Because we stayed an extra day in Paradise, we faced an eight hour drive to Melbourne, though it turned out not to be that arduous. We chose the coastal route, which winds among thick forests of stately gum trees, through many small towns and over some very pretty countryside, made all the more beautiful for the unusual amount of rain the coastal region has received this summer.
We only stopped a couple of times—once in the town of Eden, where we went to the Killer Whale Museum—a quirky local institution that revolves around the story of ‘Old Tom’, an orca that used to help whalers by alerting them to the presence of whales in the bay and helping them get close enough to kill the whales for their blubber.
Apparently, orcas in the region had been working with native whale hunters in this way for centuries, according to ‘the law of the tongue’: orcas helped the human hunters in exchange for their trophies’ tongues—the part of the whale orcas preferred to eat.
Although not the only whale to engage in this behavior, ‘Old Tom’ was legendary for his level of cooperation-even pulling whaling boats out to their prey by grasping their tow ropes in his teeth, as evidenced by his skeletal remains on display, which show the teeth on one side of his mouth worn to nubs and grooves where the ropes wore them down.
We arrived in Melbourne in the early evening and checked into our Airbnb in St Kilda, which turned out to be one of the best rentals we have ever had.
The next few days were devoted to exploring Melbourne and walking down memory lane as I revisited the places my family and I had lived, shopped, worked and recreated in the years 1970-1976. As we were near the bay, we first oriented ourselves by driving from Black Rock to Port Melbourne, an eleven mile stretch of the bay anchored by the two yacht clubs my family had belonged to in those years.
My dad had decided to take up sailing when we got to Australia, and a few months after we arrived, he bought our first boat—a sleek 18 foot racing dinghy called a Jollyboat that carried a huge amount of sail, utilised a trapeze and was the fastest wooden boat of its time—not exactly the best boat to learn on as we were soon to find out….
We joined Port Melbourne Yacht Club and proceeded to embarrass ourselves every weekend as we floundered, capsized, keeled all the way over on occasion, once even getting the mast stuck upside down in the mud just outside the yacht club clubhouse, and twice had to be towed back to shore. We generally entertained the much more experienced yachtsmen and earned the (admittedly misogynistic) nickname: ‘Dick Aberley and his all girl crew’.
I was the designated trapeze artist, which was both exciting and terrifying, as I experienced a free fall towards the mast every time we came about. My dad adored the spinnaker, but it just added more sail to an already over-amped rig, made the boat less stable and increased the risk of capsizing so we girls were always reluctant to use it and there were several mutinies when my sisters and I refused his orders to raise the spinnaker-scrambling to the bow so he couldn’t reach us as he was the only one who could man the tiller.
My dad insisted on taking part in the yacht club races though we were nowhere near competent enough to do so, and to add to the stress, the courses ran close to or even across the main shipping channel, which made for some frightening moments. We once capsized far out in the bay near a shipping buoy and it took us ages to right the boat and scramble back on board. We read in the next day’s paper that a huge bull shark had been seen in that area the day before.
We only kept the Jollyboat for about 2 years, but it was an exciting time and I have strong memories of Port Melbourne so I was pleased to see that they still have Jollyboat aficionados, even though they ceased to be built after 1971.
Starting on the Jollyboat was a steep learning curve but it put us in good stead when we graduated to a Boomerang- a 20 foot retractable keel yacht with a cabin suitable for open ocean sailing. It was much tamer and more stable and we put it on a trailer and took it to places like Sydney Harbour and the Great Barrier Reef.
The home base of the Boomerangs was the Black Rock Yacht Club, and by the time my parents joined that one, I was away at university, so have few memories of racing there. It is still there, but seems not to have that class of boat anymore- just small sailboat and ocean kayaks.
We lived in two different houses in Melbourne- the first a then brand new split level in Glen Waverley, which my parents chose because it was close to the private school they had signed my younger sister and me up for in the neighboring suburb or Mt Waverley.
Glen Waverley at the time was in the outermost ring of Melbourne suburbs, and it didn’t even have any shops- just a milk bar where we could buy a newspaper and get the basics.
I remember milk bars so vividly- it seemed like there was one on every corner, and there were thousands in Melbourne alone. I was dismayed to find out that milk bars barely exist anymore and I was so excited when I spotted one near where we were staying.
The Glen Waverley house looked much the same (the trees were much bigger!), as did most of the houses on the cul-de-sac (though there was a brand new one across the street), but Glen Waverley is no longer the last suburb before the countryside and is much more built up and developed now, unsurprisingly.
My sister and I took the train to school—about an 8 minute ride—and wore uniforms that at first we despised but then appreciated as it eliminated all the decision making about what to wear each day and left more money to spend on fun clothing.
I only attended Huntingtower for a year and a half but I was still interested in seeing how it had changed over the years and as it was a Sunday, no one was about and we were able wander the grounds freely. It is still in the same location, and a few of the original buildings remain, but the school has grown considerably.
It now has an aquatic centre, a performing arts centre and many new buildings—a far cry from my day when it had no more than 200 students in K-12. It now boasts an enrolment of four times that, with tuition $15-30,000 a year.
When I attended, the school was exclusively for Christian Scientists (however, there was no religious instruction and the curriculum was entirely academic), and although it still retains its Christian Science identification and values, it now accepts students of all backgrounds, and from the photos in the display cases around the school, it looks like it has a very high Asian enrolment. I checked the state education website after my visit and discovered that it was ranked the 6th best school in the entire state of Victoria.
After we girls had left Huntingtower, my parents bought a Victorian terrace house in Prahran, then a gentrifying inner suburb dominated by Greek immigrants, and now a chic address full of trendy shops and restaurants.
The terrace looked the same from the street, and the neighborhood seemed largely unchanged as did much of Melbourne’s inner suburbs, I was pleased to see.
It retains many, many more streets full of Victorian and Edwardian houses and far fewer highrise developments than Sydney. And each suburb still has its own unique High street, with independent shops and a cozy neighborhood feel.
The Prahran Market is still flourishing, though no longer dominated by Greek merchants as it was when I used to go there. Now it has lots of high end gourmet and organic food shops, but it is still a delight.
And Melbourne has retained its beloved trams, unlike most modern cities, and we used them often to go into the city.
The central business district has changed the most since I lived in Australia, with dozen of dazzling new skyscrapers looming over the neat grid of streets that make up the downtown.
There’s a shiny new Federation Square, which houses some amazing museums, and the riverfront is now bustling with floating bars, cafes and new pedestrian bridges.
But the main thoroughfares at the city’s core-Bourke Street, Collins Street, Flinders Street-remain much the same, with the same stately old buildings, venerable Meyer, the department store, and the same quaint Victorian arcades as I used to know.
I even convinced Tom to have tea in the oldest tea room in Australia, which though overpirced, had a huge selection of delicious gluten free cakes, which I just couldn’t pass up.
The trains still come right into the center of the city at Flinders Street Station as they always did and it is free to ride the trams within the CBD—encouraging their continued use.
Coming back to Melbourne after 50 years was not as foreign an experience as I had anticipated. The skyline of the city has changed immeasurably, but the core of Melbourne and its many suburbs have remained remarkably stable over the past half century.
I could find my way around quite easily, and much of it felt familiar and welcoming. Aside from the loss of milk bars, it felt very much like coming home.
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