Scene Two: The Big City

Posted at 11:30 AM, Thursday, January 1, 2009

Globally speaking, Melbourne barely qualifies as a city at all. The metropolitan area has only 3.8 million people, which makes it considerably smaller than most major urban centres in the United States. It is, however, three times the size of Adelaide. And the two cities are totally different places. Adelaide is often described as a large country town. Even the neighbourhoods within the very small city of Adelaide itself feel more like suburbs than parts of a city. By contrast, the neighbourhoods of Melbourne are packed with shops, and the variety just on one street can be quite dazzling. Plus it has tall buildings. Lots of them. As we drove across the West Gate Bridge and past downtown Melbourne on Friday afternoon, the boys were positively ecstatic to see so many skyscrapers in one place. On Sunday evening, we had the opportunity to spend time on the observation deck of the Rialto Towers--the tallest building in Melbourne. Nadav spent nearly the entire evening with his nose pressed to the glass.

We didn't actually stay in the big city of Melbourne. All of the caravan parks in the Melbourne area are relatively distant from the city itself. We chose the Hobson's Bay caravan park, conveniently located just down the street from the Mobil oil refinery. This wasn't one of the selection criteria, and actually the oil refinery came as something of a shock. The big selling point for the caravan park (aside from the appeal of a two-bedroom cabin for $110 per night) was that it was a seven minute drive to downtown Williamstown. I had fallen in love with Williamstown when the Council of Progressive Rabbis met here back in October. There is a charming downtown packed with restaurants, plus quite a few shops advertising home made ice cream. We had ice cream three times during our stay! And you can't beat the view: