Marybyrnong River

At European settlement this was named the Saltwater River as it is tidal so far upstream. Is lazy and flat close to the bay but within twelve kilometers it is flowing through fantastic gorges that it has carved through ancient volcanic rock.

Interactive Map and Directions to the Organ Pipes National Park

The Living Museum of the West

This is a surprising history resource nestling at the foot of a river cliff on the banks of the Marybyrnong. Highpoint shopping megafauna sits on top of the cliff. The drive down to the river through Pipemakers is a journey through the industrial revolution, several different factories have blotted the riverside since European settlement. This museum has the oral records of this site and many other records of people in Melbourne working and living here.

www.livingmuseum.org.au

The North Wind

Hot, dry full of dust. I can remember one New Year's Eve, a reasonable day until the wind came from the north. For the next seven hours it was like talking to a blast furnace. Then just before midnight, the wind dropped, so did the temperature, by a reasonable eight degrees. Then the wind swung south. A further twelve degrees went, all in the space of ten minutes.

Celebration of Giddy!

Its giddy time in Melbourne. Giddy girls, giddy up horses, so many flowers, leaves and seeds flying around. Hayfever eyes for some, the season of fascinators or big hats. I saw a straw hat on DVD that I lust for. A straw topper! Melbourne seems to lose its reserve around the horsetrack. Very elegant looking men and women can look very much the worse for wear after standing in the sun knocking back racetrack refreshments.

Winter

The wind changes, it talks to your joints with harder arguments. It feels dark. Lights reflected in rainfall puddles are always welcome. Sharp blue sky days, both calm and blusters. A time to appreciate layers and the magic of warmth and light.

Brighton - In a Sleeping Bag

During my first winter in Melbourne I lived in a Brighton mansion as part of a well organised commune. I worked by day for a media firm on advertising, multimedia and arts projects. At night I would catch the train back to dinner for sixty, social catchup and then retire to my room. It contained my clothes and a borrowed sleeping bag.

The Bay

Water in Melbourne is so different to Sydney. Its still wet obviously, but you rarely get the chance to see a lot of it from a travelling height. A flash from the Bolte Bridge, from the hill past Frankston. The rest of the time, water is seen from water level. Its grey, green, sometimes blue, almost always filled by gusts of Bass Strait.

Returning to Melbourne

I returned to Sydney after the Gaol show.

Three years later I was knocking on a girl's front door in Port Melbourne.

I had hitched from Sydney, left everything behind and fled.

My first year in Melbourne had 13 residences.

Opening Night

Ash Wednesday meant that our show had no opening publicity, the media was a torrent of real tragedy and remarkable survival. It was a subdued audience that stood watching golden Ned. They warmed up when they took seats and the show got under way. We were cruising well when halfway through the second half the power failed.

The 3 phase installed by the electrician had dropped the neutral connection, we didn't know that until the next day.

What it meant at the time was switching on the display lights, and adjusting them towards the stage. The opening night audience finished the show under the stern gaze of all the lit death masks. To top it all the party area in the old exercise yard was powered and lit by the new connection. The audience left quickly.

Nobody came at night, but just about every high school kid in Melbourne did over several months.

The Atmosphere Changes

Our little show was supposed to open on a Friday. The Wednesday before we finished rehearsal early, about 5:30. Inside the gaol it was always coolish even with lights on. We stepped out into a furnace. The sun had disappeared, visibilty was very limited. Everything smelt of burning. Nothing had got into the gaol, so it was a shock. 

It was Ash Wednesday 1983

The Long Walk

My job in the last week of rehearsal was to be last to leave and lock up. As we were now rehearsing at night after public museum hours it was quite often midnight as I left.

I would pack away the lighting gear as the cast changed into civvies. Then pack the sound, by the time I'd finished that, it was  just me switching off lights.

The last task was to get to the front door down the length of the cellblock. There was a light next the front door. After switching off all other display lights, all I had for lighting was the display lights on the death masks in the ground floor cells - including Ned's.

It was always an interesting walk with my imagination for the whole five month season.

The Glitter Sweeper At The Ned Kelly Disco

The musical began with Ned Kelly in golden armour declaiming passages from the Jerilderie Letter, above and behind the audience.

Ned Kelly Superstar

Then he is marched by warders along the gallery to the gallows where the actor cannot be seen by the audience and the dummy is ready on the trap. At the time below the gallows at the end of the stage were glass cabinets filled with Kelly arms and armour.

When the drop opened with a crash, Ned Kelly in golden armour at the of a rope, swings through a shower of glitter, tastefully lit by mirror balls, disco lights and music.

Ned Kelly Superstar.

Slow Hands Join Slow Dusty

I needed help, there is no doubt about it.

 I asked the collective - I was not made a temporary member ; if unemployed teens for a production team could be found. I was given a couple of strong lads from a home for the  intellectually diverse. We built a scaffold stage through the gaol, rigged stage lights, painted sets all without interrupting the public too much. The lads were nice guys, extremely helpful, very literal and delighted to be part of something as fun as putting on a show.

The only thing we didn't do ourselves was run the lighting 3 phase power from street to building. That was installed in one of the ground floor cells. A row of these on the southern side contained death masks of those executed on the premises. A greatest hits of the noose.

I had to do research about how to drop a dummy through a gallows three times a day

I now understood more than I wanted too about gallows humour. Luckily the lads just got on with the task of making the gallows safely unusable day to day.

In Gaol Already!

After pointing out that if they wanted me to appear on stage they would have to pay me as an actor in addition to my production roles, the happy hippies decided that only need my backstage skills.

Now is the time to describe the production, a musical comedy about life in the Old Melbourne Gaol in the 19th century, performed in the Old Melbourne Gaol in the 20th century. The marketing department had found a good snake oil routine and had booked out a three month residence for school audiences. So long as we could get the show on, we were in the money!

So I spent a couple of weeks learning about things in Melbourne, no help from the company they were all to busy rehearsing to do anything but demand more props and more costumes; followed by "O sorry, that's lovely but we've decided that we don't need that after all." 

You can imagine some of my thoughts when they said they wanted me to make the gallows operational again....

Slow Dusty - The Somewhat Bemused Production Hand

I said yes to an offer to be production manager to a small community theatre company in Melbourne. I caught the train, I booked into a motel, then left for hotel as the motel was full of dust. It took me a week in Melbourne to make the connection between the dust storm I had seen on TV and in the papers with the facts of dusty rooms throughout Melbourne. I'm not really slow, honestly!

I found that the theatre company had been less forthcoming about the circumstances of my employment than was really fair for a bunch of community based tree huggers.

It was not six weeks to opening night it was three & a half; they had no list of regular suppliers to call on; no car or ute; no stage hands; no stage manager and were short a cast member - I would be able to do a bit onstage wouldn't I?

Rather than getting on the train as I should have, I viewed this scenario as a challenge...

Why Melbourne?

This is the first blog about Melbourne that my blogging students & I each have to write this term about the city where we live.

Melbourne for me while growing up was the envious neighbour to the south with ridiculous sport.

Melbourne was cold wet and had no beaches and no harbour. This really didn't matter to me as I never used either but they were nice to look at.

I came to Melbourne with my parents when I was 10 and remember it was cold and wet and I was bored.

So my first adult experience of Melbourne was professional. I was hired to work on a play....