Last day in "Marvelous Melbourne" - the Immigration Museum

In the breakfast room of the Claremont this morning I picked up the "Herald Sun". There tucked away on the front page under "Magpie menaces a couple in Gippsland" was "English win Ashes" Wow - thats all I can say, wow..the first time in 18 years. So this morning while munching on my vegemite and toast I tucked into the editorial which grudgingly acknowledged the win. I loved the articles on how it was good for sport to have healthy competiton. The mighty Aussie machine was not great for world competition. I could have told them that.

So it was the last day in Melbourne. Four days has been enough. I am ready to move on to Sydney. I can see why people rave about Melbourne. Its a "nice" place to live. You have everything you want here - Melbourne keeps itself happily amused. It has a genteel sophisticated air. But you have to give it a chance. Its attractions are not immediately apparent. It does put alot of emphasis on art, it thinks itself deeper then its cousin up in New South Wales. It spends millions of dollars on cutting edge architecture and state of the art museums. In short, it wants to impress.

There tucked away on the front page under "Magpie menaces a couple in Gippsland" was "English win Ashes" Wow, thats all I can say, wow..the first time in 18 years

And it does.

No one really has a bad word to say about it. It doesnt provoke an immediate reaction from a visitor like Budapest, London or Los Angeles or exhaust them like Bangkok or Delhi. It attracts people from around the world. Those skyscrapers down the St Kilda Road have as much British and Japanese money as Australian. And they are still coming. My friend Dave Kiley moved to St Kilda from Barons Court. Would I like it?

Well thats a question I asked mysefl after the immigration museum. So I took the train loop to Spencer Street. The museum itself is housed in a white confection of a Victorian mansion and cost $6. The staff were very amenable and seemed happy to see visitors. Australia is so new its history is happening now. The museum was the story of millions of people arriving to make a new home for themselves. The tale of Australian immigration is still going on which gave an edge to the museum. From 1830 onwards immigration really took off. The British government would give you "assisted passage" where it paid for your trip around the world and a promise of land at the end of it.

They reconstructed ship travel throughout the ages. The 1830s (hammocks and oil lamps), the 1910's (overcrowded and mainly Irish) or the 1950s (spotless bunkbeds and pyjamas). As the decades progressed it was obvious that some immigrants were more welcome then others. Fear of being swamped by the Chinese after the 1840 "goldrush" formed the "white Australia" policy which lasted until the fifties. The experience of those who arrived after WWII was still recent and there were many photographs and testimonies of those people. You can imagine them setting foot in Aden, Cape Town or Bombay on the way to Australia. When they did arrive at Station Pier in Melbourne (Melbourne got the majority because it was slightly nearer then Sydney).

With the colour photos of the sixties and seventies there was a sense of recent history with this one. The fact that they were in colour made you question whether you would emigrate. I think everyone who visits Australia asks themselves the same question. Myself? Could I live abroad? Well the only place to tempt me is Rio de Janeiro. A nice apartmetn overlooking Copacabana. Or maybe Spain or Italy when I retire. Australia is too far from Europe for me.

The rest of the day I spent in the CBD wandering along Collins looking in the shops and a last strol around Federation Square. Perhaps I have been too hard on Melbourne. You cant judge a city in four days. Perhaps I shall come back and give it more justice.

But tomorrow is 11 hours on a train. Wont that be fun...