Travelogue - Melbourne

"Melbourne & Sydney are sisters, but Sydney is the prettier one ..So she's always been more overtly beautiful, she's got the Harbour, the bridge, she's got Bondi, the good weather – but because of that she's never had to really work on her personality. So her bars, her restaurants, her coffee – not great. But she's so overtly beautiful that people will keep going back anyway"

Melbourne Street Art -1

"Melbourne is the less overtly attractive sister, she's still beautiful but in her own subtle way. So we don't have the Harbour, we have a body of water, and it's pretty at night and sunset but you've gotta look a little bit harder to appreciate it, so we've had to work on our personality,

"So we have the best coffee, the best restaurants, rooftop bars, festivals – we're even fun when it rains... Because we can't fall back on our looks – we're not the overtly attractive sister here – so we've had to get such a good personality, and we earn our crowds."

==> Courtesy Sarah Davidson, a Melbourne based influencer

"

Melbourne Street Art 2

First time in Aus, we landed at Melbourne and spent 4 nights finding out the essence of the city. And truly as Sarah mentioned, Melbourne charmed us really into it.  For a country with not so much history unlike the European ( Read Budapest , Rome , Berlin, )  or US cities (New York, Washington DC,) ,  Melbourne has beautifully woven threads out of its ~170 year past into the modern civilizations.  A free spirit like NY thrives in Melbourne. That manifests itself in various forms of street arts and cafe's which has become a rallying point for various bands and even celebrities like  Taylor Swift & bands such as ACDC.  Indeed, the city shows us how elements of modern culture can be developed out of such esoteric interests and can become a unifying force towards larger causes such as child rights, climate impact, inequality etc.  

Melbourne Street Art 3

Music and street art forms the heart and soul of the city.   It has its share of controversial characters such as Ned Kelly (a Robinhood for some, a murderer for others) in the wake of gold rush and colonial era.  Indeed it made me think - the roots of economic growth is Aus is the gold rush in the 1850's . Africa also had a mineral rush post that. Why did Australia evolve into a first world developed country (inspite of a steep Geographic penalty which makes trade with most parts of the world very expensive from a logistics perspective ) , whereas Africa is still languishing as a third world country.  I think the answers has got a lot of do with how settler / colonial institutions evolved and possibly a climate encouraging large scale migration and settlements. The education system also seems to encourage critical thinking and developing an ability to form their own perspectives in children (Read about how Australian classrooms teaches about Ned Kelly - without putting any preconceived notions, students are encouraged to dissect the facts and form their own opinions ).   

Great Ocean Road

Wallabies at Moonlit Sanctuary

Koala petting at Moonlit Sanctuary

Two hours drive from the city, you get to this wonderful place called Philip Island, which is a bio-diversity hotspot like Galapagos. Natural penguin colonies, Koala's, wallabies, kangaroos - this is a place where systematic interventions of a proactive Government has kept the ecological balance.  For eg, Govt bought out the houses and lands of private settlers in areas important to wild life. Govt adopted to a wide variety of measures to remove foxes from the island including hunting when it threatened the natural habitat of penguins and wallabies. Indeed it shows u how wild life conservation should be done, scientifically preserving the ecological balance - a far cry from many environmentalists in India, who oppose any such measures .  Incidentally, inspite of Kangaroo being the national animal of Australia, scientifically they have indulged in culling Kangaroos when the population became too much to threaten the habitats.   Imagine something like that being proposed in India ! . 

Another touristy sight in the vicinity of Melbourne is the Great Ocean Road - which was conceived as a project to provide employment for soldiers returning after first world war.  Indeed, Aus is a large country with less population - a drive along the road took us into many small settlements, replete with all modern amenities . 

A deep respect for the aboriginal origins permeate the Australian way of life with deep respects highlighted to them wherever appropriate - perhaps symbolized as an atonement to the atrocities committed on them. 

Shane Warne - has been honored by a statue outside MCG, his home. Many legends such as Dennis Lillee, Don Bradman also find a place there.  

Shane Warne Statue outside MCG

One thing which we did in this trip vis-a-vis other trips was to meet and connect with a lot of our college-mates and other friends, who have migrated here. Conversations with them gave a lot of insights into the Australian way of life, challenges and opportunities.  Most of our Uber drivers were also people who are studying in Australia.  Conversations with them gave a pretty optimistic view of their outlook and the future of Australia.  When you trace back the history, you see that mass migration to Australia and Argentina  started in 1850's. Australia emerged as a winner. I think it is all about conscious choices and policies that Governments implemented.  It is relevant in this era as well as countries such as Australia , Canada , Europe and US  (practically the entire developed world) has implemented targeted human capital attraction policies centered around highly valued skills.  Unlike 1800's and 1900's, human capital is the new oil / gold in 2000's and Australia seems to be rightly placed to capture that dividend !

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