St. Kilda (Melbourne) and the Great Ocean Drive

Wednesday March 13 was cloudy with sun late in the day and a high of 19C.  We had our late morning coffee at Duke's Coffee Roastery- still our favourite in Melbourne.

We decided to visit the Jewish Museum of Australia located in the St. Kilda neighbourhood to the south of the City centre.  St. Kilda has been a 19th century seaside resort, a post-war Jewish enclave, a punk-rocker hub and a real estate hotspot.

To get there we had to leave the free tram area and use our Myki card (like Presto in Toronto) for the first time in our visit.  We got the tram we needed to catch just near Melbourne Town Hall.  Melbourne is a City of Sustainability.

Town Hall with City of Sustainability poster with slogan Act Now Climate Change

We had a very interesting visit at the Jewish Museum of Australia.  It has a permanent exhibition of the Timeline of Jewish History and then an excellent exhibit on the history of Jews in Australia entitled: Calling Australia Home.  Their collection is made up of over 20,000 items that have been donated and acquired since the late 1970s.  The museum was established in 1977.  In 1982, the Museum opened temporary premises in South Yarra.  In 1992, they purchased a building on Alma Road.  The Jewish Museum of Australia, Gandel Centre of Judaica opened in 1995, named in honour of the Museum's lead benefactors, John and Pauline Gandel.

Jewish Museum of Australia Gandel Centre of Judaica

The permanent exhibits were very good, with a number of videos, maps and artefacts.  For us, the history of Australian Jews was the most interesting part.  Jews have lived in Australia since the earliest days of European settlement.  Fourteen Jewish convicts arrived in 1788 with the First Fleet and since then Jews have migrated from more than 22 countries around the world.  There are around 100,000 Jews in Australia today, the majority in Melbourne and Sydney and other urban centres.

The history was set out in posters, with photos and other artefacts.  By 1848, there were synagogues established in Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart.  Between 1860-1901, there were 14 Jewish members of the Victorian Parliament.  Melbourne had several Jewish mayors during this period.  In 1901, there were four Jewish members in the first federal Parliament.  In 1901, there were 15,000 Jews in Australia (0.4% of the total population).

During WWI, 13% of adult males in the Jewish community went to war, compared with 9% of the general population.  John Monash who studied law, arts and engineering at the University of Melbourne, joined the army in 1884. He had led the Australian troops at Gallipoli, but opposed the offensive that led to the defeat.  He was later commended for efficiently and methodically supervising the withdrawal of the troops and later had great success as a commander on the battlefields of France.  He returned to Melbourne in 1918 as General Sir John Monash.  He was the first person knighted on the battlefield in 200 years.

There was a White Australia Policy from around 1901- after WWII, that restricted the immigration of Asians and 'non-whites'.  In the 1930s, annual quotas were placed on the number of Jews entering the country.  Between 1937-1939, 7000-8000 refugee Jews arrive in Australia.

There was a fascinating series of letters and a video enacting the contents of a correspondence between Jean Doig, living in country Victoria, and Edith Roll, from a Jewish family in Vienna, who were penpals.   In 1938-39, Edith asked Jean if her father (a doctor) could get Edith's father (also a doctor) a job and sponsor the family to migrate to Australia.  The Doig family made efforts to do so, but bureaucratic delays meant the Roll family were unable to leave Europe.  Dr. Roll's first application was refused in 1938, and he reapplied in 1939.  The last letter from the bureaucracy in September 1939,  said that "in light of the International situation" (ie the war),  the application was "suspended indefinitely".  Many years later, Jean retrieved Edith's correspondence and searched for surviving members of the Roll family.  Edith, who got out of Austria just before war started, had become a nurse in the US (she died in 1971), but her parents had been murdered in concentration camps and there was no trace of her brother, Fritz.  Fascinating story with a series of well preserved letters and correspondence from the Australian government all enacted in a video.  Jean Doig also had a letter detailing with  the fate of Edith's parents.

We left the museum and walked about 20 minutes to Carlisle Street, the old heart of the Jewish enclave where there were a number of delicatessens mixed in with sushi and Chinese restaurants.  There was a hodge bodge of very large houses and a more mixed neighbourhood on our walk.

We passed a few beautiful Victorian homes

Very elaborate decoration

Beautiful guarded Temple Beth Israel synagogue down the street 

Carlisle street has seen better days.  We bought a few treats at Glicks, but decided to head back into the City for a very late lunch.

Glick's on Carlisle-- some nice breads and treats

The Jewish museum had given us a list of restaurants with Jewish/Israeli food.  We recognised Miznon, a great Israeli restaurant with fabulous pita and delicious fillings.  We have eaten at Miznon in Tel Aviv, Paris, New York and now Melbourne.  It was located on a laneway - Hardware Lane- about a 7 minute walk from our apartment.  We hadn't been on the laneway before-- it was filled with many restaurants and shops.

Outside of Miznon

At the counter- their famous roasted cauliflower in the background

Alain with his ratatouille pita

I had a cauliflower pita-- and they gave us a delicious bean salad (4-5 different types of crisp beans in olive oil) as a bonus

We then dashed around the corner for a coffee at Brother Baba Budan-- another recommended coffee shop.  It was just closing at 5:00 p.m. (most close at 4:00 p.m. in Melbourne), but they let us in for a quick coffee hit.

Outside the coffee shop

Small shop but great coffee

Signage--- coffee is huge in Melbourne

We wandered through the Emporium shopping mall checking out one floor that had Australian designers and came across a beautiful Aesop store.  The Aesop stores here use a lot of wood.  Prices are less than Toronto.

Aesop store in mall

Lots of Aussie wood

We wandered back to the apartment at about 7:30 p.m.  We didn't need dinner after our Miznon food experience. We had dessert and tea later in the evening.

Thursday March 14 was a picture perfect day with blue sky and a high of 22C.  We got up early to meet our bus pick up at 7:35 a.m.  We had booked a tour of the Great Ocean Road.  The first bus took us to Federation Square where everyone got sorted onto the correct bus for their tours.  There were about 41 people on the bus and we had another good driver/guide named Paul.  He was originally from Manchester but has been in Melbourne for over 25 years.  He has been with the company for 21 years and loved driving the tours, especially the Great Ocean Road.  Our trip would cover 585 km and we got back to the city just before 8:30 p.m.

Leaving the city

Our first stop for "morning tea" was The Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery.  It was run by the same family that had the Chocolaterie in Flinders on the Mornington Peninsula.  This location had just opened in 2018 and was beautiful.  Oodles of chocolate made on site in a beautiful building.  It was located about 10 minutes from Torquay, the first town on the Great Ocean Road.

The building

Cumquat tree- labelled

The Neeland family- the owners

Bunny time prep

Australian animal chocolates

We bought a small "billabong anise" bar from their coastal bush tucker series with packaging inspired by a painting done by a local indigenous artist displayed in their showroom.

Paul, our driver, explained how the Great Ocean Road got built.  It is an Australian National Heritage listed 243 km stretch of road between Torquay and Allansford.  It was built by about 3000 returned soldiers from WWI between 1919 to 1932 and is dedicated to soldiers killed during WWI.  The road is the world's largest war memorial.  We drove under a memorial arch during our tour.   The road also connected isolated settlements on the coast.   Construction was done by hand, using explosives, pick and shovel, wheel barrows and some small machinery. The soldiers were paid 10 shillings and sixpence for 8 house per day, also working a half-day on Saturdays.  They slept in tents and there was a communal kitchen.  Amazing story of very perilous work.

We carried on with our ride through Lorne, a beautiful coastal town.  We passed many beautiful, multi- million dollar  modern homes on the Ocean Road just outside the town.

Lots of very modern homes near Lorne

We stopped at a lookout  at the edge of the Great Otway National Park where we could see the surfers.  We could also walk down to the beach.  We had about a 30 minute stop.

The greeters on the Main Street in Lorne

Watching the surfers from on high

Gorgeous beach on Great Ocean Road

On the beach-- what could be better than this

It was a fabulous day for the trip

Surf heaven

The ocean was just beautiful 

We drove on and made another unscheduled stop to see the wreck of a ship, the W. B. Godfrey.  There was a low tide and some remnants of the wreck can still be seen.  The ship was wrecked at this location on March 8, 1891.  The ship had been built in 1861 and was one of the great tea clippers of the 1860s-1880s.   No one died in the wreck, but four men died in three separate accidents during salvage operations in April, June and October 1891. There is a headstone erected over a false grave on the shore, that honours those who drowned.

Our driver told us that there have been many ship wrecks along the Great Ocean Road.  It is very hard to tell where rocks are buried and often compasses would not read properly due to iron carried in the boats.

Low tide

Headstone and false grave

Part of anchor and cannon from the W.B. Godfrey

Selfie at the site

Our next stop was Apollo Beach where we had an hour stop for lunch.  We had a quick fish and chips at George's - the fish was fresh and very good.  We wandered down to the beach both before and after our lunch.

Apollo Beach

Fish and chips from George's - we ate outside

Beautiful tree across from Georges

Norfolk pines, which we hadn't seen since NZ

The beach

Our next stop was Loch Ard Gorge near Port Campbell.  Our bus driver took us there first and then doubled back to see the famous Twelve Apostles.  We avoided some of the bus traffic at these sites by doing these two stops in reverse.

The Loch Ard Gorge is located in Port Campbell National Park.  We love the motto of Parks Victoria:  Healthy Parks, Healthy People.

The gorge is named after the clipper ship Loch Ard.  On March 2, 1878, the clipper Loch Ard left Gravesend, England for Melbourne.  It carried 36 crew and 18 passengers.  On May 31, they had a party on board to celebrate the end of the three-month journey.  Then disaster struck as they ran aground on nearby Muttonbird Island on June 1.  Only two of the 54 people survived.  One was 18 year old Eva Carmichael (4 of her family members drowned that night), and the ship's apprentice 19 year old Tom Pearce, who rescued Carmichael from the water.

Snakes!!

The Loch Ard Gorge- amazing

Close up of two rocks

Different views

The large rock stack is called "The Razorback". The sharp edges and bumps along its back are caused by wind-blown spray, which hardens small areas of rock.  The softer rock around these erodes away, leaving an uneven surface.

One then took a path down to a beach

Alain on beach already

The Gorge in the sun-- lots of helicopters do a 15 minute trip to the Gorge and the nearby Twelve Apostles

If that wasn't breathtaking enough, we headed back to see the Twelve Apostles- a fabulous series of rocks off the coast.  The Twelve Apostles is a collection of limestone stacks off the shore of the Port Campbell National park and are now protected as part of Twelve Apostles Marine National Park.  They were formed from erosion.  One of the old names for these stacks was the Sow and Piglets.  Muttonbird Island was the Sow and the smaller stacks were the Piglets.  The name was changed to the Twelve Apostles early in the 20th century before the building of the Great Ocean Road, even though there have never been twelve rock stacks.  Eight of the original nine Apostles remain standing.

Looking one way at the Apostles

Gorgeous beach

Another two apostles looking the other way on the beach

Spectacular

Our last stop was London Bridge, an offshore natural arch formation near Port Campbell very close to the Apostles.  It was known as London Bridge because of its similarity to its namesake.  There was a picture of the original formation which was joined.  On the evening of January 15, 1990, the main arch connecting the Bridge to the mainland cracked and fell into the sea.  No one was hurt.  Two people marooned on the new island were rescued hours later by helicopter.

London Bridge

Alain at London Bridge

We drove a few more kms and then started our trip back to Melbourne through the interior (a shorter route).  Our driver played Eddie the Eagle movie (about Eddie Edwards the crazy British ski jumper who was in the 1988 Calgary Olympics).  We arrived back at our apartment at around 8:45 p.m.  A tiring but terrific day.  The Great Ocean Road should be on everyone's to do list.  We had a perfect day for the trip!

Alain made a quick chicken dinner and we were ready for a good night's sleep.