Category: Australia

Australi­an Radio Playl­ist

Here’s a playl­ist I made while I was in Melbourne of (mostly current) Australi­an stuff I heard played in vari­ous shops and cafes. Daytime Australi­an radio is where cock rock goes to die, and keeps Midnight Oil forever living off royal­ties, but I defin­itely didn’t go there with this playl­ist.

Sydney Sealife

On my last day in Australia, I had a few hours to waste in between check­ing out of the hotel and getting the train to the airport. I was stay­ing right next to the Aquar­i­um, so I went there. I didn’t visit the local zoo, because it looks grim, and I’m gener­ally against city zoos with large anim­als who don’t have enough space to roam. The aquar­i­um isn’t the cruel kind with large sea mammals, so I felt ok about going there. It’s mostly small fish and coral, with some rays, sharks and small penguins.

The Inner West of Sydney

While in Sydney I met up with my friend Emma David­son who runs Take Care zine distro, and we had a wander round Newtown (not far from where she grew up) and had some dinner. Newtown is the area of Sydney next to the univer­sity, full of old houses and narrow lanes. It used to be very cheap- full of hippies and students and LGBQT bars and book­shops, but is now extremely expens­ive.

Cent­ral Sydney

To be honest I wasn’t fussed about the centre of Sydney. I was stay­ing close to the harbour, but it all felt very bland and glossy, like living in a West­field shop­ping centre. I was there to visit friends more than anything.

Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania

MONA was one of my main reas­ons for visit­ing Tasmania. It’s basic­ally in an under­ground bunker like a Bond villain’s lair, and requires a boat ride to get to. The owner David Walsh, is the richest man in Tasmania and a very strange char­ac­ter in his own right- he grew up in a rough area of Hobart, and made his fortune by using maths to outsmart the gambling industry, and then spent it on this museum. He’s simul­tan­eously “math­em­at­ic­al geni­us” and “13 year old edgelord”.

Hobart, Tasmania

Hobart is the capit­al of Tasmania, and one of the oldest cities in Australia- lots of old build­ings. Even by Australi­an stand­ards it has a really grim history of geno­cide and massacres against the origin­al local people, with lots of explan­at­ory plaques and signs around as memori­als.

Sandy Bay and Battery Point, Tasmania

Here’s Australia contin­ued- my trip to Tasmania and the pretty seaside town of Sandy Bay, homet­own of Errol Flyn. If you have any idea from the cartoon that Tasmania is a hot desert place, it’s not think. Think more New Zeal­and.

Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne

Fitzroy Gardens is a park in the centre of Melbourne with a model village, lovely botan­ic­al conser­vat­ory and some fairly strange sculp­tures and tree carvings.

Sticky Insti­tute

Sticky Insti­tute is a Melbourne insti­tu­tion- a zine shop in the base­ment of Flinders Street train station that’s been there since 2001

Assor­ted Melbourne I

Here’s some photos from around Melbourne in Sept 2018 (yes, it has taken me that long to sort them out), they’re mostly phone photos taken as I wandered around. Melbourne is a mix of Victori­an terraces very simil­ar to those in the UK (with the addi­tion of sunporches), gleam­ing new blocks, and wild west saloon type streets like this.

St Kilda, Melbourne

Here’s a few photos from St Kilda in Melbourne. It’s a fancy coastal suburb of Melbourne filled with inter­war bunga­lows, with a pier and esplanade. In the 1960s it was run down and where all the hippies lived, but is now back to being fancy. I went there because there are wild penguins living on the pier and I hoped to see some. Unfor­tu­nately I didn’t manage to spot any that day.

Singa­pore

Last year I went on a trip to Australia, with a stop-off in Singa­pore along the way. I’ve finally star­ted sort­ing out the photos and writ­ing a zine about the trip. Here’s some photos from Singa­pore- they’re all phone photos as I left my suit­case at the airport for conveni­ence as I had to fly to Melbourne the next day and I real­ised the battery char­ger for my camera was in it too late.