We had another couple of walks to do today, the first was around the Arcades and Lanes of Melbourne. The layout of Melbourne is a major street with a lane of the same name so for example our hotel is on Little Bourke Street and the next street over is Bourke Street. The laneways began life as rear access to properties facing the big streets. Many were later roofed as ‘arcades’ to provide refuge from the weather and crowds. We started at Flinders Street station where there are a number of clocks which we worked out showed the times of the next trains on the various lines. We walked through a number of these lanes then into probably the most elaborate arcade which is Block Arcade. This was named as the people of Melbourne liked to promenade and they did this around the fashionable route of Collins, Swanson and Elizabeth streets and the route was said to be ‘doing the block’ so when the arcade was built over then it was given the name of the block. It is magnificent with tiled mosaic floors and elaborate shopfronts. After this we went into Royal Arcade which is the oldest shopping arcade in Australia, built in 1869 it is not as impressive as the Block Arcade but it does have massive statues of the ‘legendary’ giants of ancient Briton Gog and Magog who have struck the hour since 1892! Back out on the street are ‘the underground public toilets’ which are historic in that the mens were built in 1910 but the ladies were not built until 1927 the next series of lanes still have some signs of their warehouse past with hoists and cargo doors these are now mostly offices for architects and solicitors with cafes and restaurants occupying the ground floor and spreading out onto the lanes. We ended up in the arcade that is at the bottom of the Manchester Unity Arcade which still has the original lifts, escalators and post office boxes on the ground floor. We walked back through another couple of lanes and arcades and finally ended up back at the cathedral which is opposite federation square where our next walk started. We went into the cathedral to have a look round there is an information leaflet that points out the main aspects of the cathedral one of the most striking things is the fact that the floor and walls have tiles on them these were made in England and shipped out here. From here we started heading towards Fitzroy gardens we walked along Flinders Lane there are a few ally’s that have a lot of what look like graffiti but they call art, there are some quite nice bits of work but they have been drawn or painted over, eventually we reached Treasury Gardens which lead into Fitzroy Gardens these were laid out in the 1850s it is a really nice park area and there are a few houses in there, one Sinclair’s Cottage is where the horticulturalist who established the Fitzroy Garden lived with his family. The other slightly stranger building is Cooks cottage which they list as the oldest building in Australia which it might well be but it was actually once the home of Captain Cook’s father and there is no evidence that James Cook ever actually lived there and it was actually purchased in 1934 and transported to Australia as part of the celebrations for the centenary of European settlement. We had a look round the building then walked through the park and continued walking along the streets of Melbourne. Past St Patricks Cathedral and along Pilgrim Path which is a really nice walkway with a water fountain running through it. We walked along Premiers Lane where there are statues of any Premier that has served 3000 days or more then we returned to the Treasury building. It was getting late by this time so we decided to go and get something to eat. We decided we would have a pizza today so we walked back to where we had seen a number of restaurants and had a very nice pizza followed by a crepe which was also really nice. We decided we would save our last walk for tomorrow so we decided we would go for a ride on the tram, there is one that does a circuit of Melbourne and provides information on where you are so we got on that, unfortunately it is a very popular route so it was quite busy and therefore difficult to see out of the window but we did at least get a good view of the harbour area which is probably the main area we are not going to visit as part of the walks we have. By the time we had finished the loop we were ready to head back to the room for a relax and recharge before doing it all again tomorrow!
