SHOCKING!

4 November 2009

Melbourne, capital of Victoria, and the most 'European' city in Oz. Nearly every person we've spoken to about Melbourne has repeated that verbatim (including a nice Greek couple I bought a necklace from in Athens 4 years ago); I do wonder if it results from an especially pernicious ad campaign, or if none of them have ever been to Europe. Anyway, this reputation is based on the fact that: 1. it actually can and sometimes does rain in Melbourne, and 2. there are cafes with seats on the sidewalk.

And in fact it is vaguely European, if you assume that Paris has places called 'Lord of the Fries' and London has very straight streets. Other than that, it's grey and rainy and has some lovely 19th century buildings and does remind one of the old world just a bit. At least compared to Darwin and Coonamble and basically everywhere else here. There is a thriving cafe culture, lots of students in skinny jeans and ballet flats, and trams all over. There's even a free circle-line tram for tourists, which London can't compete with in any respect.

However, it must be said that the main reason for being here at this particular time is The Race That Stops A Nation, also known as the Melbourne Cup. Always the first Tuesday of the month, it starts off the race season (recall that it is in fact springtime here), and 100,000 people pile into Flemington racetrack to watch the ponies. These are very posh ponies, of the $5,000,000 a race sort. Seven races through the day, all with decent prize money, but the biggie is number 7.

We bought tickets for this in August, general admission, which left us on the grass just next to the track with thousands of other punters, all dressed nicer than us. This is a premier fashion event in Victoria, girls in short dresses and tall hats, gents in suits (Savile Row or gorilla, take your pick). Having no access to suits (or shoes), I went in the $10 dress I got in Brisbane and flipflops, and my new cowboy hat. Personally, I think I was more comfortable and therefore looked better than all the skanks ('bogans' in the local parlance) in their ill-fitting party dresses (People! Do not wear stretch satin if you have body jewellry! No one wants to know!). And though there were upwards of 50,000 fascinators in effect, no one else had a cowboy hat. I win.

The races were good fun, especially the people watching...we won nothing, but lost very little either. And the event of the day, the Emirates Melbourne Cup? Taken by the surprise, come from behind, dark horse called Shocking. Indeed.

Yesterday we spent being run-of-the-mill tourists, complete with raincoats and practical shoes. My raincoat does sport wine stains obtained on the infamous overnight drive from China into Tibet, so I reassure myself that I remain cooler than the other tourists. Right? First stop, The Olde Melbourne Gaol, last home to Ned Kelly and actually very good. Did you know they hung Americans here? Sociopath serial rapist/murderer Americans, but still. And women and the insane and lots of poor people. Very well done for a museum on jail and prisons. The ticket includes a tour of the Watchroom next door, which served as lockup for drunks and the other recently arrested until about 1990. the brilliant sergeant who gave the tour split us into boys and girls, and locked us into cells to get a taste of criminal life. Interestingly, the loos have been covered with plexiglass--I suppose there must have been some confusion among the first tourists...anyway, it's mostly unchanged since closure, and has an actual padded cell, a paedo cell, and some choice graffiti in the girls exercise room.