A sporty day in Melbourne

If you didn’t know this—and if you haven’t been to one of them, how would you—the inhabitants of Melbourne and Sydney enjoy a healthy debate over which city is, well, better. They both lay claim to a fair bit of the country’s business headquarters and a staggering percentage of the country’s overall population live in these two places. I don’t know the percentage and I’m on vacation so I’m not looking it up, but believe me when I say that it would stagger you if you heard it. OK? Good.

Federation Square in Melbourne.

The consensus is that Sydney is the place you’d want to visit, but Melbourne is the city in which you’d want to live. After three days in Sydney it’s hard to argue with the notion of living there, too, other than the fact that you pay through the nose for the quality of life you’d enjoy. Melbourne isn’t cheap either, and has plenty of culture to offer in its own right. Much of that culture centers on a rabid interest in sports. The Aussie Rules Football Grand Final match is played in Melbourne every year, the Australian Open tennis tournament takes place at Melbourne Park, and the Melbourne Cup at Flemington (the huge thoroughbred track in town) is billed as “The Race That Stops a Nation.” It should be pointed out that Australians also love to wager on sports…or anything, for that matter. They call it “having a punt,” from what I can tell and there isn’t much they won’t bet on. 

A crowded lane at lunchtime. And bad photo-cropping.

For the reasons stated above and below, I decided to spare my size 13s another day of all-out pedestrian nirvana and focus on a few places in and around Melbourne, including some sports-related sightseeing. A friend’s fiancée was kind enough to drop me off in Melbourne’s kind of central square area called Federation Square , which is a bustling bit of real estate with a huge TV screen and chairs set out in a sort of plaza area. This is where Melbourne sports fans gather to watch things like World Cup soccer matches or Australia's Wallaby rugby matches (Rugby teams seem to always have the best team names, by the way.) Fed Square boasts some interesting new buildings that somehow blend with the older architecture in the area, like the Flinder Street train station across the street. I strolled around the downtown area and stumbled upon some brick alleyways (called “lanes” here) that have been made into small outdoor eating areas. As a visitor during lunchtime, you feel as though you’ve stumbled onto some sort of locals’ secret, despite the fact that it feels like half of Melbourne is in there dining on vegemite (kidding). 

Flinder Street train station in central Melbourne.

One thing you can’t help but notice in Melbourne is the abundance of coffee shops. It seems like every other storefront is serving java. There is some stat that Melbourne has more coffee shops per person than any other city in the world. (Seattle must be pissed at that one.) Still, Melbournians don’t seem terribly jittery as a population, so I guess all these shops have conditioned them to handle their caffeine intake. I don’t drink coffee, so if you’re looking for a review on Melbourne coffee shops, I can’t help you. Sorry. Buy a plane ticket. Beer review; we could do a beer review. Let me think on that one.

Home to the Australian Open. Tractor sold separately. 

After grabbing a very average sandwich at an open-air cafe, I made my way from the crowded city streets down to the Yarra River, which runs through the middle of Melbourne and along the Queen Victoria Gardens, the start of a scenic stretch of parkland. The Southgate Promenade along one side of the river is lined with lunch spots and restaurants/bars, where residents were getting a head start on their weekend (a trend is developing here, by the way). I decided to break away from the crowds and stroll along the river through the parklands and past the Sydney Myer Music Bowl, an open-air concert venue located just a short walk from downtown. Evidently, Mr. Myer donated the money to build the venue as a free place for Melbourne residents to get cultured. And no, it’s no longer free.  

After lounging in the sun for a few minutes, I plotted a more sports-themed afternoon of tourism, and headed across the Yarra River to the Rod Laver Arena on the grounds where the Australian Tennis Open is played. The arena, which features a retractable roof, was being sets up for a concert so I couldn’t sneak in and pound a few double faults, but I did mill around the tennis center a bit. It’s an elaborate facility with endless courts scattered around the Rod Laver building and Margaret Court, umm, Court. Across a footbridge and over a railroad line is the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (known locally as the MCG). The MCG is a bit of a misnomer in that this massive stadium is used for cricket and run by the Melbourne Cricket Club, but Australian Rules Football seems to be what pays the bills (presumably a fair amount of that coming in the profits brought in by draught beers from its concession stands during Aussie Rules matches). I signed up for a tour of the stadium and the Australian Sports Museum, which is, essentially, in the stadium’s basement. 


A few stats on the MCG that I learned from the old bird with the serious limp and disconcerting stamina problem giving the tour:

-The Grand Final (the Aussie Rules Super Bowl) is played here every year and more than 90,000 fans turn up for it. As I alluded to earlier, they consume a commendable amount of beer at that event.
-They also play national and club-level cricket matches here. Far as I can tell, cricket is sort of like going to a baseball game and, instead of paying attention to the players, watching the outfield grass grow. Except instead of doing that for three hours, you’d do it for something in the manner of three days. (Seriously, some of the matches last three days. Not even my favorite things to do in LIFE needs to last three days. Use your imagination.)

-The place has a security camera system that is monitored 24 hours per day, seven days a week, 365 days per year…in case someone tries to steal a wicket, I guess. (Cricket term.)

I'm told that this many people do not come to see cricket.

I’m not much of a museum buff when I travel (not that I go to them much when I’m home), normally preferring to fill my hours in foreign places strolling the streets or interacting with people that make the place what it is. But Aussies take particular pride in their sporting accomplishments, often quoting a statistic about number of Olympic medals they win in relation to the population of the country, as if all of the residents are competing in the Olympics, rather than just the best athletes. It’s a very impressive stat, in all honesty. (Then again, it’s not the fault of other country’s that Australia’s population is lower because 95% of their country is basically uninhabitable.) At any rate, this Aussie love of sports is how I justified my trip through the sports museum, which offered everything from educational how-tos on cricket and Aussie Rules Football to mementos from Australian Olympic glory and horse racing, which they take very seriously. The highlights for me were the video simulators that let patrons attempt kicks with an Aussie Rules Football through the uprights, and also field cricket grounders and throw at the wicket. (Cricket, by the way, seems like an exceedingly easy game for anyone who has played some baseball, but what do I know.)

As the old-timer working the information desk told me, “I don’t know a tour in the world that doesn’t end at the gift shop, so you’ll have ample time to hit that when you finish.” So I did, purchasing an overpriced Aussie Rules Football T-shirt that features the emblem of the North Melbourne Kangaroos, mostly because it has—you guessed it—a kangaroo on the front.