How was I supposed to know that the Australian Grand Prix was on in Melbourne? I am not a Formula One kind of a guy. I only know Jacques Villeneuve because he was engaged to Danni Minogue. The first I knew about this major international event was the hotel receptionist's arch expression when I told him I was only staying one night, but that I would find somewhere else tomorrow.
He was right to smirk. There was not a hotel room in the city all weekend for less than $600. Fleeced up against the Melbourne summer chill, I ran to an internet cafe and bashed out an emergency email to all the free homestay lists I had joined. And another one to a Melbourne residents' mailing list that I joined fraudulently. A few emails of pity and encouragement trickled through by the next morning, but no offers. In my mind, my travelling style is more Holly Golightly than Eliza Doolittle, but with checkout time looming at noon, it was looking like the Opera House steps for me. In the end I did get manage to get a last-minute cancellation at a dodgy and overpriced 'private hotel' in the city centre.
Melbourne's Philip Island houses many of Australia's unique animals. At the Koala Conservation Centre, a clever raised walkway takes you high up into the trees, only feet away from the koalas. They sleep 20 hours a day and their courtship consists of rather squalid and brutal one-night stands, after which the male never even rings. I really liked the Koala Conservation Centre, but the cutesy signs were a bit too much. My favourite was "Look around you for one of my scats (poo). Pick it up and have a sniff. Can you tell what I have been eating?" The kids I saw were obviously thinking "Dare I do it, or will mum smack the face off me?".
Feeding the kangaroos by hand was lovely, if drooly. Unlike the little wallabies I saw out west and in the Top End, these were big buggers - about 5ft 6in, most of them. I was surprised they were silent: I grew up with Skippy making tutting sounds to Ranger Hammond: "What's that Skip? Sonny's fallen down the old well?".
The most famous attraction on Philip Island is the penguin parade. Every night, hundreds of Little Penguins trudge out of the sea and back to their burrows in the dunes, waiting until after dusk so they avoid sea eagles and other predators. These predators included tourists until a closed-off walkway was built. It is moulting season, and when the penguins lose their waterproof feathers they have to stay out of the sea for a few weeks. To prepare for this, they eat vast amounts of fish, making their fat, stumbling walk up the beach even more ungainly, exhausting and funny to watch.
The City of Melbourne can arrange a free official greeter for any tourist who gives them three days' notice and an idea of their interests. On my form I ticked "multi-cultural Melbourne", "theatre", "gay culture" and "food". Would I get a lunch date with a Greek actor, perhaps? No: I got Andrew, fresh from his yoga class. I was less fresh: at 2am I realised why my hotel had the cancellation. The night club opposite blasted out music into the street all night. At 3am I schlepped my mattress into the kitchen, where the light would not turn off, and at some time after 4am I got my head down. Anyway, Andrew took me on an excellent whistlestop tour of the beautiful Victoria Market, the South Bank arts complex by the river and the atmospheric little lanes that connect the major downtown streets, all of which I revisited later in the week.
There were plenty of hotel rooms after Grand Prix weekend, but I had had an email from Mike offering me B&B at his house near St Kilda. I was on the St Kilda tram before you could say "freeloading Eurotrash". It was a cool, immaculate house with hardwood floors and one of those chrome Dualit four-slice toasters that I mistakenly called a "Duraglit". Sue and Rosanna had emailed to recommended St Kilda to me, mostly because they are fans of Channel 4's The Secret Life of Us which is filmed there, but it was a great suggestion. In St Kilda I also met Jenn and Beth who took me to Lunar Park, a 1920s fairground with a rickety rollercoaster. You enter the park through a vast mouth. As I entered, a huge group of teenagers were all mooning at their friend as she took a photo.
Melbourne is teeming with areas like St Kilda, once a bit scruffy and dodgy, now still slightly edgy but funkily chic. Old lunch places and charity shops ('op shops') jostle with martini bars and lighting shops. Carlton is a perfect example, with the Lygon Street Italian strip a mix of ultra-modern places and old-style spaghetti houses. I chose the latter, where my waiter had one of those bony, beaky Italian faces that manage to be ugly and beautiful at the same time.
I visited the old Melbourne gaol with a bunch of schoolkids. I noticed that their uniform included a bush hat. The poky cells and gallows were gruesome, but not half as spooky as Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. I hadn't realised what an iconic figure Ned Kelly is in Australian culture, high and low. Peter Carey's book on the Kelly Gang won the Booker Prize, and is on sale in the gift shop next to Ned Kelly colouring books. The prison includes all kinds of Kelly-bilia: Ned Kelly aftershave, chewing gum and one of those Tazo things showing Bugs Bunny in Ned's home-made armour.
Melbourne has no real sights as such, just bags of atmosphere which you need time to take in as you explore the neighbourhoods and enclaves. It's a great place to hang out, eat cakes and check out the talent. I met up with two people I had met online when I was investigating Melbourne earlier in the trip. They had both offered useful advice, and I returned the favour by taking them for a drink. Funny, I would never do that at home in a million years.
