.

Lennard's last days in Melbourne

Before I left Fitzroy, I had 1 more bar to check out. After walking around for some 20 minutes through the back streets of Fitzroy, I found it.

485. Kent Street Pub.

One of the reasons I needed some time finding it, was that I expected this bar to be on Kent Street. Well, wouldn’t you? It was actually on Smith Street so I got to see a bit more of the neighbourhood.

“If you like a beer for brunch and your bars dishevelled, Kent St. keeps it coming morning, noon and night” shouts Lonely Planet. Somehow, I feel that they sort of missed the point with this observation. First of all, it’s not really dishevelled. Apart from a couple of duct taped bar stools and a toilet full of graffiti, it was not dishevelled at all. When I think dishevelled, I think paint peeling from the walls, pool tables with dark, unidentified stains on the cloth and broken furniture. This had nice tables, framed paintings on the wall and an espresso machine. The beer that was supposedly flowing morning, noon and night was absent as well. I spent about an hour and a half there and exactly 2 beers were sold in that time frame, apart from the ones I ordered. Which is not to say that it is not a nice place. Actually, it was a really nice place and I would probably regularly spend time there if I lived locally. It’s just that it was more coffee-focused than a real pub. Maybe that’s because I was there during the day on a working day. Another nice thing about this pub was that I just happened to walk in to a discussion between the bargirl (who, again, was very pretty) and a liquor salesman. As he was trying to introduce a new brand of rum and a new brand of bourbon onto the Victorian market, he had brought sampler bottles, so I let him finish his sales pitch and then feigned to be a connaisseur of sorts when it comes to bourbon which, technically, isn’t really a lie. Let’s just say that I exagarrated it a little.

Keen to get the word on his product out on the street, he took 2 glasses from behind the bar and poured me generous measures of both the bourbon and the rum. The rum was alright (I don’t know an awful lot about rum) but the bourbon was absolutely brilliant. I spent quite some time in a whiskey bar in San Francisco last year and sort of found my way with the drink. Living in Europe, you don’t really get past Jim Beam and some other well known brands when it comes to bourbon. In America, bourbon is revered in the same way single malt whisky is praised in Scotland. I complimented the sales guy on his excellent bourbon and told him that if he put it on sale in Europe, I would definitely buy a couple of bottles.

Free bourbon.. always good.

So, having ticked the Kent St. off my list, I decided it was time to go to the other side of town to visit some more places I wanted to see. I hopped on the tram that would take me directly from Fitzroy, which is North East of the city centre, to St. Kilda, which is due South from the city centre. I spent my half hour on the tram trying to make out where we were exactly (it was dark by now) and studying my guide book. When we got to St. Kilda station, I decided to walk the rest as I thought it would make a nice walk. I picked up a slice of pizza on the way and headed for

486. Hotel Esplanade

According to the website, and various guide books, the Esplanade, Or Espy for locals, is a legendary live music venue and rock bar. It looked quite cool, a big white building on the corner of the boulevard. I ditched the rest of my pizza in a bin and headed for the entrance, which was next to a big balcony where you could sit, have a beer and a smoke and watch the sunset. To my annoyance, for the second time that week, a doorman started bitching about my shoes. He could not allow me in because I was wearing steel toe boots. Now I don’t know why this is such a big deal, because I have been wearing steel toe Dr. Martens boots for over 20 years and nobody ever made a problem of it, not even in Holland, where they make a problem of everything. If he thought I was going to kick someone with my boots, would I have been any different wearing boots without steel toes? If I had been some violent nutcase, I could just as easily have battered someone with a barstool or an empty bottle. After some discussion with the doorman, he agreed to let me in with my dangerous boots. So much for safety.

The place looked really cool. Just the type of venue I would go to watch gigs at. It had a large central bar with couches, tables, stools and a stage. Down a hallway was a poolroom with several tables and some arcade games, and down another hallway was the main venue, with a capacity that I would estimate at about 500-600. There was also a café in the buidling that sold standard pub fare like hamburgers, lasagne and pie. I walked up to the bar to order a drink and found to my chagrin that beer was sold only in pots. Now this may sound good, but a pot is a half pint, and that is a glass size that I find ridiculously small these days, having lived in Ireland for 4 years. On top of that, I was charged $ 4,80 for this tiny beer, which I found somewhat disturbing. As it was Tuesday night and there were no gigs on, it wasn’t exactly busy and apart from me, 4 students playing pool and a soundguy muttering around on the stage, there was nobody there. I resisted the urge to get a second beer and went on my way. I bet this is a great place to go for a gig and has excellent atmosphere when it’s more crowded.

I walked around for a bit, looking for a good place to drink and somehow found myself in the back streets of St. Kilda, walking between the gathered local heroin addicts who were either drinking, scoring or sleeping. Out here, I couldn’t find a good bar either, just a bunch of discount off-licenses so I made my way back to the main street. I was just wondering around a bit when I saw a door with an RSL Logo on it. For those of you that are unaware of what the RSL is, this is a sort of leisure club for ex-staff of the Australian army (RSL stands for Returned and Services League). Officially, the mission statement says that the RSL is there to provide support for people who have served in the Armed Forces and have returned home, or words to that effect, but branches of the RSL clubs mainly consists of a hybrid pub/ jackpot casino where members can drink and gamble. Now, again, you can take members in the broadest sense of the word, because I have been in at least 3 or 4 RSL’s during my time in Australia, and the balloting process consisted of me entering my details on a slip and promising that I was living more than 5 miles away from each particular club. As I live about 11.000 miles away from each of them, this was no problem.

487. St. Kilda RSL

I walked up to the bar, ordered a nice-price beer and sat myself behind a pokie machine. To be honest, that’s pretty much the entertainment summed up for you- drink and gamble. I don’t have any problems with that because I happen to like drinking and gambling, but I can imagine that you would get sort of bored if you spend a lot of time in these places. To be fair, bigger RSL clubs often have a restaurant, sports bar, and other entertainment options added to the slotmachines and bar. Either way, I spent half an hour playing the pokie machine and ended up losing 2 dollars.

As I was by now planning to leave Melbourne in the next few days, I felt I needed to see one place that I knew I would like: the casino. And I’m not talking about a room full of pokie machines or a sportsbar with a TAB machine in it. Melbourne has a huge Las Vegas style casino, just on the South side across the Yarra river, behind Flinders Street station. So I headed back to my hostel, had a couple of beers in the hostel bar and walked the 20 seconds down the street to Flinders Street station. I crossed the passage way underneath the station which, like station passage ways all over the world, was dirty and smelled of piss.

I crossed the river by means of the Sandridge bridge and made my way to the casino. Let me tell you, it is huge. I walked past one of the restaurants that is part of the casino and it took me another 10 minutes to get to the main entrance which is more or less in the centre of the complex. As I was dressed in shorts and an old t-shirt that had once been black but was by now more grey, and had been drinking for the better part of the day, I had my doubts as to whether I would be allowed in. The casino website prescribed ‘smart casual dress’ , a term that always leaves me wondering what exactly it means. I think it’s just a term that allows the doormen to refuse you access if they don’t like you under the guise of being inappropriately dressed. To my surprise, the doormen greeted me with big smiles and wished me good luck inside.

488. The Crown casino.

This whole picture is the casino, from left to right, including that green tower in the back ground

After wondering around the building for about 10 minutes, I found a bar and decided to treat myself to a drink. This particular bar, one of at least a dozen throughout the complex, was called the Lagerfeld Bar and had a really cool bar that had water flowing through it. I ordered a pint of Victoria Bitter and had a talk with the bar man. I then made my way to the gaming area of the casino, a huge floor with hundreds of pokie machines, 2 bars, roulette and black jack tables and a huge sportsbar. I mean huge. You know those big projector screens that big pubs have to show the football? Well, they had a big wall in here that had 8 of those screens next to each other, showing horse racing, NASCAR, football, basketball and some other events. A cluster of TAB machines for instant betting was lined up against a wall, and next to that were several windows where you could purchase Keeno tickets, a lotto-type game with a draw being held every 3 minutes. It was then that I noticed that the dress code existed only on the website. I spotted several people who, like me, were wearing shorts and at least a dozen guys in track suit pants, running shoes and football jerseys who were all served with a smile. I spent a couple of hours walking around the casino, playing the occasional game, looking at other people play, watching sports and drinking beer. I had an excellent time and in the end broke even on the gambling, because I had a couple of good wins on the pokie machines. When I checked my phone, I realised that it was past 4 in the morning. A book I once read mentioned that all big casino’s in Las Vegas have blocked daylight in gaming areas and that there are no clocks on the gaming floors. This is to cause people to lose their sense of time so they keep playing and drinking, which in turn leads to making stupid gambling decisions. I decided that I had had enough of gambling for now and made my way back outside. I figured that the station would be closed by now so I decided to take the scenic route along the water, past the Melbourne Aquarium. As this would take me all the way around the station and then back up the street,I knew I would be in for a bit of a walk, but I didn’t mind as I had had a great day. It was close to 5 AM when my head hit the pillow and I fell into a deep sleep.

Monday in Melbourne

Monday in Melbourne

After the excitement of the AFL Final on Saturday, I started the Sunday taking a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a truely magnificent stadium just outside the Central Business District of Melbourne. It was a great tour and took me through the entire stadium. They even let me stand on the pitch!



As the MCG is situated in an area that is full of sporting facilities, among others, the Rod Laver Arena, home of the Australian Open, the home ground of Collingwood FC and the Olympic pool from the 1956 Olympics, I decided to walk around for a bit. The tennis area was quite interesting. There was a sort of Hall of Fame with busts of Australian tennis greats, the Centre Court and, like at Wimbledon, a shattering of smaller courts and a bunch of normal tennis courts.



To my surprise, I could simply walk into one of the main courts (I think it was court 3 or something) and have a look around for a bit. I even found a tennis ball, which I thought would make a great souvenir so I took it.

I spent the rest of the day walking around central Melbourne and did not visit any new bars. I did have lunch in the open air on the lawn before the Victoria State Library where, I am sort of amused to say, I was able to have the famous Dutch dish of Nasi goreng with saté chicken.
I did not visit any new bars that day, but I did go back to Section8, which was very busy on this Sunny afternoon.


I ordered a beer and looked for a place to sit. I asked a group of guys if there was some space left on their pallets and was invited to sit down. I didn’t want to interfere with their discussion so I set about studying my Lonely Planet guide. As it turns out, the guy sitting next to me was the Melbourne bureau editor for Lonely Planet, which basically meant that he had put my book together. We discussed the book and Melbourne in general and he was so nice to point out a couple of mistakes in the maps and pointed out some cool places to go that hadn’t made the book. I had a good time and then went on my way.

The next morning, Monday, I had a nice souvlaki for breakfast at
481. The Golden Tower.
While this sounds like a token name for a cheesy Chinese restaurant, it was actually more of a diner sort of place. Well, to be completely honest, this place apparently wanted to be everything at once. The walls were filled with a motley collection of sports memorabilia, a portrait of Jimmy Hendrix, 70’s soul records, flags, speakers and souvenir trinkets like boomerangs, pictures of obscure celebrities and other assorted parafernalia. Every table had a small, coin operated 50’s style jukebox. The menu did not show a clear direction either. Among the items I discovered on the menu and in the various coolers and display cases in the place, I found dishes as diverse as hamburgers, souvlaki, chicken saté, spring rolls, chicken wings, sandwiches, curry, Belgian waffels, kebab and pizza. Either way, my souvlaki was good and it came with a bottle of VB so I was a happy man.


I then made my way on the tram to the Fitzroy area of town, as I had been told there were some good bars there. After checking out the neighbourhood for a while, I encountered the first rain of my trip, so I headed across the street to a dishevelled looking place. The sign on the door said
DRESS CODE: NO SUITS, TIES OR JACKETS ALLOWED AT ANY TIME.
So I decided that I had to go in.

482. Bimbo De Luxe
I didn’t discover the name of this place until I was halfway through my first beer when I found it printed in the corner of a menu. They had a whole ‘Bimbo’ theme going because they had their own ale called ‘Blonde Bimbo’ and a pizza kitchen that was called ‘ La Bimbolini’. Even though the place was not dishevelled at all inside, and actually looked quite nice, I had a good time. The Bimbo ale was excellent so I had another one, because I needed it wash down my $4 pizza. Yes, that’s right, you have read correctly. 4 Australian dollars for a pizza. And I’m not talking some frozen supermarket pizza that has been microwaved and then put in the oven like you often get here in Dublin, I’m talking home made bases, with fresh ingredients, made to order at your wishes. I had the Gorgonzola and Parma ham pizza and it was delicious. And all that.. for 4 dollars.


Bimbo beer and $4 pizza


Alright, before I start to sound like some dodgy guy selling rides at a fun fair, let’s walk across the street. This is where

483. Bar Open
Is situated. If I lived in Melbourne, this would be the place where I spent most of my time. I loved it the second I walked in. It had everything I am looking for in a good bar: a bare concrete floor, couches that were held together by ductape, stickers and graffiti everywhere, a couple of cracked windows, a garden and a bunch of weird regulars. A boy in a Ben Sherman Shirt and a baseball cap was behind the bar reading the paper. I ordered a pint and sat down at the bar while some locals were having a discussion over some bizarre incident that had happened the week before, although I could not make out what exactly had happened. The music was excellent, mostly stuff what you could label as 80’s post punk type of stuff. As it was Monday afternoon and only about 2, it wasn’t exactly packed. I had another beer and went on my way.


Bar Open and the house rules


A little further up the street was a place called
484. Labour in Vain.
Well, a lot of labour certainly had not gone into the decoration of this place. This is your basic beer barn, big, mainly empty room with rag tag dirty carpet on the floor and a pool table. Apparently this place is big when it comes to AFL games. It was a nice enough place, though the beer was somewhat expensive at $9,20 for a pint of Mountain goat ale.

That’s it for now, more on Melbourne soon.

Cheers,
Lennard