A tour of melbourne

Bill Bryson said in his book 'Down Under' which was about his travels in Melbourne (and I am paraphrasing) when Australians meet tourists from overseas, they send them to the most out of the way, middle of nowhere places, the outback, and tell them that's where the real Australia is.

This is a canny observation. I thought so when I first read the book, and it's come back to me recently when I realised I am guilty of this. I tell out of towners and overseas visitors all sorts of things they 'must' do in Melbourne, most of which I have never done, would never do or have done and dislike.

And so, quite rightly, it was a case of karma recently when I did some of these activities I'd been recommending and realised exactly how much of a bum steer I'd been giving people.

So in this post, to continue the trend, I thought I'd take you on my soon-to-be-revised, Underwhelming Tour of Melbourne.

First stop, the Danedongs and the Dandenongs are pretty nice. I should say, there is a real distinction between the Dandenongs and Dandenong... Probably a distinction I have not made clear enough in the past. Dandenong (Dandenong caravan park specifically) is not such a desirable holiday destination... as one family now back in Florida would probably agree.

In any case, the Dandenongs are a day long trip. My hot tips are the Thousand Steps (at the foot of the dandenongs) that's a pretty good one, if you can find it. Misleading in that there are probably not 1,000 steps, but even so...

The other tip has been Miss Marples tea house. This is a coffee shop in Sassafras, it's namesake is the Agatha Christie detective.

Before having gone to Miss Marples, I described it as a cosy, old, cottage where they did devonshire tea, and served scones like my grandma used to make. I would mention the long queue to demonstrate just how popular it is.

Having now been, it strikes me that this is not a great recommendation for tourists for a number of reasons. In the first instance, Miss Marples is a quintessentially English character, and devonshire tea is equally English. Secondly, after a long walk a long queue is not a redeeming feature.

Add to this the peculiarities of Miss Marples itself. I had believed it was authentically old, quaint. Not so. Less old, more 'ye olde'. It is pretty much a devonshire tea theme park. And the food was not at all what my grandma used to make.

It is - for a few reasons - not a great example of the 'real' Melbourne.

Next stop, St Kilda.

Stay tuned - this is a snipet from a speech competition I am doing on Tuesday...

Kitty x x