Southbank

Victoria (Melbourne Region)

The Southbank & cruising Yarra River

The muddy Yarra River is an essential part of Melbourne; it was traditionally home to the docks and is now the focus of lots of leisure activities. In the early days, tidal movements of up to two metres meant frequent flooding, a problem only partly solved by artificially straightening the river and building up its banks – but with the incidental benefit of reserving tracts of low-lying land as recreational space, now pleasingly crisscrossed by paths and cycle tracks.

Four bridges cross the river from the CBD: Spencer Street Bridge at the end of Spencer Street; Kings Bridge on King Street; Queens Bridge, not quite at the end of Queen Street; and Princes Bridge, which carries Swanston Street across. There’s also a pedestrian bridge from the bank below Flinders Street Station to the Southgate Centre. The best way to see the Yarra is on a cruise.

On the south side of Princes Bridge you can rent bikes to explore the salubrious left bank; on fine weekends especially, the Yarra comes to life, with people messing about in boats, cycling and strolling, and family groups gathered for barbecues.

Southgate, immediately west of Princes Bridge, is a highly successful development: once dingy and industrial, it’s now a classy shopping complex with lots of smart cafés, restaurants, bars and a huge food court with very popular outdoor tables; at lunchtime and weekends it’s very hard to find a table even indoors.

Federation Square and the sports grounds

Just across the river from Southgate opposite Flinders Street Station, Federation Square is intended to form a link between the CBD and the river, completing the city’s shift of focus. The Square covers an entire block, comprising Civic Plaza, an open auditorium, a new Visitor’s Centre, a Cinemedia Centre and The Atrium, a covered, 120-metre-long area reaching from Flinders Street almost all the way to the banks of the Yarra. Civic Plaza is partly open towards the river, and partly flanked by a structure designed to accommodate cafés, restaurants and shops. Alongside Federation Square the new Museum of Australian Art (MAA) will house works by indigenous and non-indigenous Australian artists from the National Gallery of Victoria collection.

The parklands east of Federation Square are being redeveloped and extended to form Riverside Park, a green link between Federation Square and the Tennis Centre at Melbourne Park which hosts international tennis tournaments such as the Australian Open (January), as well as big-name rock concerts and other performances. Bordered by Swan Street and the river is the “Glasshouse” or Indoor Sports and Entertainment Centre, home of the Melbourne Giants basketball team.

Crown Casino and docklands

West of Southgate, in an entire block between Queens Bridge and Spencer Street Bridge, the fortress-like Crown Casino, a controversial development, towers gloomily over the Yarra, blocking out all views of the city skyline from the south. The equally new Exhibition Centre next door is basically just an extremely long shed, which has only two features of architectural merit: the glass facade facing the river, and the eastern entrance resembling a raised drawbridge with two bright yellow, pencil-thin pylons holding up the roof. The excellent Polly Woodside Maritime Museum (daily 10am–4pm; $7) is tucked into a small old dock next to the Exhibition Centre. The focus is the Polly Woodside itself, a small, barque-rigged sailing ship, built in Belfast in 1885 for the South American coal trade and retired only in 1968, when it was the last deep-water sailing vessel in Australia still afloat.

The squat building facing the Exhibition Centre and the museum across the Yarra is the World Trade Centre. Next to it, facing the Crown Casino, is Melbourne Aquarium, a recently opened attraction. With a budget of $33-million, this ambitious project will harbour thousands of creatures from the Southern Ocean. Part of it will be taken up by the Oceanarium tank, which rests seven metres below the river’s surface, holds over two million litres of water, and contains 3200 animals from 150 species, a sting ray-filled beach with a wave machine and a fish bowl turned inside out where visitors stand in a glass room surrounded by shark-filled water. The curved, four-storey building will also comprise lecture halls, an amphitheatre, cafés and a restaurant. For admission fees and opening times, call 03/9620 0999.

Further downstream is the old dock area, an urban wasteland of warehouses, sheds, empty open spaces and old docks that’s now the site of grand-scale commercial, residential and leisure development. Of all the new developments, the docklands project is going to have the biggest impact on the look and feel of Melbourne: in ten to fifteen years an entire new city will stand by the waterfront.

Victorian Arts Centre

The Victorian Arts Centre, just off St Kilda Road, comprises the National Gallery of Victoria, the Melbourne Concert Hall and the Theatres Building, topped by a hideous spire. The “Arts Tower”, as it’s sometimes called, is meant to represent the pinnacle of the arts in Melbourne, its curved surfaces supposedly evoking the flowing folds of a ballerina’s skirt. Germaine Greer’s attempt at explanation was that “stunned by the bad taste of the Sydney Opera House, the Melburnians have clearly decided to fight fire with fire … ”

There are guided tours (Mon–Fri noon & 2.30pm, Sat 10.30am & noon, $9; backstage tour Sun 12.15pm; $12) of the Concert Hall and Theatres Building, which are worth joining mainly to see the collection of art in the various foyers. The highlight of the Arts Centre if you’re not seeing a performance, however, is the fun and accessible Performing Arts Museum (daily 11am–11pm; free) on the ground level of the Theatres Building, which covers everything from opera to TV and rock ’n’ roll and has wonderful temporary exhibitions, normally on aspects of popular culture. Adjacent to the museum, the small George Adams Gallery (formerly Westpac Gallery) shows temporary exhibitions (same hours; free).

The National Gallery of Victoria has always been a more serious contender, with the best collection of Australian art in the country: seventy thousand works, rotated regularly, form its permanent collection. The gallery will be closed for major refurbishment until late 2001, when it will reopen with exhibits from its international collection; the works of Australian artists will be housed in the new Museum of Australian Art on Federation Square. Until then, a small part of the exceptional collection can be seen at the old Museum of Victoria site.

The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (Tues–Fri 11am–5pm, Sat & Sun noon–5pm; free), has consistently challenging exhibitions of contemporary international and Australian art, as well as forums, lectures and performances. In 2000, the gallery relocated to its new home in Malthouse Plaza, a development next to the CUB Malthouse Theatre complex in Sturt Street further south.

On Sunday between 10am and 5.30pm the stalls of a good arts and crafts market line the pavement outside the Arts Centre, extending onto the footpath under the Princes Bridge.

Kings Domain

Across St Kilda Road from the National Gallery of Victoria, the Kings Domain is a grassy open park encompassing the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, which serves as the outdoor music arena for the Victorian Arts Centre. South of the Bowl, and behind imposing iron gates with stone pillars and a British coat of arms, you glimpse the flag flying over Government House, the ivory mansion of the Governor of Victoria, set in extensive grounds. The National Trust run guided tours (Mon, Wed & Sat, times appointed by booking; tel 03/9654 4711; closed Dec 16–Jan 25; $8), whose highlight is the state ballroom. This occupies the entire south wing and includes a velvet-hung canopied throne, brocade-covered benches, gilded chairs, ornate plasterwork and three huge crystal chandeliers.

Just south of the Government House grounds, Latrobe’s Cottage (Mon–Thurs, Sat & Sun 11am–4pm; $2) has been re-erected as a memorial to Lieutenant-Governor Latrobe, who lived in this tiny house throughout his term of office (1839–54). The whole thing was sent over from England in prefabricated form, and as the first governor’s residence makes a telling contrast to the later one. Inside are interesting historical displays on Latrobe and the early days of the colony.

The Shrine of Remembrance, in formal grounds in the southwestern corner of the Domain, is aligned with St Kilda Road – which describes a gentle arc around it – so that its forbidding mass looms ahead as you enter or leave the city. It’s a rather Orwellian monument, apparently half Roman temple, half Aztec pyramid, given further chill when a mechanical-sounding voice booms out and calls you in to see the symbolic light inside. The shrine is designed so that at 11am on Remembrance Day (Nov 11) a ray of sunlight strikes the memorial stone inside – an effect that’s simulated every half-hour.

Royal Botanic Gardens

The Royal Botanic Gardens (daily: April–Oct 7.30am–5.30pm; Nov–March 7.30am–8.30pm) contain more than ten thousand different plant species and varieties in an extensive landscaped setting. Melbourne’s much-maligned climate is perfect for horticulture: cool enough for temperate trees and flowers to flourish, warm enough for palms and other subtropical species, and wet enough for anything else. The Visitors Centre (daily 10am–5pm; free guided walks Tues–Fri 10am & 2pm, Sun 2pm) on Dallas Brooks Drive is the best place to start your wanderings, with its displays, maps and brochures.

Highlights include the herb garden, comprising part of the medicinal garden established in 1880; the fern gully, a lovely walk through shady ferns, with cooling mists of water on a hot summer’s day; and the large ornamental lake full of ducks and black swans. The Snack Bar & Tea Rooms (Mon–Sat 9.30am–5.30pm, Sun 10am–5pm) by the lake serves refreshments and Devonshire teas. On summer evenings, bucolic plays such as The Wind in the Willows or A Midsummer Night’s Dream are often performed in the gardens, and film classics are projected onto a big outdoor screen at the Moonlight Cinema. Don’t forget to take a cardigan, a rug and, most importantly, insect repellent. Guided walks through the gardens start at the Visitors Centre (Sun–Fri at 11am and 2pm; bookings tel 03/9252 2300; $4). There are also guided tours to the reopened Melbourne Observatory (originally built 1861–63) next door. The observatory performed a wide range of important functions for the fledgling colony of Victoria, providing scientific data essential for the running of businesses from shipping to farming (Night Sky Tours include viewing through the telescopes; every Tues 7.30–9.30pm. Bookings essential; tel 03/9525 2300).

River cruises on the Yarra

The main central departure points for cruises along the Yarra are Princes Walk and Southgate in the city, and Williamstown at the mouth of the Yarra further west. You can choose between short trips and longer journeys towards the sea and the bird colonies at Port Phillip Bay and Herring Island.

Melbourne River Cruises (bookings tel 03/9629 7233; $14, or combined up-and downriver cruise $28) make half-hourly departures from Princes Walk below the northern end of Princes Bridge. Their Scenic River Garden Cruise (1hr 15min) will take you upriver past affluent South Yarra and industrial Richmond to Herring Island; the Port and Docklands Cruise (also 1hr 15min) runs downriver past the towering Crown Casino complex and the Exhibition Centre – and then past shipping channels and docks to the Westgate bridge.

Penguin Waters Cruises (bookings tel 03/9645 0533 or mobile tel 0412/311 922) offer a day-cruise (depart 1pm; 1hr 30min; $20) and an evening cruise (departure depending on season; 2hr; $40) from Southgate to Port Phillip Bay. Both include a barbecue. The sunset cruise takes passengers to a colony of Little penguins on a “secret site” – the skipper is the only person with an NRE permit to take people there. There are also cruises from St Kilda Pier.

Williamstown Bay and River Cruises (for recorded information call 03/9506 4144; for bookings tel 03/9397 2255; $10, or $18 return) ply the lower section of the Yarra between Williamstown and Southgate in the west of the city, passing the Crown Casino, the Exhibition Centre and the docks. There are daily departures throughout the summer at 11am, 1pm, 3pm & 5pm, returning from Williamstown at noon, 2pm, 4pm & 6pm. Their cruises are pleasantly uncommercial, with no commentary or pressure to buy anything.