13D Australia Summer Trip: Brighton, St Kilda and Fitzroy, Melbourne
Since today is the my last day in Melbourne, I squeezed a visit to Brighton Beach, St Kilda Beach and Fitzroy neighbourhood within one day. Our trip started early in the morning with a visit to Brighton Beach, which is internationally known for its colorful beach boxes. Brighton is also one of Melbourne's most exclusive suburbs and it has so many gorgeous looking landed houses along Dendy Street Beach. In order to reach the beach where the colorful beach boxes are located, we had to take a train from the city to Brighton Beach Railway Station at Sandringham line. From the station, we took a 500-metre stroll down to the bathing boxes while navigating ourselves by using Google Maps.
This bathing box was originally used as ladies changing sheds in the 1800s so there's no electricity or running water inside the beach box. Now this colorful bathing box costs around AUD 200,000 (there's a record-breaking sales back in 2011 at AUD 260,000). These boxes are only for sale to local bayside residents (who can afford it I suppose). Maybe they view this box as lifestyle investment. Or for personal fulfilment? No matter what the reason is, we, normal commoners/ tourists, are allowed to take picture of the boxes and taking picture with them for free. That's good enough for me. Hahaha.
After our morning walk to the beach, it is time to fill ourselves with good brunch. The popular cafe in Melbourne's CBD, The Hardware Societe, can be easily spotted by its throngs of customers littering the street of Hardware Lane waiting for a table. We did not mind sitting in communal table because we were kinda pressed for time. Hardware Societe's scrambled eggs (AUD 17) really live up to its reputation, being so fluffy and milky and infused with so many hearty ingredients. An addition of the pork chop brings the whole dish to the new height of brunch pedestal. Do note that Hardware Societe closes at 3PM everyday so don't come here for late tea break or dinner, okay.
With our tummy filled and energy replenished, it is time to explore another popular beach in Melbourne, St Kilda. The inner sourthern suburb was originally a seaside resort in Melbourne's. St Kilda is famous for its food, entertainment and nightlife. The most famous attraction of St Kilda'sbeach is the St Kilda Pier, which was originally constructed in 1853 and the iconic kiosk on the pier built in 1904. Visitors can walk part of the way on top of the breakwater or descend to a boardwalk at sea level. The atmostphere of St Kilda's neighbourhood is so relaxing, one cannot help but feels like lazing around while suntanning at the beach. To reach St Kilda, you can take tram ride: no. 16 tram from Swanston Street, no. 96 from Bourke Street, or no. 12 from Collins Street (around 25 minutes) to St Kilda; no. 3 from Swanston Street to Carlisle Street (around 35 minutes) and Alma Road (around 40 minutes).
While we were walking along St Kilda Beach, we passed by the historic theme park, Luna Park. This theme park has been around and provided 100 years of fun-filled adventures to the Melbourne families. The entrance of Luna Park kinda gives the creep though, like I'm about to enter a spooky theme park from the Silent Hill's game. So yeah, I gave it a miss. But if you are interested to check it out, the most famous attraction in the park is gotta be its Scenic Railway Roller Coaster, a large wooden coaster that projects its passengers, at high speed, around the outside of the entire park. The admission to the theme park is free but you will need to purchase individual ticket for each rides.
One of the attraction at St Kilda that attracts us the most is Acland Street which is famous for its many restaurants offering a variety of cuisines, including Vietnames, Indian, Italian and Malaysian. However, restaurants are not what we are coming for here. We came to Acland Street because of it is also known as the cake street with so many cake shop lining up one after another displaying a variety of beautiful and pretty cakes on its window. However, after buying and eating a few cakes from the Acland Street, we only like the fruit tart from Monarch Cakes. Bummer.
After the disappointing cake adventure at Acland Street, we were pretty determine to bounce back from the despair by having yummy ice cream at Gelato Messina at Fitzroy. After we had our ice cream and recovered from the gloom, we visited the nearby garden, Fitzroy Gardens, which is one of Melbourne's most historic and beautiful gardens. The layout of the garden follows a classic Victorian-era design, complete with its magnificent elm trees, a variety of flowers, and ornamental shrubs.
There is a Conservatory building in the middle of the Fitzroy Garden which exhibits five floral displays each year. The building was built in classic Spanish Mission style and opened in March 1930. The schedule for the floral exhibitions is: Hydrangeas and fuchsias from November to February, begonias and gloxinias from February to April, tropical plants and poinsettias from April to July, cinerarias and cyclamens from July to September, and schizanthus and calceolaria from September to November. I have totally no idea what kind of flowers some of those names are referring to, so do give them a visit when you are in town.
The next important spot that we were about to visit inside Fitzroy Garden is Cooks' Cottage, the oldest building in Australia which was built in the year 1755. The cottage was originally located in Yorkshire, England, and built by the parents of Captain James Cook. The cottage was then brought to Melbourne by Sir Russell Grimwade in 1934. I was wondering how they brought over the whole house across the continents back then. Astonishingly, each brick was individually numbered and packed into barrells and then shipped to Australia bits by bits. The entry to the cottage includes a comprehensive fact sheet for a self-guided tour which is available in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Thai, Indonesian, Japanese, German, French and Korean.
We went back to the city area after wandering around the garden for 45 minutes because we wanted to catch the night market of Queen Victoria Market. The market is the largest open-air market in Australia and you can find a lot of stalls setting fruit, vegetables, imported gourmet foods, fashion, crafts, jewelleries, bags and all sort of general merchandise. The market opens 5 days a week: 6AM - 2PM Tues and Thurs, 6AM - 5PM Fri, 6AM - 3PM Sat, and 9AM - 4PM Sun.
What's the best way to celebrate the busy day other than to drink it with your best travelling buddy? Cheers with dark rum, mate! Performances and live bands are available to create the market's festive atmosphere on Sunday.
We were getting hungry though and it's already 7PM-ish which is considered quite late in Melbourne. Some retail shops have started closing down at this hour and we were kinda in panic to find some place to eat. Not used to early closing of these shops after all because we came from where shops close around 10PM-ish. That's when I remembered my churchmate's suggestion to dine at Mamasita, a Mexican bar/restaurant located dogdily at the top of 7-11 in Melbourne's CBD. We were kinda having reservation about the place because we seldom eat Mexican food in Singapore but we decided to go for it anyway since the restaurant is pretty crowded. When there is a number of people dining, you can at least say that the food should not be that bad, right? Turns out the food at Mamasita is fantastic. The creamy stuffed jalapeno totally transported us to the land of Mexico (which we have never visited before) with its rich and savory taste combined with the kicks of the jalapeno.
The chicken in pepita coriander sauce (AUD 26 for half) taste so awesome. The chicken are seasoned well and cooked nicely together with the black beans, kidney beans and the black Mexican rice. I have never been so satisfied eating Mexican food before. Yumz.
While we were walking back to our accommodation from Mamasita, a random hipster guy overhead us speaking in Bahasa Indonesia and he quickly introduced himself as a fellow Indonesian. He's so friendly and chatty up the point that our skepticism against him disappeared within a good 5 minutes and he invited us to go to Brunswick, a hipster area in Melbourne. The reason of why he chose this place is because he wanted us to try the best cheesecake in the world. Yep, he was not kidding about it. Consider Lee and I crazy but we decided to go along with his invitation and this random fella brought us to Vegie Bar and ordered the cheesecake for us to try. He even paid for it. Oh my gawd, I am amazed by my fellow Indonesian's hospitality in Melbourne. Oh right, how's the verdict of the cheesecake? While the blueberry cheesecake taste good (and huge), Lee and I concluded that we could not really tell if this slice of cheesecake is really the best in the world because after all, we have not finished exploring the world. But it was pretty good though, you should give it a try.
Hardware Societe is located at:
120 Hardware St
Melbourne, Australia
Hardware Societe's opening hours:
Monday to Friday 7.30AM - 3PM
Saturday to Sunday 8AM - 3PM
Mamasita is located at:
1/11 Collins St
Melbourne, Australia
Mamasita's opening hours:
Monday to Thursday 5PM - 11PM
Friday to Saturday 12PM - 12AM
Sunday 4PM - 10PM
Vegie Bar is located at:
380 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Melbourne, Australia
Vegie Bar's opening hours:
Sunday to Thursday 11AM - 10PM
Friday and Saturday 11AM - 10.30PM