Melbourne, its Street Art and why it would be cool to live there…

We were lucky enough to have friends to stay with in Melbourne. Although I hadn’t seen Karl since I was fifteen, and had never even met his wife Sarah, they took our unpredictable plans in their stride and made us feel at home even when we arrived a whole day early and probably not smelling too fresh. It was amazing to have some nice food, a comfy bed and two whole nights sleep without needing to worry if we were going to be turfed out at any moment (hopefully we weren’t irritating enough to drive them to that!).

Karl and Sarah's house

...and some parrots in their garden

Once we’d recuperated a little, Dan and I were keen to explore. Melbourne is a quirky city and everything from the architecture to the art on the streets seems to have been designed to make you look twice. There was a projector right by the railway station which played funny short films to the square below, a forest of tiny Christmas trees and so much reflective glass in the buildings that the city seemed blue.

There are some interesting sculptures, a lot of which are very small and often hidden in places you wouldn't expect to find them...

Others, like this strange beast by the river, you can't miss...

A lady stopped to explain to us that the sculpture below represents the scroll upon which thousands of women signed a petition to be allowed the vote. 

Even more common throughout Melbourne is the colourful graffiti which adorns every blank wall outside of the Central Business District. A lot of it is the classic scribbled tags and scrawled penises of bored teenagers, but amongst those are some fantastic murals. We found a lot of these on and around Smith Street, which seems to be Melbourne’s answer to London’s Camden. It's also the place to go if you want a cheap bite to eat. N. Lee Bakery had the most reasonable food we’ve found since arriving in Australia.

Smith street is home to the country's most exciting toilet- according to Dan, it sings to you on the inside!

Also a variety of space men...

There seem to be a lot of fish...

...and even a whale!

Something strange is hiding in almost every street corner.

Aside from its quirky nature, Melbourne is very open and green. It seems to be more space to breath than most other cities and I'm looking forward to returning once we have finished hitchhiking along the Great Ocean Road.