Up later than yesterday and also have time for another load of laundry while we both have admin duties

Hunger grasps us and we get on with it – out to Krispy Kreme again but for a jazzy bagel combo for the train

Avocado & chicken and ham & cheese with a twist as they only had blueberry bagels – interesting but nice flavours

Spouts of heavy rain throughout the journey!

We arrive at Flinders Street Station: it’s supposedly haunted by someone nicknamed George, by station employees, but actually called Ernest Leahy (who drowned in a boating accident in 1902)

With some time to kill before our activity today, we stroll round to Axil Coffee Roasters Flinders Gate for another cheeky coffee

We do a loop of Federation Square to check out a prospective bar for later before entering the square

Here, we’re meeting our free walking tour group: we’ve booked via Guru Walks with a local guide called Sam though his little sister, Zoe, takes us today

Kicking off in Federation Square, we hear about the origins of Melbourne: it was formerly known as Batmania, after the person who first found the land – John Batman, a Tasmanian Grazier, Entrepreneur and Explorer

The name changed in 1837 to reflect an important person’s original residence, of Melbourne, in Derbyshire back in the UK

Bass Strait is the mass of water between Tasmania and Melbourne; the name comes from George Bass who sailed through it

Apparently, there was a lot of fear from English, in 1803, that the French would land and settle here so just did it first

The federation of states in Australia was New Year’s Day in 1901

The 20th century was also known for a long battle between Sydney and Melbourne to be the capital city of Aus, before Canberra existed

Yarra river comes from the indigenous term meaning “forever flowing” – one of the cleanest rivers in the world; the brown colouration is due to a thin, silt layer on the riverbed

Rain hits and we hide under a tree but learn that across the Yarra is Hamer Hall

The interesting fact about it is that on it’s opening night, the act suffered a heart attack and died giving way to the local tale this person haunts the venue

Victorian gold rush was started in Melbourne

The Railway Station of Flinders Street was supposedly the design that was intended for Mumbai’s central train station and took 50 years to complete

It houses six clocks for the next train departures that were manually operated by one man, who had to change them around 900 times per shift!

It’s opposite St Paul’s Cathedral where the Matthew Flinders statue is situated, the railway’s namesake

It’s one of over 500 statues and of these only 1% are of women which is less than all animals, including mythical ones!

We go into the Cathedral and notice it’s pretty architecture, in addition to an important banner we noticed

Next, Hoiser Lane which is a backstreet dedicated to public art

It’s repertoire included 2 Banksy’s though both no longer here: one, “the parachuting rat”, was painted over by accident by a tradesperson and the other was when a renovation took down the wall it was on

Unfortunately, COVID lockdowns caused a lot of vandalism so was best to visit pre-2020

We notice some famous cartoons!

Continuing on, we visit Degraves Street which is a walking street named after the original flower merchant who was posted here on the corner

It had lots of tunnels below hosting about 2,000 people!

Campbell Arcade is situated here, also, which is one of Melbourne’s most unsuccessful projects as it was swiftly closed after it’s opening (you can notice the plot with a rainbow shutter)

This is near both The Block Arcade and the Royal Arcade – these are obviously for the wealthy and the architecture is softly based upon those of Milan’s

The latter arcade has some ominous statues including the God of Time, Cronus, and the legend is that if he drops the egg timer he’s holding, all of Melbourne will fall

Bourke Street is more of the central area of Melbourne, according to the locals

It’s home to the Myers Mall which, just a few weeks ago, had their front windows dressed famously for Christmas – they had queues going round the block where the waiting time was up to 3.5 hours!

There used to be an art gallery here too – they hosted a Picasso painting and it was stolen!

The thievery was discovered missing a whole 4 days later; it’s thought it was taken via the tunnels we heard about under Degraves Street (which had an opening in Bourke Street)

Next is Chinatown, which was founded in 1850, being the oldest and largest Chinatown in the entire Southern Hemisphere

It originally expanded the majority of Melbourne though now is only a couple blocks wide and hosts most of the 8.3% of the Melbourne population that are Chinese

Around 20% have any relation to the original source of Australian population, being convicts shipped overseas by the English

We stop by State Victoria Library, which was one of the first free public libraries in Melbourne, and hosts key indigenous texts as well as several statues out the front, including Sir Redmond Barry and St George and the Dragon Statue

This was the base for Buckethead: a historic figurehead – pardon the pun – committing some some controversial acts

We pop into the library and venture to the domed reading room at the heart

Old Melbourne Gaol (Jail) is next

It’s now mostly occupied by the RMIT University and a pricey museum

It held and executed Ned Culley (Buckethead), when he was 25 after he killed a police officer, as well as someone suspected to be Jack the Ripper and Colin Campbell-Ross, who was falsely convicted of killing a 12-year-old girl (but he was post-humously cleared of these charges about 80 years later)

Round the corner, we make it to Melbourne’s Public Baths and to our final stop where we were yesterday: the Queen Victoria Markets

They’re closed again today but we hear that it’s the largest and most condensed area for business in the Southern Hemisphere as well as the biggest open-air market for this hemisphere too

Built on an old indigenous cemetery, there are 9,000 graves below the site

Ending our tour, we want to note that Zoe was a fab and well-versed your guide and we highly recommend this tour – as well as any on Guru Walk, really!

We stroll through Carlton Gardens before reaching Fitzroy

The centre of these gardens hosts the Royal Exhibition Building which was where the first Federal Parliament was held on 9 May 1901

The Fitzroy district of Melbourne comes highly recommended, especially Gertrude Street

The street itself is quaint and reminds us of some of the quiet towns we passed on our roadtrip; we turn up the road to take us to the centre of Fitzroy

We get to the centre of the area and visit a place called Rum Diary Bar; someone once recommended it to us calling it the “best bar in Australia” so we had to pop by – shame it’s closed until further notice!

There’s loads of other little bars and places we pass and opt for the busiest: The Evelyn Hotel

Adorable bar with cheap-as-chips happy hour

We meet a guy inside with an adorable dog – he’s originally from Queensland and has moved to Melbourne

We get a bunch of recommendations and enjoy a couple drinks

After, we head out and look around Fitzroy’s food scene – a lot more expensive than the drinks offered in the area

We opt for Hecho en Mexico where we each order a trio or tacos: land-based meat fillings for Dave and sea-based for Daisy

We indulge in a sizzling brownie to share between us after before heading back to our neck of the woods

Takes us so long to get back, it’s dark on our walk back so bed time for us