Port Melbourne starts a circle

 This post has two catalysts:

• On 15 July while birding at St Kilda a passer-by commented about seeing a group 5 big black and white birds diving into the sea at Port Melbourne.  This sounded like Gannets but my informant was unsure.
• We have just read a book "Melbourne Circle" which visits inter alia Garden City, an interesting sounding area at Port Melbourne.

I was taking the car out to get fuel so it seemed a good chance to drive to the Port to check these matters out. The Google Maps route went to Garden City first so this blog will follow that example.  I will begin with a review of the book (compiled for a U3A newsletter).

“Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory, and Loss” Nick Gadd

This is another book with much scope for emotive unhappiness, as it is written in places as a letter to his late wife[1] about the walks they did around Melbourne.  However I think he dodges that bullet and I just ended up feeling a little sad for him, but thinking how well he dealt with the ‘loss’ element.

The idea underlying the book came from one of our favourite writers Robert MacFarlane who introduced the author to the concept of psychogeography:

“… place a glass, rim down, anywhere on (a) map and draw around its edge.  Pick up the map, go out into the city and walk the circle.”

The circle they walk is around the edge of the City of Melbourne beginning in Williamstown/Yarraville, getting to Fitzroy and St Kilda before ending in Port Melbourne.  This is not done in one go but many trips.  They focus on the history of the areas, often catalysed by “ghost signs” – the old advertisements dimly visible on blank walls and shopfronts. 

We had noticed many of the places he mentions but found out more background to them in reading.  Quite a lot of the ones we haven’t seen have entered the “must go and look at that” category.  For example, we had never heard of Yarraville, let alone the Sinking Village before reading this!

Even if you are not planning to walk the whole area there is a lot of very interesting ‘hidden history’ revealed by this very well written book.

[1] Indeed’ the opening sentence is “I came across our certificate of title while I was sorting out the estate after you died.”

Their coverage of Garden City notes its relationship to the Garden City ideas from the UK and comments on an unusual feel for the area with all houses similar (two story, semi-detached) and how it seemed very quiet, with no shops etc and no-one in the streets.  My target was Garden City Reserve which looked interesting.

To get to the Reserve I drove through several of the narrow curved roads noting the houses were all as described in the book.

Another house: while the bricks and mortar were all the same, the differing approaches to gardening did away with the monotonous appearance the place must have had when first created.  Note the pigeons on the roof!

Welcome to the Reserve!

This is a view of part of the Reserve.  There were a few folk around, passing through or exercising dogs (including a lovely Kelpie "Annie" for whom I kicked a ball while chatting withe her owner).

This excellent bit of Park Art was on the back of the Hobson's Bay Dog Obedience Clubhouse.

The reference to Hobson's Bay made me wonder if the Council of the similar name had turf on both sides of the Yarra.  No, but surprisingly this is the Western "last gasp" of Melbourne City and not the awful Bayside City

The housing between the Reserve and the beach is much more recent that the Garden City but seem to have somewhat the same designs (two story bunkers) but freestanding and with add-ons (to the house matched by reduction in the owners wallet).

There was an excellent playground including this climbing wall (there is another example of this on Grant St.).

A little bit of sculpture.

Only common Park birds in the Reserve so I headed towards the beach and then along to Princes Pier.  here are the piles of the extended Pier.

A popular roosting (and in due course nesting) site for Silver Gulls.

The white dots - about 700m away - are Australasian Gannets (see introduction), taking a break from fishing.  There were 12 all told.

On the Eastern tip of the pile of piles were 14 Pied Cormorants.

As I drove towards the beach I noticed lots of cranes.  This seemed to be a huge development under the name of Barak (which I assume is a Yuin word, not a suck-up to Obama).

Here is the view from Princes Pier.

I asked a tradie how many houses in total and he said 700, with four towers and some ground level places.  As a sign talked about "affordable" I felt a little of cheap and nasty might be happening which would be a pity for the area.  However a friend advised that there will in fact only be 408 dwellings and the site was previously "social housing" so it is probably an improvement.  There is detail in this site.