Fancy a holiday in Batmania?

Before there was Melbourne, the Aboriginal Kulin people lived here. Then a settler from Tasmania by the name of John Batman came ashore and, so legend dictates, declared that this would be a good spot for a village. He bought the land for some beads, though it's almost certain that the local indigenous people had no idea what they were doing – not having any concept of land ownership.

The treaty of purchase was annulled by the government of New South Wales (of which the town was then part) but not because of the raw deal suffered by the Aborigines. Rather, the governor declared that all land in the colony not otherwise allocated was the property of the crown. In the end, though, he had to recognise that the settlers were there and he agreed to allow them to stay.

For a while, it looked as though the new settlement would be called Batmania but, ultimately, it was named after the then British Prime Minister, Viscount Melbourne (Melbourne being a town in Derbyshire, England).

The discovery of gold meant that the town quickly grew into one of the richest and most powerful in the British Empire and some of the wealth was spent constructing a magnificent Town Hall, which is now open for tours, as well as being an administrative centre for the city.

That balcony within the columns is where visiting dignitaries wave to the crowds. It's also where I waved to the crowds, but they didn't wave back. Visiting dignitaries have included the Queen and the Beatles. Just inside the door is a reception room with this piano in it:

John Lennon played that piano. Apparently he played Chopin.

The council chamber is beautifully decorated in an Italianate style:


It is quite obvious that this was built by a town with a great deal of self confidence and, perhaps more importantly, with plenty of cash.

The Town Hall also contains an auditorium which is used for concerts, amongst which organ concerts. It is the proud boast of Melburnians that their Town Hall contains the largest organ in the southern hemisphere. Well, it certainly looks impressive enough:

The organ was restored about 10 years ago, and has over 7000 speaking pipes. The restoration involved completely rebuilding all of the wind chests and renovating all of the pipes. The various registers are visible behind the scenes and you can even play some of the pipes by pressing buttons:

Different parts of the organ are visible. This, for example, is the choir organ:

Just along the road from the Town Hall, is the splendid St Paul's Cathedral – which could be any Cathedral in England. Building began in 1880 and services took place from 1891, but the towers were not finished until well into the twentieth century.

The Gothic interior is a bit over-the-top in places:

Just across from the cathedral is Flinders Street Station – the hub for most of the metropolitan train services. If you look closely above the main entrance (below the name board), you can see a line of clocks showing departure times for the next trains to various destinations. The clocks are now automatic, which must be a relief to the poor guy who had previously to change them with a long pole (say, 900 times per day).

Outside the station is a rack of bicycles:

For $50 per year, you can borrow one of these whenever you need it and return it to to any of the locations throughout the city. The snag is that your journey must be shorter than 30 minutes as after that a usage fee applies which can be quite expensive - for example, to keep a bike for 90 minutes would add $5 to your fee. Still, it's a good idea and I wish them better luck than Amsterdam had with the white bike scheme.