The White Hat Melbourne Newsletter

Archived Newsletter No.97 - 17 September 2004

Contents

Rail/bike trails
Music
Seven Deadly Sins of Melbourne
Festivals
Hypothetical
Art Walk
Country Victoria
Reader feedback

Rail/bike trails

“Hi Whitehat,
this rail/trail for cyclists, horseriders, and walkers has been my best discovery for the year. The Lilydale- Warburton railway was discontinued in the sixties and now it's a simple walking track between these two towns. Local volunteers have maintained the track and rebuilt some of the small bridges. It makes for a great walk and takes you near the edge of the little townships along the Warburton Highway such as Seville and Woori Yallock so you can access it at a number of places and have shops and facilities close by.
The rural scenery is wonderful esp after Wandin going east to Warburton and is constantly changing as the track gently winds its way along the hills and the edge of the Yarra Valley through cuttings and over many bridges.

If you type in 'Warburton Trail' to your search engine you should be able to access a map or simply use your Melways. Mt Evelyn is a conspicuous entry point but it takes you past suburban backyards so I would suggest Wandin for first timers. This starting point (map 119 B10 in my old Melways) is a great introduction to the very best that the trail has to offer.

The Trail is divided every 3 or 4 kilometers by sign-posted platforms. There are no facilities so take your own water.
Mark”

Thanks very much Mark. Readers may also enjoy someone else’s experience of a trip along a rail trail at:
http://www.bluehaze.com.au/mmedia/rtrain/rtrain1.html

It may give you some ideas of things to do with the kids in the coming holidays.

Melbourne City Council doesn’t seem to be running any special events for the school holidays and are mainly promoting existing venues such as the aquarium. As holiday activities arise we will post them at Children in Melbourne.

Maybe next week we’ll have a look at doing the Melbourne Show on a budget. You can help by sending in the known location of holes in the fence.
 

Music

Some of the offerings this week include Fulanito (a Latin American merengue Hip Hop Group) at the Queensbridge Hotel tonight (Friday), Earthdance at Fed Square and the Australian Chamber Orchestra at Dick’s Hall. The ACO concert is called Bach to Buenos Aries and features music of Bach and Piazzolla. Both are masters of using rhythm as an emotional and structural element of music. One wonders what they would make of certain types of rock, hip-hop and indy music which decides to remove rhythm as an active part of music and replace it with an unvarying mass produced beat from beginning to end. If on the other hand your musical tastes are closer to ‘Bach to Rio de Janeiro’ try finding a recording of Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras. You will find that the delightful Little Train of the Andes in number two is much closer to Rex’s homemade train above than it is to last week’s K class locomotive.
Details of these concerts at Music in Melbourne.

Seven deadly Sins of Melbourne

Over the next few weeks I thought I might outline the Seven Deadly Sins of Melbourne. You might be interested to see how you rate and whether any of you can score a perfect seven.

Sin No. 1 – Nostalgia
The St Kilda Pier Kiosk is to be rebuilt. As with all restorations the question has been ‘restored to what’? Buildings change over time and Middle Melbourne would be horrified if many of our heritage buildings were restored to their original design. The Mitre Tavern was given a faux Ye Olde Tea Shoppe makeover in the 1920s but imagine the furore if the owner tried to restore it to its earlier design. You can walk past many buildings in Melbourne and ponder what is the ‘correct’ period to restore them to. Heritage hotels like the Duke of Wellington and the Imperial have expanded over time and cannibalised neighbouring buildings. (A telltale sign is differing floor and ceiling levels within the one area.) A new plaster façade later gets added and integrates the diverse buildings. Should the façade be removed? The veranda at Macs Hotel is a much later addition. Should it be removed?

Which is the ‘correct’ period to set in aspic? It seems to vary depending on who you are asking. From what I can tell, many school children’s understanding of history is that it consists of two periods. The Colour Period and the Black & White Period. The Black & White Period is also known as The Olden Times. So that’s fairly simple – buildings should be restored to the way they were in The Olden Times.

If, on the other hand you talk to Gen X and Gen Y you will learn that the real heritage values of Melbourne lay in the Retro Period as represented by the fake distressing of buildings in Brunswick Street and the jumbled 1990s makeovers in St Kilda which combined anything you could find from the 50s 60s and 70s. The Retro Period is truly a heritage period because of its reverence for the 50s to 70s (also known as the Greatest Songs of All Time Period.) It will be interesting to see how long it takes the instant English and Irish pubs with their pretend leadlight and fittings to become heritage buildings.

But I think the main consensus is that the ‘correct’ period for preservation and restoration is the Misty Watercolour Memory Period of the baby boomers. A good example is the Melbourne Hospital site For 100 years during the Black & White Period the Melbourne Hospital operated there (often without anaesthetic) and it was in this period that the surviving building was constructed. Then for 40 years the Queen Victoria Women Hospital was located there. So how should the site be remembered and preserved? Simple – as the Queen Victoria site because that’s what it was during the Misty Watercolour Memory Period (although it may be best not to ask why a baby boomer girl might be attending there). Of course there are some problems in restoring places to this period. The current Commonwealth Games Village on a piece of (never was but could have been) parkland would need to be restored to a depressing psychiatric institution surrounded by barbed wire, and we would need to rebuild the Gas & Fuel Buildings. Still, on the whole, this seems to be the ‘correct’ period for preservation and restoration. Most guidebooks and websites will tell you with confidence that the great place to meet your friend is under the clocks. They obviously haven’t been there since the Misty Watercolour Memory Period.

Most media, particularly the ABC, seem to confuse heritage with nostalgia. After all, nostalgia may not be a deadly sin and many Melbournians regard it as an art form. However if you ask any baby boomer they’ll inform you that nostalgia isn’t what is used to be.
 

Festivals

This weekend there is a Vietnamese Children’s Lantern Festival at Richmond (free), a Chilean Festival at the Immigration Museum ($2) and a Bosnian Festival at Trades Hall ($20). Details at Festivals in Melbourne.

Hypothetical - Law on Terror

This week the Law Institute is hosting a ‘hypothetical’ featuring a number of eminent Australians. These include Robert Manne, Julian Burnside QC, Natasha Stott Despoja (she was an important politician back in the Retro Period), Malcolm Fraser (the ex Prime Minister who is currently to the left of both John Howard and Mark Latham but back in the Misty Watercolour Memory Period he was – well it’s all a bit complicated – go and ask a baby boomer). Information at Forums in Melbourne.

Art Walk

For those of you who didn’t receive an invitation to last night’s Domaine Chandon Art Walk (did you see last week’s wonderfully observed cameo by Bruce Spence of a gallery director in the Australian telemovie?) visiting the private galleries in Flinders Lane with lots of top class bubbly, not to worry. Get together a group of friends, some sweet sherry in a brown paper bag, and visit some of the public art installations in the city. For instance, there is a new one due to start tonight in Lush Lane. By the end of the night when you arrive at Y&Js you may well be indistinguishable from last night’s art lovers. Some (incomplete) information on public art can be found at Public Art in Melbourne.

Sin No.2 - Envy

Mikhail Gorbachev tells the story of a Russian peasant who finds a magic lamp and summons up the genie who grants him a wish. The peasant explains that he has only three cows while his neighbour has ten cows. “I see” says the genie, “so you would like me to supply you with twenty cows.” “No” says the peasant, “I want you to kill seven of my neighbour’s cows.”
It will interesting to observe as the current election campaign proceeds what proves more popular – providing more cows or killing cows.
 

Country Victoria

Flowers at Ferny Creek, daffodils at St Erth, tulips at Silvan, wattle at Maryborough, rare plants at Mt Macedon, triffids at Werribee, photos at Warrnambool and pigeons at Ballarat. What more could you ask for? Details at Country Victoria.

Reader Feedback

“Bxxxxx html! I read whitehat for the human-killing plants and bluestone whispers, not the pretty layouts.
Heather”

(We have x’d out your expletive not because of our narrow mindedness but because of the prudery of many spam filters – the new thought police - which would block this newsletter)

“White hat guy (you really are),
Both (Pellegrini’s & the Waiter’s Club) were haunts of mine during the 70's, so it brought back floods of memories to read your snippet.
I enjoy all your newsletters, frequently forwarding them to friends in Melbourne.
When I visit Melbourne from the north east of Victoria, I often have a gem or two of yours as a guide for an outing.
Thanks for the memories,
Miss Jane”

Thanks Miss Jane. Only one mark I’m afraid. If you said that you envy those still living in Melbourne we could have given you two.