When Mao-Tse Tung was melting saucepans in the Cultural Revolution, the Victorian gold-town of Bendigo asked Mr Lo On of Hong Kong to put 90,000 mirrors and 6000 silk scales into the longest (and possibly last) imperial dragon called Sun Loong. (Imperial – in the dragon sense – means blessed by the Emperor, which accounts [...]
Vegemite’s inventor, Cyril Callister, came from a one-chook town called Chute, just north of Beaufort on the Raglan Road, in midwest Victoria. A sign, larger than the town itself, celebrates the fact. But the true reward for the offbeat traveler is Registered Mail Box 832, a Ned Kelly statue with a shotgun in his lap. [...]
Quick – you have another five weeks from the time of posting to hear the mobiles phones ringing in Melbourne. Wait, wait – before you start carping – I know we hear a mass of Motorolas bleeping any day of the week – but these phones are very different. Suspended high on a cement wall, [...]
The Djab wurrung people once camped on the slopes of Mount Langi Ghiran, Victoria. While their dreamtime links to the land have been frayed by time, one dreaming image remains. Locals call her the Sleeping Princess, the regal silhouette cast by the Langi Ghiran ridgeline. The best spot to see this supine maiden is from [...]
High jump and rowing are not the only sports where contestants compete backwards. To the list you can add backstroke – and trugo. Tru-who, you ask. Trugo was born in 1924 in Melbourne, a quaint mix of croquet and lawn bowls. Played with mallets and a little rubber tyre, the object of the game is [...]
Brown Alley? What sort of name is Brown Alley, asks the Mayor of Melbourne, John So. After his 2004 success, when So turned a quiet dogleg off Little Flinders from Corporation Lane to AC/DC Lane, the mayor is eager for more re-dubs. And the next lane in the cross-hairs is Brown Alley. (You’ll find the [...]
Did you know that war was declared on the State of Victoria in 1979? Was it North Korea to pick the blue? No. The Soviet bloc? Nyet. The hostile party answered to the name of Tom Barnes, Governor of Rainbow Creek. Based between Toongabbie and Cowarr in south Gippsland, roughly 200 kays southeast of Melbourne, [...]
My last post about a container bar (see below) contained a few falsehoods. The correct street address for the bar-in-a-box is 27-29 Tattersalls Lane. And while a phone isn’t patched into Section 8, you can enquire about this car-park pub by buzzing Maz, the co-owner, on 0422-972-656. I can even be more precise with opening [...]
In Papua New Guinea, shipping containers double as bungalows with an ocean view. (The refrigerated models are the equivalent of Dallas mansions in the tropics.) But in Melbourne the same blank box has been converted into a bar called Section 8, marooned in a Chinatown car park. Stocked with local and import beers, plus vino [...]
Two curious statues populate Nhill (V) – both devoted to animals. The first, opposite the Commonwealth Bank, is a tribute to all the hard yards performed by the draught horse in opening up the Western District to wheat and pasture. The second, outside the Shire Council, shows two lowans canoodling on a mound. Huh, lowans? [...]