Walk number 7 is named “Elegant Enclave” and is a 3 kilometre stroll around East Melbourne focusing on the architecture of houses from the Victorian period.
The houses here are interesting and unique, and when I say unique, I mean that no two are the same, by that I mean the houses that are next to each other are different from each other. It is weird they must have built every house at a different time to the next. The neighbours did not get together over their house designs.
You might get a short row of 2 or 3 Victorian style houses, followed by a deco style, then a modern design, then a 1970’s apartment block. During my walk (Elegant Enclave) I passed by the longest terrace (Canterbury Terrace) built in 1878 on Powell Street, with a grand total of 16 houses, even those are different in groups of 3.
The iron lace work on the Victorian houses is fabulous, I do wish we could have had one of these more historical places, but only if they had a modern interior, I need air conditioning!
So the walk began from Federation Square, headed down Flinders Street and then entered the first of 2 gardens the walk passed through. Treasury gardens were pleasant enough, named after the Old Treasury building nearby (which is open on a Wednesday and Sunday, not Thursday, I will put it on the diary for next week).
Next came the rather impressive Fitzroy Gardens, impeccably maintained with exotic flora and fauna. I imagined Australia to be an orange-toned dusty place, probably due to watching the film Australia and other TV shows. But Melbourne is a lush, green and pleasant land, the plant life is amazing. This may be due to the plants being exotic and unusual (akin to walking around Kew gardens).
The gardens contained a conservatory, complete with mini stream, bridge and tourists by the bucket load (4 coaches had just emptied at the nearby road). There was also Captain Cook’s cottage, which we will come back to as the place was rather busy at that moment.
So the walk continues along several roads, lined with trees on either side and fabulous houses, unfortunately as there was so much to see I had several minor trips as my feet are not totally under my control when I am not looking exactly where I am going. The amusing thing for this part of the walk was that there was at least 3 other people doing the same walk, strangely enough not of them travelled the same route I did ( I am sure I was doing the right one!!!). Map reading skills are obviously lacking in some (did I mention they were men).
The walk eventually leads you back into Fitzroy garden, it was a little quieter when I returned, and so after viewing the Faerie Tree (an old red gum tree which originally filled the garden before being replaced with European trees like elms) and the Miniature Tudor Village, I headed into Cook’s Cottage.
The price for entry was set at a bargain $4.50, although the place was small and took less than an hour. The cottage was originally in the UK in Great Ayton, Yorkshire, however the cottage was purchased by Russell Grimwade in 1933, dismantled, and shipped to Melbourne in 253 packing cases, arriving April, 1934 and reassembled (not something we could have done with our shipping allowance). An interesting point was that sailors in Cook’s crew ate Scurvy grass (now known as New Zealand Spinach) to prevent... Scurvy! Cook’s Cottage has been awarded 3 Stacey Stars (do it if you have time to spare).
The walk then headed back into the CBD (central business district) where are small amount of shopping needed to be done (a splash of colour for Andy’s Christmas work do, this ended up as a bright green handkerchief for his suit top pocket).
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