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.
Category: Australia
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.
Op Shops of Katoomba
While I was in Sydney, I went for the day to visit my friend Zoe in the inland mountain town of Katoomba.
Hidden Sydney
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”.
Tasmanian Ferry Field Recordings
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.
Record shops of Melbourne
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
Op shops of Melbourne
In Australia, charity shops are called op shops, short for opportunity shops and Melbourne has really great ones
Assorted Melbourne II
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.