I walked from Kensington through North Melbourne on a quiet, warm Sunday in March. Melbourne is basically a Victorian city and when you look around this part of town there are many reminders of its industrial history, including some fine buildings of the practical rather than ornate variety. Continue reading
The walk continued from the intersection of Union Street and Epsom Road in Ascot Vale, heading east and south into Flemington. Flemington has a plethora of buildings of all eras, from the fading Victorian shops of Racecourse Road to the rather totalitarian Melbourne Gateway created in the 1990s. But two starkly contrasting bits of architecture particularly interested me as I walked through it. Continue reading
Because you can walk through walls
And saw yourself in half
Because you are the guest who never left
the face we can’t remember
and the name on the tip of our tongue Continue reading
A definition of the vague term ‘psychogeography’ is “the study of the specific effects of the geographical environment … on the emotions and behaviour of individuals”.
One way of exploring the psychogeography of a city or suburb is to simply drift through it, trying to sense the moments when the atmosphere changes and your mood alters correspondingly.
I felt such a shift as I walked along Holmes Road, Moonee Ponds. It was around the moment when I spotted the signage for the Chinese restaurant. The words ‘Eat Here or Take Away’, shaped out of some soft and impermanent substance, looked as if they had been half eaten themselves. Continue reading
One of the aims of this walk around Melbourne is to get a sense of the different ambiances of each suburb. Since the 19th century, Essendon and neighbouring Moonee Ponds have been places where Melbourne’s middle classes are ensconsed. Hence the prevalence of big houses and private schools. The atmosphere is heavy with solid money and respectability. Continue reading
Melbourne Circle: stories from the suburbs 