The rest of Victoria

Fisherman's Wharf, Victoria

Despite our best intentions for our four weeks in Victoria, we found ourselves struggling with keeping to our diet. It wasn’t that we were being terribly bad – most of our meals were still strictly by the rules – but we found ourselves wanting those little extras, especially if we went out. Like the time we went to Fisherman’s Wharf, and ended up having fish and chips.

We had a couple of times that we went out to eat, and whilst we picked fairly well-behaved things, there was just that added temptation to have some yam fries, or for Nic to have a naughty sauce on his pasta.

Fisherman's Wharf, Victoria

And then there was the fact that the weather was glorious the whole time we were there, so one day we gave in to having an ice cream, and another we succumbed to sitting in a pub garden with a bottle of wine.

This was still all incredibly well behaved compared with our old way of life, but it was still too many bad things to achieve the weight loss we were aiming for.

Canada Day Celebrations, Victoria

One thing that we knew that we weren’t even planning to try to resist, was our favourite Nanaimo bar.

I’ll talk more about these in a later post, but for now, a Nanaimo bar is a very tasty, but very naughty cake, and when we were here last time, we discovered them in a bakery that was on our route home, so we’d often pop in to grab one – peanut butter for Nic and mint for me.

Canada Day Celebrations, Victoria

So one day, we headed up to the bakery, ready to get our treat, only to discover that the location was now a building site. I think Nic may actually have let out a small howl of disappointment! Not to be deterred though, I figured that as this was a pretty popular bakery, there was a reasonable chance that it may have relocated, and luckily, this was right, and we managed to find it just a little further along from its old spot. They didn’t have any mint ones though, so I resisted any alternatives on this occasion, but Nic got his peanut butter one, and was very happy.

Canada Day Celebrations, Victoria

Aside from that, we pootled about a bit.  We looked in on some of the live music for the jazz festival including going along to a show one night. That was OK, albeit nothing spectacular. We checked out the Canada day celebrations, which despite this being a big deal because it is the 150^th anniversary of the confederation of Canada, were a bit disappointing. The fireworks were good in the evening though.

Willows Beach, Victoria

We also took the bus out to Estevan Avenue, one day. We got off in Oak Bay Avenue, and walked the rest of the way up, so by the time we got there we felt virtuous enough to allow ourselves a few extra syns with our reasonably healthy lunch at The Village. Then we wandered along to the beach and back, and gave in to having a tiny cupcake. Feeling a bit guilty about that, we decided to make up for it by walking all the way back, which took about an hour. That got the steps up on the Fitbits!

Estevan Avenue, Victoria

I'm not sure that Estevan Avenue is really worth a trip on its own, but it could certainly be done in conjunction with the Oak Bay area for a good day out.

So overall, Victoria was a pleasant place to have spent four weeks in the sunshine, but it ended up being a bit of a “neither/nor” place. We didn’t go completely mad, and revert to our old ways of eating and drinking whatever we liked, but neither had we managed to stick strictly to our regime. In the end, we lost some weight while we were here, but not as much as we should have done, especially when we knew what was coming up next….

Fisherman's Wharf, Victoria

Fisherman's Wharf, Victoria

Canada Day Celebrations, Victoria

Canada Day Celebrations, Victoria

Canada Day Celebrations, Victoria

Out to Canada

Port Renfrew

After our brief sojourn back in the UK, we were soon heading off again, this time to Canada. We had a flight from Heathrow at a sensible time, so we didn’t have to be getting up at silly o’clock to get there.

Mind you, it did cause a bit of confusion, as for some reason, when Nic booked our accommodation, he had got it in his head that we were on an overnight flight, so our hotel near the airport was booked for the night after we arrived in Vancouver, and our Airbnb in Victoria was booked from the night after that. Thankfully, he realised this shortly before we left, and was able to change the hotel date for Vancouver, and booked us into a hostel for our first night in Victoria on the Friday.

Port Renfrew

We arrived safely in Canada, and had a nice easy bus – ferry – bus journey over to Vancouver Island the next day. We had booked a nice little Airbnb flat in Chinatown, and we soon got ourselves signed up to the local gym and even to a yoga studio, where we cold drop in for whatever classes we wanted. Within a few days, we had filled our fridge with healthy and diet friendly foods, and so we were all set for the next stint in our weight loss campaign. Little did we know then, that things weren’t going to go quite to plan, but we’ll come to that later.

Port Renfrew

We didn’t really have any great plans for Victoria, as we’d done most of the touristy bits that we were interested in last time around. In any case, we were going to the gym most days, and all that buying, chopping and cooking of vegetables seemed to take up an inordinately large amount of our time. I seriously wonder how we ever found time to go to work – but then I guess that’s why we had ended up always eating quick, unhealthy meals and going out for dinner so often.

A seal with its looted fish, Port Renfrew

What we did have planned, was a day out on Sunday with Jen and Gav, a British couple that we had met in our hostel in Puerto Varas, Chile, earlier in the year. It had worked out nicely that we had been able to coincide our time so that we could meet up again here. Mind you, we were missing the real superstar of this family, as Ruby The Landy, whose adventures are being written about in the Land Rover magazine The Landy, was still boxed up in a crate her way here from Santiago.

A seal with its looted fish, Port Renfrew

 With no Ruby, Jen and Gav had hired a much less colourful vehicle, and so Gav drove us all out to Port Renfrew. It took a bit longer that we’d thought, so we ended up just having lunch there and wandering along the pier for a bit, before we needed to drive back again.

It was a pleasant place to visit though, and we rather enjoyed watching the seals in the little harbour; they were quite happily taking advantage of the remnants of the fish that were discarded into the water after the fishermen had finished filleting them on the dock.

A seal, Port Renfrew

We nearly had a problem on the way back, as we needed to fill up with fuel, but there weren’t exactly a lot of petrol stations around. We spotted a sign for gas, and followed it to what seemed to be a dry dock and RV park. We were a little doubtful, but sure enough, we found a huge vat of fuel, and someone willing to sell it. It was then we realised that we were lucky that we had left when we did, and they were due to close at 5pm, which was only five minutes away. Phew!

It was great to catch up with the two of them again, and while we didn’t do anything very adventurous, we certainly talked a lot.

Port Renfrew

A seal looks horrified as it drops its fish, Port Renfrew

Melbourne - Friends, family, and a tour of food and drink

Melbourne

Our main plan for Melbourne was to eat, drink and socialise. We certainly achieved that. I mentioned that the Fitzroy area we were staying in was great for places to go out, and we valiantly ploughed our way through many of the options.

And when we needed an occasional respite, there were some lovely independent shops around, and a nice little market too.

Melbourne

It was an interesting place, as whilst it was certainly trendy - lots of hipster beards and man-buns - it wasn't that achingly hip, 'don't even try to get in if you aren't wearing the right uniform', kind of area, that personally I (a) don't meet the criteria, and (b) couldn't stand to go out in even if I did. It actually has a really relaxed and friendly feeling to it, much like most of the areas that we visited in fact. We loved it.

Melbourne

The area has developed a shabby look, with lots of dishevelled looking buildings, and graffiti. We heard that some of the establishments here have paid a lot of money to achieve just that right level of peeling paintwork, and the graffiti is not that awful tagging, but really rather impressive street art. We did wonder slightly about the syringes that we saw on the ground, but soon realised that the only drug at work here was sugar, as these were the syringes used to fill your designer doughnuts with your flavouring of choice.

Melbourne

Not that the look of the place went down too well with my aunt. While we were here, we met up with one of my dad's sisters, who emigrated to Australia around thirty odd years ago. I had never met her, so it was nice to have the chance to do so while we were here.

She and her husband collected us at our 'home' and were quite concerned that we were staying in such a bad area. We did reassure her that it isn't really like that, as did her daughter later, but I'm not sure she was convinced.

Chandon Winery, Melbourne

They drove us out to Mount Dandenong, where we were able to take in the view of the city, and have lunch, at a restaurant called Skyhigh. The food was plentiful, and the views were excellent. After lunch, we popped in to Chandon Winery for a taste of their wines, and then went out to their home, where we saw a resident kookaburra pop over for dinner. It was lovely to meet another branch of the family, and to see another side of Melbourne.

Kookaburra, Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Back in the city, the main hub in Fitzroy is Brunswick Street. We rather liked The Fitz, for a good lunch or brunch, and we couldn't resist trying out The Shifty Chevre, which as you might guess from the name, specialises in cheese. It is a great place for a cheese platter snack, especially if you come when one of their offers is on, such as when the sparkling wine is half price. However the main reason we came was to check out the cheesy cocktails. Honestly, I can't say that they were my favourite drinks, and I'm not really convinced of the merits of putting cheese in your drink as opposed to with it, but it was fun to try.

I had no complaints about the cocktails in two of the other establishments in the street though. The Black Pearl and The Alchemist were both excellent. the lists were interesting and varied, the staff were friendly, helpful and - most importantly - made wonderful cocktails. And whilst cocktails are rarely cheap, I thought that for drinks of this standard, in a city like Melbourne, they weren't too badly priced. I would highly recommend both places.

Melbourne

Somewhere else I would definitely recommend, is a restaurant called Charcoal Lane, in Gertrude Street. This place is a bit on the fancier side, but the food is great. It is a social enterprise project, that gives disadvantaged young people, many of whom are Aboriginal, a chance to have a fresh start and training, either in the kitchen or front of house.

The food is different too, with a focus on bush food, with options such as emu and wallaby, and other ingredients like lemon myrtle, wattleseed, rosella flower and muntrie berries.

A couple of streets over, technically in Collingwood rather than Fitzroy I think, is another road to check out - Smith Street. There is a huge range of eateries and bars here. We found a place that specialised in meatballs, which made a change, but perhaps wasn't as good as we'd have liked.

Melbourne

There was a rather nice wine bar called Smithward, which had only recently opened, and did a rather nice raclette. The owner was very interesting to chat to, and was taking the unusual approach of only stocking wines that he and his wife had tried at the winery in question.

Thankfully they have been to some nice wineries. And we really liked MJR TOM, which had friendly staff, good cocktails, and very tasty bomba and empanaditas.

Melbourne

We popped along to Carlton, where we caught up on a couple of films at the cinema, and we spent a lot of time in Melbourne just walking around some of these close by neighbourhoods, and taking in the city, stopping for refreshment and people watching, and it was an excellent place for that. One of the things that we liked about the look of Melbourne, was the lovely old buildings with beautiful ironwork.

Our friend who picked us up when we arrived lives in Brunswick, so we had a good look around there too, finding some great bars, and a lovely tapas and salsa place, that may have been Basco's but I forgot to write any of the names down so I'm not sure. We also met up with her and some other friends at Federation Wharf in the CBD. We just about made it safely through Federation Square, despite the best efforts of the local zombie wannabees.

One last place I should mention, just for the sheer wackiness of it, is a cocktail bar that was recommended to us by a number of people. It is called Madame Brussells, and it is set up like a lawn tennis club. The staff are dressed in tennis whites, there is fake grass on the floor and everything is just a little bit camp and kitsch. To be honest, I wouldn't recommend it on either price or quality of the drinks, but it is amusing to stop off for a pitcher on the terrace.

Overall, we really liked Melbourne. It was a city that we could easily imagine living in for a while, far more so than Sydney.

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne - a tiny bit of history

Graffiti, Melbourne

From Adelaide, we took an overnight bus to Melbourne. The journey was OK, but we didn't get much sleep, and we couldn't check in to our Airbnb place until the afternoon, so we were very grateful that a friend from our South America trip, who lives in Melbourne, had offered to pick us up and go back to her place. Being used to overnight bus trips herself, she packed us straight off to bed, and then when we were suitably refreshed after a few hours sleep, we all went out for brunch. Now that is what I call a welcome.

Our Airbnb was in a great location in Fitzroy, just off Brunswick Street. This was a carefully selected area, not too far from the centre, but right in the heart of the eating and drinking hub - and just around the corner from a really excellent cocktail bar.

You may have guessed that cultural and historical aspects of the city were not high on our list of things to do here!

Immigration Museum, Melbourne

We did at least go to the Immigration Museum, which gave an interesting insight into how Australia has handled immigration over the years. When the Federation of Australia was formed in 1901, they brought in the Immigration Restriction Act, which was one aspect of the unofficial 'White Australia Policy' which sought to prevent the entry of any non white-European immigrants.


In the preceeding years, there had been actions to reduce the number of Chinese coming to work in the mining industry - not because they weren't good workers, but because they worked co-operatively, which made them more effective and therefore more successful, and the white Australian miners didn't like that.

Immigration Museum, Melbourne

As Alfred Deakin, the then Attorney General is quoted as saying, "It is not the bad qualities, but the good qualities of these alien races that make them so dangerous to us. It is their inexhaustible energy, their power of applying themselves to new tasks, their endurance and low standard of living that make them such competitors." And according to the then Prime Minister, Edmund Barton, "The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of the Englishman and the Chinaman." Any of this sounding familiar to those of us from the UK right now?

Now at the time, the UK was a little uncomfortable with the overtly racist approach of 'whites only', (albeit not so uncomfortable as to block it,) so Australia opted for a supposedly more subtle approach of introducing a dictation test which any non white-Europeans had to pass to gain entry. The museum had some examples of the fifty word test, and I can pretty much guarantee that there is a sizeable chunk of 'indigenous white' British people that wouldn't be able to pass it, let alone people for whom English is a second language.

Immigration Museum, Melbourne

And the difficulty wasn't the only issue. The test could be done in any European language, chosen by the officials. So there are examples of people from Malta, with great English, being given the test in Dutch. One political activist, who was fluent in several languages, was denied entry for failing the test after being given it in Gaelic. This test was in use in Australia right up until 1958.

Asian migration to Australia only really began in the late 1960s, after the Labor Party removed the 'White Australia' policy from its platform.

Immigration Museum, Melbourne

Of course at this time, the real indigenous population of Australia, the people who really did have a legitimate gripe about immigrants, were still not actually counted as citizens of Australia when a census was done. A referendum in 1967 overwhelmingly voted to change this and other discrepancies, seeing the first major step forward for the Aboriginal people.

Some sources even suggest that, prior to these changes in legislation, Aboriginal people were in fact counted as part of the Flora and Fauna of Australia, rather than as people. This seems unlikely to be technically true, but the fact that this is still referred to is probably a good indication of how they were treated at the time.

Immigration Museum, Melbourne

Victoria - arts, markets and music (Throwback post)

Oaklands, Victoria

One of the lovely things about Victoria, is the number of local artisans, and correspondingly, the number of little shops, delicatessens and food and craft markets. It seems to be the kind of place that one might come to if you've retired early, or just decided to quit working, and want to spend your time on your hobby, and maybe sell some things to make a bit of cash.

The Moss Street market on a Saturday is small, but great for freshly grown vegetables, the James Bay on, also Saturdays, is a nice little one with some tasty food stalls and often live music too. More on that later.

Oaklands, Victoria

The Oaklands area is good for a walk round generally, with nice shops and delis, but also has a market on a Wednesday. This one is bigger, and has entertainment as well as lots of stalls.

Oaklands, Victoria

We loved finding great cheeses, breads, chocolates and other freshly grown or made foods, and we were staying in the perfect place, as there were good shops to visit in all directions.  In particular, there is Charelli's Cheese shop in the dodgily named Foul Bay Road, and a multitude of places in Cook Street. Unfortunately we had to walk almost directly past the bakery Tooks on Cook to get home, and one more than one occasion we succumbed to their very yummy Nanaimo bars.

I guess we have been a bit spoiled for good food in London, with fantastic places like Borough Market, and coming here, we realised how rare it is in the places we've been visiting.

O'Brien Family, Victoria

I mentioned music, and we rather enjoyed sitting at markets or outside bars listening to music, and our favourite was definitely the superb O'Brien Family. They are originally from the UK, but now in Victoria. They do covers, but also a few original ones, and are well worth catching if you're around.

Japanese Shinto shrine, Victoria

But this post isn't all about food and music, we checked out the local art gallery too. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria was opened in 1951, in a 1889 mansion house, which now houses the gift shop, while the art has expanded into a number of modern galleries. The main exhibits are Canadian and Asian art, and they are particularly proud of having the only authentic Japanese Shinto Shrine in North America.

Painting by Emily Carr

One of Victoria's most famous names is artist Emily Carr. She was born here in 1871, did her art education in London, and spent time honing her work in Cornwall, Canada and France. Unsurprisingly, her art features highly in the gallery.

She was heavily influenced by the First Nations People, and was one of the first Canadian modernist and post-impressionist painters.  Whilst not an official member of the Group of Seven, she was very closely linked with them.

I quite liked some of her paintings, and some of the other art on show too.

On the way out, we noticed that another woman leaving was attracting some interest. We didn't recognise her, but were told that it was one of The Bangles.