Day 197 (January 5, 2020): Mellow in Melbourne

For starters, we're fine. If you're reading this in the distant future, that's relevant because right now an area (in our general part of the continent) the size of Wales has been consumed by fire and it's making international news. The only threat we face here in the city is from smoke. The good and bad news is that the winds shifted and picked up, giving us clear air and cool days but horribly exacerbating the catastrophe unfolding to our northeast.

We arrived in Melbourne on the evening of Wednesday, January 1st. We had a pre-arranged shuttle that worked seamlessly, our host greeted us on arrival and we improvised a dinner in a nearby casual Italian restaurant. Yay, noodles!

Couldn't take this until Lily found her sweatshirt

The latest accommodation is terrific: the space has inherited all of the toys and other possessions that have been cast off by the owner's sons, now 12 and 18 years old. There are gallons upon gallons of LEGO, 25 feet of of overflowing bookshelves and a cupboard full of other games and entertainments. The living looked like a tornado had struck in the first few hours after our arrival. We're near everything, including several tram lines and the beach.

On our first day, facing significant effects of three hour jet lag, we skipped school entirely but made it out for brunch (if you can call it that at about 2pm) to the library, the nearest playground and the grocery store. On our second day I went for a morning run around Albert Lake Park which was lovely but still a come-down after the lush landscaping of Kings Park in Perth. We got a little more ambitious: doing some school, getting Henry a haircut and discovering more amenities of our rental: a backyard pool and trampoline.  Also, the owner, who lives downstairs, has a 4-month old English Staffordshire puppy named Lucy and that's really all we need in the world.

At the remarkable St Kilda Adventure Playground

St Kilda Town Hall, which is across from the library

Henry and Lucy, our 4-month old neighbor

Elise and I had a date night, going out to dinner downtown with some expat friends from Portland. We had been told that Melbourne is a foodie scene and this was terrific evidence in support of that statement. We had a chef's menu with about five courses plus two very nice bottles of regional wine. We also got to enjoy meaningful conversation with adults who had common reference points and shared interests - what a novelty!

Our third day also included some school and then a small adventure to lunch and the St Kilda Botanical Gardens. This wasn't an abject failure but it was cold and very windy (see above comment about fires) and we were all pretty miserable by the end.

In the Conservatory of the St Kilda Botantical Gardens

This status is also a fountain (look closely)

After dinner, Elise and I snuck in a mini-date by walking out to the end of the St Kilda pier for reknowned views of the city's skyline. To prove a point about the contrast between our weather and then nearby fires, we dressed in our puffy coats and still shivered all the way back.

Brrr!

Puffy coat and flip flops

"Sticks" in the foreground of the Melbourne skyline

Kite surfers enjoying the wind

But that brings me to today, Sunday, at a successful but exhausting (and exasperating) walking tour of a downtown garden district. Dear reader, this is one of those stories that I don't really know how to frame. I think I'll remember it as a success but by the end we were in a stern silence and a delicate truce. This is the constant dilemma: enjoy an outing at the expense of stress or avoid the strain but miss the experience.

After a quick lunch at a neighborhood joint, we hopped a tram downtown. Melbourne has a farecard that I deciphered a few days ago and the honor-based fare system works well. For my fellow nerds: I bought seven day passes for the two adults and pay-as-you-go cards for the kids. It's a bummer that you can't just load up one card and tap multiple times for the kids but that's what you get, I guess.

There are dozens of tram lines, with at least three serving the stop closest to us. They're pretty easy to decipher and much easier to manage with the proper apps, which I finally downloaded today. We're staying in a suburb/neighborhood called St Kilda and it's roughly 30 minutes to downtown. The tram isn't fast and when it's crowded it's a little hard to travel with kids but it's perfect for sightseeing as we headed to the city.

We got off at a major stop (Flinders Street) and began our tour at St. Paul's cathedral where we lit candles and appreciated the fairly simple architecture and design. Our walk immediately took us to one of Melbourne's photogenic sites, Hosier Lane. The street art here and in other lanes is known to change daily and it's easy to see why. Despite the chill and some light rain the kids were intrigued.

Hosier Lane in downtown Melbourne

Around the corner we found one of Elise's personal targets, a fabric store. We browsed and the twins charmed the shopkeeper. We left with ribbons of scrap that blew pleasingly in the wind as we walked to our next stop.

Elise at Tessuti Fabrics

Our pocket guide pointed out historic buildings on our way to the Treasury Gardens, which included a small garden dedicated to JFK.

We crossed another street and entered Fitzroy Gardens, which might not impress a savvy British garden connoisseur but was marvelous for us. The main sites include the relocated cottage of Captain James Cook's parents (reassembled after being shipped from Yorkshire, England), the "Scarred Tree" that was significant to Aboriginal residents before European settlement and the Fairy Tree (as well as the adjacent "model Tudor village").

The Cook Cottage

Cate at the model Tudor village

This sculpture and fountain are called "River God"

Ali got a special moment in a tree

Then it was on to St Patrick's cathedral. I think the part that impressed me (and Lily) most was a fountain outside. The pocket guide describes it as "serene" and it really is. I would have enjoyed lingering on a bench there, listening to the burbling sounds of the cascade. Inside was also lovely but my enjoyment was shattered by a ridiculous interpersonal conflict.

The "fountain" at St Patrick's

As I said earlier, we generally light candles and make wishes/prayers during such visits. Cate became upset that she didn't make a wish with her candle and she wanted another. It's really hard to be mad at a six year old who tells you she wants to light a candle for the author Beverly Cleary because "she's really old and I really don't want her to die." It's not like the church will go broke because we use 7 candles instead of 6. But I know that if we agree Cate can light a second, three other kids will want the same deal. And it's all but certain that even that won't mean we leave with four satisfied children.

In turn, we had an angry, pouting, foot-dragging daughter for the next 15 minutes or so. I don't know what the other straws were but this was the last one. There was no sense among us that we had enjoyed a lovely walk through beautiful gardens, getting a feeling for the natural history of the city. There was no desire or willingness to see the last few sights on the tour. So we hopped on the nearest worthy tram and headed home, satisfied to have survived.

So, look: there are lovely pictures for a trip that consumed the last available drops of energy from at least one parent. More than ever, I'm having those "is this worth it" questions swirling in my head. Elise pointed out that Melbourne is supposed to be one of our easy stops and it certainly hasn't felt that way in these first few days (we're here for fourteen of them).

I can tell you that it prompted me to find a drop-in day camp that's available this week and next. As we speak, two kids are going to go on Tuesday, the other two on Wednesday and all four on Thursday. I'm hoping that will give the kids more time with peers (and external authority figures) and more time for us with less or no discipline to administer!

Some public art the kids wanted to investigate

On the front of a provincial government building

A view from the tram in the neighborhood adjacent to ours

Melbourne is known for its "laneways"