ANZAC Day

​Melbourne had skipped from summer right into winter. I heard that some locals try to avoid turning on their heat before ANZAC Day, on April 25th, but this was a year that needed it sooner. After several frigid nights, a new flatmate named Zachary convinced the property manager to turn on the building’s heating. Zachary was older than the other residents. He had long hair and a beard, giving him a rougher appearance, but he had a soft and friendly voice. We often talked in the kitchen as he prepared his healthy lunches for his government office job. He had just returned to Australia after living in Spain for many years, so while he was technically from the area, he wasn’t yet re-assimilated. I asked him about how people observe ANZAC Day. He didn’t think the military was that important to Aussie society, but did mention a workplace ANZAC biscuit contest.

​The International Comedy Festival was entering its last weekend. One of Gail’s friends had purchased a two-for-one ticket, and she offered me the extra one. There were six of us in total, and we started with a dinner at Bossley in the CBD. While at dinner, Gail and her friend Angela recognized someone they worked with a long time ago. The food and ambiance were excellent. I had a mushroom ravioli and a “Bloody Shiraz” gin spritz. The triple-fried chips were also a hit with the table, which included the gregarious Helen and James.

It turned out the comedy show was just upstairs. The performer was a Venezuelan-Australian named Ivan Aristeguieta, who poked fun at both Venezuelan and Aussie culture. He did a hilarious impression of an Aussie trying to pronounce his last name. Early in the act, an audience heckler asked him if living under the Albanese government was worse than the Maduro regime, which Ivan deflected.

The jokes had the audience rolling. With comedy as his one job, he had time to ponder the small mysteries of life, so we didn’t have to. Why is there no word for “accountability” in Spanish and Italian? Does this explain their lack of it? And how modern sayings like “strike while the iron is hot” don’t resonate. There are no blacksmiths anymore; the only modern workers with aprons and beards are instead making coffee.
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There were some excellent recurring jokes, like the absorbent abilities of the Australian breakfast cereal Weetbix and different cultures’ versions of “punch buggy.” The Venezuelan version is “fosforito” (little matchstick) and is called out when a ginger person is sighted.

​We returned to Bossley for dessert, but since it was now loud in the main restaurant, we sat in the lobby. Half the group ordered at the counter, and half ordered by QR code. When the food didn’t arrive, we checked in with the staff. But once it started arriving, it kept on arriving… until we had two of everything! Double tiramisu, double Snickers, double tea, and double wine. I couldn’t stop laughing as each incremental item was delivered. We got more than our just desserts!

As my travel plans started to fill up the month of May, I realized I was slowly running out of time to see Melbourne’s attractions. Over the next few days, I crossed off several destinations that had been lingering on my Melbourne bucket list.
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One afternoon, I visited the Abbotsford Convent, a short bus ride away. In the late 1800s, it was a rooming house for young women with nowhere else to go: orphans or wards of the state. The convent did not receive external funding and forced these women to do laundry and mend clothes in order to subsidize the operation. Nowadays, it’s the largest community arts center in Australia, with workshops and storefronts for local artisans, cafes, performing arts venues, and a kid-friendly farm. It was mostly deserted when I visited, and a bit creepy wandering between the austere buildings. I decided it was a benign haunted house. Yes, there was disembodied bassoon music and faint shrieks in the distance, but it was only a chamber music rehearsal and the neighboring sheep paddock. I stopped to chat with a jeweler who used repurposed materials like wire insulation in her creations.

​As the sun set, I walked from the Abbotsford Convent to Yarra Bend Park to revisit the fruit bat colony and see them take flight. The colony was smaller in April compared to my first impression in January, but there were still thousands. The moon was almost full, a wonderful backdrop to this natural show. I also got to enjoy a view of the city skyline at night.

Philip Island is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Victoria. It’s famous for its evening penguin parade, where the little penguins return from the ocean and waddle up the beach to their hillside nests. Since it’s a few hours drive from Melbourne and not accessible by public transport, I decided to take a guided tour with a company called Go West. It included some additional stops that ended up being equally enjoyable as the penguins.
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The first was at Brighton Beach, home of the famous colorful bathing boxes. From classic stripes to elaborate murals, the 80 boxes are easy to appreciate and a fun background for photos. Owning a box is a status symbol in this affluent beach suburb, and the prices are exorbitant. The driver-guide was very talkative at the beginning of the day and offered good information. Though after taking enough tours in Australia, some of the information felt a little entry-level.

​The second stop was at Moonlit Sanctuary. I was a little skeptical this would be worthwhile, as I had already visited similar zoos in Tasmania and Kangaroo Island. I still had a lot of fun! I bought a container of food and gave out free samples to the cute wallabies (and pademelons?) which honestly never gets old. I even coaxed the shiest wallaby, alone in a corner, to hop over for a taste. The ducks at Moonlit, also interested in the food mix, were quite aggressive and boxed out the poor little pademelons.

​The keeper talk was also a highlight of Moonlit. It featured a bettong, a marsupial that I’d heard of but never seen before, a pink cockatoo doing tricks, and a tawny frogmouth owl. The tawny frogmouth is excellent at pretending to be a branch on a tree; it had been onstage the whole time, unnoticed until the keeper pointed it out!

​Finally, we reached Philip Island itself. We stopped at the beautiful, rugged coastline in an area called the Nobbies. The boardwalk had great views of the waves crashing into the rocky shore. There were also swamp wallabies and echnidnas browsing for food on the hillsides. The area was full of tourists on a similar itinerary, including a man with the longest selfie stick I’ve ever seen.

​The penguin colony is the largest is Victoria, with about 35,000 to 40,000 residents. My expectations were high, as this vastly outnumbered the Dunedin penguin colony that I had seen a few months prior in New Zealand. I had been in Dunedin on a good night, when about 300 of the 500 penguins returned from sea. I figured even a bad night on Philip Island would be an order of magnitude better.

While I didn’t get the penguin count for evening, I would guess it was about the same the previous night, which had 1200. The catch was that the Philip Island beach was also wider. The penguins had three different paths they could take from the beach into the hills, and one was a lot more heavily trafficked. Of course, this main path was best seen from the "premium" viewing platform, which cost extra. Though one advantage of Philip Island’s viewing setup was the ability to sit directly on the beach. I was positioned in the front row, about halfway between the two less trafficked pathways, and could see the penguins clearly with my binoculars. After each “raft” landed on the beach, the penguins stood their hesitantly for a few minutes, until they achieved critical mass, a brave penguin led the charge, and the others followed. Every now and then, a penguin would get cold feet partway through the journey and turn back towards the water.

​Once the parade subsided, the crowd dispersed into the network of walkways with views of the penguin neighborhood. The penguins were loud and active, with lots of catching up, mating, and fighting. The nests were like Hobbit holes. Some were surprisingly far inland. Apparently the penguins can travel over a kilometer from the ocean. Unfortunately, a number of people were taking photos/videos with the flash on, which can disorient the penguins (their night vision is quite good). The conservation center had done an experiment where all visitor photography was temporarily banned. They found it reduced penguin mortality, so they made it a permanent policy, with clear signs in the visitor center and clear announcements from a ranger on the beach. The people with the flash on were mostly Indian families and I told them to stop. (Photos here are from the official website.)

After the Phillip Island outing, I embarked on a more hiking-oriented day trip. It was only an hour-long train ride to the Dandenong Ranges. Here was an old growth fern forest with a tall gum tree canopy, and one of Melbourne’s most popular hikes: the 1000 Steps. There were families, noisy school groups, and runners but there were still peaceful moments along the way.

The trail is also known as the Kokoda Memorial Track and features historical info signs about the Australian army’s WWII jungle campaign on the island of Papua. The Japanese landed on the north side of the island, then an Australian territory, and began advancing south over the narrow and treacherous Kokoda Track. With help from Papuan porters who carried supplies and injured soldiers, the outnumbered Aussie army managed to stop the advance and emerge victorious. It felt like the perfect moment to learn about this chapter in Australian history, as Prime Minister Albanese was currently in Papua hiking the real Kokoda Track with his Papuan counterpart, as a sign of friendship between the two nations and part of the ANZAC Day commemorations.
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I had packed a considerable amount of food, which incentivized me to stop for multiple mini-picnics along the way. During my first picnic near the parking lot, I was joined at the table by a kookaburra who seemed very interested in my snacks.

During my second picnic on top of the mountain, I was eyed by some magpies who also were getting a bit too close. Apart from these buskers, the variety of birds were a welcome sight. I was lucky and spotted a lyrebird, a bit like a peacock with two prominent tail feathers that curve like its namesake instrument. I had previously seen lyrebirds in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney, so I was 2 for 2.

​​As a lover of lamingtons, I knew I had to try the Japanese-inspired flavors from Tokyo Lamington, a bakery-café located on my same street in Carlton. I picked two flavors, isephan (rose / raspberry) and black sesame, with the sesame being the clear winner. It’s a perfect fusion food: Japan’s passion for artisan sponge cakes and novel flavors meets the simplicity of this Aussie staple.

My French flatmate Alexi, who I encountered often but wasn’t very close with, was wrapping up his working holiday and invited some previous residents of 75 Elgin back for a reunion. I stumbled across the gathering while heating up some leftovers for dinner, and they invited me to join. I had only overlapped with one of these alumni and enjoyed meeting others “from before my time” including a nice fellow from Sri Lanka. We told funny stories about the strange flatmates we had collectively outlasted. It also made me a bit sad, as I saw how a different mix of people living the apartment could have made the experience a lot more fun.

Though the clouds threatened to rain, it stayed clear while I helped Gail with some yardwork, like removing leaves from the gutter and wrangling heavy potted plants. We had plans to see a Beth Orton concert in the evening, which dovetailed nicely with this working bee. Over the afternoon, we caught up over an ANZAC biscuit and a coffee, a nice homemade meal, and a tram ride to the Arts Precinct.
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Similar to the comedy show, Gail had offered me an open ticket, which was extremely generous and thoughtful. The concert was at the Recital Hall, a grand theater with fancy acoustic wall treatments. The opening act, Batts, had a beautiful voice and was a surprise hit. There was an intermission which I didn’t realize would be the only intermission, and I failed to take advantage of this fact to stretch my legs. The leg room in our row was abysmal, worse than most planes, so it would have been a good idea.

​Beth Orton and her three bandmates took the stage and performed two back-to-back numbers from her latest album before breaking the 4th wall and addressing the audience. Before I describe the many things that I liked about the concert, I must get some criticism out of the way. Beth Orton’s singing was terrible: broken and choppy as she mumbled unintelligible lyrics. It was like an SNL parody of a wounded singer-songwriter. I had to stop from laughing as she sang about how “the weather's so beautiful outside… almost makes me wanna cry” (actual lyric). Otherwise, it was a fantastic performance. The multi-talented musicians created a dense and nuanced soundscape far richer than a 4-piece band would normally create. It helped that each musician played multiple instruments. Beth switched between piano and guitar. At one point the drummer ended up on the piano. The best example was a blond-haired fellow who played multiple woodwind instruments, and sometime played the keyboard simultaneously. I loved the drummer’s style of playing, which was both relaxed and energetic, attacking the cymbal with a horizontal motion like the sweep of a conductor’s baton. The music and the concert hall's acoustics were a great synergy.

The concert lasted longer than I expected, likely due to the 4 encores, which I felt this reflected Beth’s enthusiasm moreso than the audience’s. At 11:00pm, I ate half a pack of Tim Tams on the walk from the tram station to my apartment.

At 4:30am, I ate the rest of the Tim Tams as I retraced the exact same walk. It was ANZAC Day, and the early wakeup was to witness the Dawn Service at the Shrine of Remembrance. While the crowds flowed uphill towards the shrine, I met up with Reggie and some of their friends from the local Rotary club at a quiet fountain off to the side. Reggie had attended the dawn service for many years as a scout and had kept up with this tradition ever since.
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We took our place by the front steps, the crowd providing a slight bulwark of warmth against the cold. A welcome to country speech was delivered by a Wurundjeri man (Reggie thought this might have been the first year to include one). Then a keynote touched on the WWI origins of the commemoration, including the front-line horrors of the war – “lest we forget.” After the war, the first flower to grow on the Flanders battlefield was the red poppy, which is now a symbol of ANZAC Day.

The speech also highlighted more modern conflicts with Australian casualties, and had peacekeeping forces as the year’s theme. Since WWII, Australians have supported ~60 multi-lateral peacekeeping deployments around the world. The speaker acknowledged a unique trauma experienced by these peacekeeping forces: of being in a conflict zone but not always able to take action.

After the speeches, a ceremony inside the shrine was carried out, livestreamed on video screens for everyone outside. There were also choir performances, including both the New Zealand and Australian national anthems. ANZAC stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. It was a joint force at Gallipoli that fostered a sense of national camaraderie, and this tradition is honored even if the current holiday is more domestically focused.

It was a cloudy morning and the inspirational sunrise I was hoping for never arrived. Our groggy group had a round of drinks from a nearby coffee cart, then relocated to Fed Square to wait for the parade. A proud military mom who was waiting nearby struck up a conversation with us, eventually going on a conspiratorial tangent about how the Bondi stabber was most likely hypnotized. At the back of her mind was the unease of being at a big public gathering in the wake of the two Sydney knife attacks. From my group’s reaction, I had the sense that she wasn’t the only one.
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The parade itself was impressive, with veterans in uniform with banners explaining their affiliations, marching bands, youth drum corps, and the army cadets. I learned the cadets were a recruitment pipeline and were seen as being a little insular and haughty, even towards scouts like Reggie.

The sun was up but we were all still frigid. We eventually sought another coffee in the CBD. By then I had gotten know the group a little better, including a healthcare manager (Elsa?) and an IT specialist (Lewis?) who were good company. They all knew each other through the Rotary Club.​

Running on fumes and two flat whites, I was disappointed to find that Wooly’s had reduced ANZAC Day hours. So instead of groceries, I got some basic but satisfying pastries from Baker’s Delight, walked home, promptly devoured them, and took a nap.
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In the afternoon, I watched the opening ceremony of the ANZAC Day footy game between the Essendon Bombers and the Collingwood Magpies. Military representatives took the field, and there was a flyover above the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). I thought of Gail, who I knew was in attendance, along with Ian, her friend who I met in Canberra. The game ended in an anticlimactic tie.

​For the next 4 weeks, I was planning to travel to Perth and Brisbane. I thought it would be possible to end my lease early and avoid paying for a place in Melbourne while away. After all, the company was called “Flexistayz,” let me choose my lease end date when signing the paperwork, and indicated some adjustability with advance notice. I was totally wrong. Even with a month notice, the only viable option for breaking the lease was finding a new tenant. My postings received zero replies, an indication of the high price. For context, my rent was high because I had signed my lease at the start of a school term during a city-wide housing affordability crisis. Several of my flatmates were in the same boat and couldn’t find replacement tenants either. While I could abandon the place and forfeit my bond, that would be 3 weeks of rent lost. So I decided to continue paying, eating the 1 week differential. It meant that I could leave my stuff there and have a familiar place waiting for me after a long trip. And on a petty level, it also meant that Flexistayz couldn’t re-list the apartment and make a double profit.

​Although I decided to keep the apartment, I decided it was the right time to return my rental guitar. I made the long journey to the suburb of Chelthenham to drop off the guitar with its owner, a former student of Zeah’s. I didn’t even get to meet the owner, as they were taking a nap (a housemate answered the door). The long train journey wasn’t the ideal way to spend the afternoon, but I still had time to pack my bags and set an early alarm for the 6:20am flight to Perth.