Author: bbpeck

Yesterday, was a seriously rainy day, and today was the coldest morning (37 F) in five years based on the local news. However, having been in most of the day yesterday except for a midday hair appointment, we were ready to head out in the sun today, brisk or not. It ended up being a nice day for a walk.

We headed to Box Hill to explore Box Hill Central that we’ve usually just breezed through on the way to catch a bus or train. We wanted to see what all was in the center, and we also wanted to top off our Myki cards for more local public transport travel in the future. Finally, we wanted to head to the Box Hill Gardens that we had noticed on Google Maps.

Box Hill is a suburb of Melbourne, about 9 miles east of the CBD, located in the city of Whitehorse local government area. It was founded as a township in the 1850s and was absorbed into Melbourne in the 1950s as part of Melbourne’s eastward expansion. It serves as a major transportation hub for the eastern suburbs and is otherwise notable today for its large Chinese community and home of the tallest high-rise buildings outside of the CBD.

Bob and I walked a little over 30 minutes into the city of Monash (we’re in the city of Whitehorse) to check out the Damper Creek Reserve that we had seen on Google Maps. As we learned when we got there, Damper Creek is at the uppermost reaches of the Gardiners Creek sub catchment area of the Yarra River. The Reserve was established to provide an important wildlife corridor, protection of natural vegetation, as well as a green space for humans and their pets.

We thought it was lovely and wished it was longer. It felt worlds away from the busy street we needed to walk to get there.

The other purpose for the walk was to check out another train station near us, the Mount Waverly Station. It’s an alternative to the Box Hill train station that we have been using, although it is only served by one train line instead of 2 out of Box Hill. Still, the retail area around the Mount Waverly Station was cute.

It is a windy day in Victoria, although not as bad in town as out in the surrounding areas. We headed out anyway to explore the Blackburn Lake Sanctuary that we had found on Google Maps. It seemed to be a decent size and, as it was about an hour’s walk from the house, would make for a good outing.

On the way to the sanctuary, our walk route took us on part of the Wurundjeri Trail that we had walked last week as well as by two other small parks.

The Blackburn Lake Sanctuary is located at the edge of a lovely neighborhood. A sign at the sanctuary informed us that the natural watercourse here was dammed in 1888 by the Freehold Investment and Banking Company to create the current lake as a key feature of its Model Town Estate.

In the 1880s and 1890s, the area was a popular picnic spot. In the early 1900s, it was the site of a home “for aged, infirm, and feeble minded deaf mutes.” (So glad our understanding and terminology has progressed.). Local citizens began campaigning to protect the land from further development in the 1960s, and the area was classified as a significant landscape in 1976.

We enjoyed the short hike around the lake and a short chat with a local who was watching the ducks at one of the viewing areas near the lake.

Today we took the bus and train to downtown Melbourne to visit the Queen Victoria Market to see what they had and hopefully, find some bites to eat for dinner.

One note about the public transportation system here. As noted in a prior blog, there are a wealth of options — bus, tram, and, train. They run regularly and appear to be well maintained. Bob had researched the Myki card that we needed to purchase and use for all modes.

We feel like we have the transportation system pretty much down. The bus stop is a three minute walk, the bus to the train station takes 15 minutes, then a 20-25 minute train ride. All very easy with tapping on and off with the Myki.

The Queen Victoria Market was pretty large. It contained a retail area of souvenirs and locally made goods, organic fruit and veg, conventional fruit and veg, a meat and seafood section, and a prepared food area. There was some construction going on in one area, so it seems like it will be growing. It has been operating since 1878 and is the largest open-air market in the southern hemisphere.

We bought some marinated seafood and salmon rolls to go with a carrot salad that Bob made for dinner. We also picked up some Turkish delight for dessert but not from the booth above. One thing we passed on was the souvenir kangaroo scrotum bottle opener that was on offer. 😳

Bob and I took our first journey into Melbourne proper for a booked 1 hour tour of the Victoria State Library. We wanted to see the library, but it also gave us a chance to compare the various public transportation options from where we are staying.

We ended up taking the tram in and the train/bus combo back. The tram is easiest in the sense that you just have the one mode of transportation, but it doesn’t go any faster than normal traffic, and it makes a lot of stops. It was a 10 minute walk to catch the tram and then another 50 or 55 minutes on the tram, and then a 15 minute walk to the library.

On the way back, we caught the train at a station directly across from the library. We unknowingly caught a limited express train, so that was a bit stressful as we didn’t know if it would stop at the station we needed or not. Happily, it did, and that was only a 25 minute ride. We then walked out of the train station directly into the bus bays to catch the 733 bus back to the house. The bus came right after we got there, and that was a stress free 15 minute ride to our stop. It seemed much more efficient, and we’ll likely opt for that for any future trips into the city center.

Per the guide, the library started with a collection of 3,846 books. It now has over 2,000,000 items. It is Australia’s oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in the world. It has an extensive collection of materials dedicated to the history, study, and practice of chess and and bridge, and many people come to the library to play chess, both inside and outside.

The library was established in 1854, and the original portion of the building would have just been the central section without the portico.

The Victoria State Library provides 2 public tours a day. We did today’s afternoon tour. Our guide seemed new and was a quiet talker. By the end, we were sure we would have seen more on our own, but we did learn some interesting information.

Today, we did a portion of the Gardiners Trail to the south of where we entered onto the trail. Maybe because it is Sunday here, we saw a number of people out walking their dogs (both on and off lead) on the first section of the trail. Today’s walk took us along Gardiners Creek, some wetlands, past a university, as well as residential and commercial areas, all while providing some art and a bit more history about the area.

Based on the Heritage Trail signs located along the path, we learned that John Gardiner, for whom the trail is named, immigrated to Australia with his family from Ireland in 1822. They originally settled in Tasmania before moving to the mainland following a drought. He became a prominent citizen in Melbourne and owned some of the land along which the trail lies. Interestingly, he later moved to England while his wife and sons remained in Australia.

In a quest to hit a number of neighborhood walking trails, Bob and I headed out about midday today to walk the northern section of the 20k Gardiners Creek Trail. We aim to attempt the southern (longer) portion tomorrow or next week. This is a paved, accessible trail through lovely parkland along Gardiners Creek in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.

The section we were on today also went along the Box Hill Golf Course and provided an Art Walk of sorts, as it gave some information on the art camps and artists that used to work in the area. From the signs posted, we learned about 3 local artists, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, and Louis Abrahams, that established an art camp in 1885 on a local farm that is now occupied by the Box Hill Golf Course to encourage open-air painting as was popular in Europe at the time.

We walked an out and back route from the house, but on the way back we veered off to check out Artists’ Park since it seemed to fit with the theme of the day. The only art we saw at the small neighborhood park was incorporated into the play area.

Bob and I have noticed on Google Maps that there are a number of local parks with walking paths in our ‘hood. We decided to check one of these out today and then end at the nearby shopping center to do a bigger shop than we had done the other day.

We did the Wirundjeri Walk that has a wetland and lovely green park spaces. We came back on a trail through Eley Park. Our walkabout had us go through parts of Blackburn, Whitehorse, Eley, before returning to “our” Burwood neighborhood.

The shopping center has a Woolworths (the big grocery store), a cinema, a bulk foods store, an Asian grocery, a liquor store, and a couple beauty salons and small restaurants. It’s quite handy — about a 5 minute walk from the house.

Yesterday we traveled by tram from our stay at The Element Hotel in Richmond to our house sit in Burwood, both suburbs of Melbourne. We walked about 10 mins from the tram stop and were warmly greeted by our homeowner.

We chatted and then went over her welcome guide and all the information it contained. Her 11 year old granddaughter was emceeing and playing in a violin recital, so she attended while we started to get to know “our” new pets, Jaffa, the dog, and the two cats, young Crumble, and the older, largest cat we’ve sat for, Minty.

Jaffa loves to cuddle and makes little snorting noises when he sleeps. Minty seems pretty chill but will cuddle as well. Crumble is a sweet cuddler as well but also loves to explore and play. He will keep us amused and on our toes while we’re here.

Today, after seeing our homeowner off, we caught up on work, laundry, and did a small grocery shop. Tomorrow, we’ll have our daily routine established and will start seeing what we can see in the area and in downtown Melbourne.

The reason for our trip to Australia is almost here. We meet the homeowner and the pets tomorrow afternoon and assume caring responsibilities on Wednesday morning. Because we don’t like to tempt fate, we usually try to get as close to the housesit as possible the night before just to make sure there aren’t any travel hiccups.

This morning we left the hotel in Canberra a little before 11:00 am. We traveled by Uber to the airport, where we sadly learned that no check-in was possible until 90 minutes before the flight. We had a little over an hour wait to check-in. After that, things went smoothly, and we continued our journey to tonight’s hotel in Melbourne via plane, bus, and then tram. Bob researched all the details, so it made for an easy commute.