It’s now time to turn the tables, and although I’m not a born and bred Melburnian I have definitely experienced the culture shock of returning to my city of birth, and all that comes along with it.
For the record, I’m not especially biased towards either city; both have their strong and weak points. And as for the Melbourne-Sydney rivalry that gets talked about so much (especially in the southern capital), it’s worth remembering that Sydney and Melbourne are still much more alike than they are different – the week before I moved to Melbourne in 2007, I had been in Tehran. That was different.
However there are subtle differences between Australia’s two largest cities, and when I return to Sydney I find myself coming up against the following;
1. OMG the hills…
“But Melbourne has the Dandenongs, right?” Yep. But the Dandenongs aren’t in the middle of the city.
Sorry, there’s a cliff in the way…
There are parts of Sydney’s CBD which feature serious hills, and out in the suburbs some of the inclines are impossibly steep. It makes Sydney both gorgeous and difficult to plan, build and walk in. A short walk along the harbour could see you climbing giant staircases that in Melbourne really only exist in high-rise buildings.
2. Views everywhere!
The upside to all those hills is the beautiful views that appear down any street near or far from the harbour.
Oh that? That’s just our front yard…
One thing that always strikes me when I get back to Sydney is how I can be driving along, look to the right and there’s some stunning vista across to the harbour bridge, the opera house, or some beach. No-one seems to notice, life just goes on – it’s nothing special, it’s just another day in Sydney…
3. Landing in the city
Kingsford Smith Airport is a nightmare for many reasons, but one thing that most Sydney-bound Melburnians seem to appreciate is just how convenient the airport is.
At your service… (Image: MDRX)
You fly over either Sydney Harbour or Botany Bay when you land (beautiful), there’s a train station at the airport and it’s only 10 kilometres and three stations to the city centre. Meanwhile in Melbourne, the SkyBus and local taxis seem to run a racket rescuing people from the paddocks at distant Tullamarine.
Just don’t talk about Sydney’s airport traffic, or what it’s like to transfer between Sydney’s separate domestic and international terminals. Most Melburnians have at least one horror story to tell about transferring flights at Kingsford Smith, and thank God for direct international connections nowadays.
4. The humidity, the storms and the rain…
Living in Sydney, a lot of people don’t realise just how subtropical their city can be at times. Coming from Melbourne, it’s astounding just how much moisture there is in the air.
Here it comes… (Image: David Edwards)
Sydney might only qualify as a “warm temperate” city in climatic terms, but in summer it feels almost equatorial – the humidity is oppressive, a gigantic storm builds up in the afternoon, and the rain comes down in sheets.
Melbourne gets cold and damp and its seasons are upside down, but no-one does a storm quite like Sydney’s sky throws a tantrum on a January afternoon. If Melbourne’s weather has constant mood swings, Sydney’s is a drama queen.
5. What’s with the city centre at the weekend?
These were the exact words a Melburnian asked me when he returned from a week in Sydney. Initially I was taken aback – I didn’t realise Melbourne’s city centre was any more or less busy at the weekend.
Martin Place at the weekend: deserted
But then I remembered all those shifts at a cafe in Martin Place back in the mid-2000s where we were literally sitting around waiting for a customer to stumble across our shop. There, in what should have been the buzzing heart of Australia’s busiest city, was five blocks of empty grey granite tiles.
Melbourne has its quiet places at the weekend too, but nowhere is quite as starkly deserted as some of Sydney’s most important public spaces on a Sunday afternoon. I haven’t been out partying lately, but I’ve heard that things are even quieter at night since the implementation of “lockout laws”.
6. What’s the hurry?
Melburnians often accuse Sydney of being an unfriendly city, and although it’s a bit of a hackneyed stereotype, I believe there is something to it. Sydney is a city of businesspeople, and for them, time is money. Most people in Sydney don’t seem to have the time, or the money, or the care, or all three, to stop and chat.
These poor people are so busy, they even lost their faces… (Image: Wykymania)
It’s not that they’re unfriendly, but they’re just always on their way somewhere – the actual importance of said rendezvous is another matter. They’re also not particularly interested in where you’re from – in Sydney, everyone is from somewhere, and is probably going somewhere. No-one bats an eyelid if you say you’re from Melbourne; the same would apply if you said you were from Burkina Faso. Call it uninterested, call it busy, it’s a certain brashness that Melbourne lacks.
This was most visibly brought into focus for me when transport card stopped working at the barriers at Sydney’s Town Hall station in peak hour. The same thing had happened to me at Flinders Street Station in Melbourne a few weeks earlier, and the guy behind me leaned over to see what the hold up was. In Sydney, the guy behind me gave me kept walking as if I wasn’t there, and when I tried to step back out of the barrier, he seemed pissed off that I existed.
Have you been to Sydney? What did you notice about the city’s character? Comment below!
Sydney and Melbourne are Australia’s two biggest cities, and like the two largest cities of many countries, they have built up a rivalry over the years which has become the stuff of legends. I lived in Sydney for the first 23 years of my life, then moved to Melbourne, so it’s definitely something I’ve thought about over the years.
For those who aren’t familiar, the two cities are thought of by many as having very different ‘personalities’, at least within the Australian psyche. Sydney is considered by many as being bigger, richer, bolder; beachy and brassy. Melbourne was once larger than Sydney, fell behind in the population stakes, but is rapidly catching up. It is characterised as being moody, stylish, cultured; refined and sophisticated.
Whether there’s anything in it, Sydney’s sister city is San Francisco, while Melbourne has Milan, among others.
This article is not going to do that. It’s not a piece to elect a favourite city between the two – God knows I might get chased out of either city by torch-weilding villagers if I did. It’s simply a collection of observations of my domestic culture shock in a city just an hour’s flight from my birthplace.
1. Does winter go forever?
My birthday on the 1st October in Sydney was often a great day to do something outdoors – I even remember it being too hot to go for a picnic, some years.
4pm on any Melbourne December day
In Melbourne, on the first of October I’m still at least two months from the end of what I’d consider to be winter. When there is a day which is clear (without the threat of rain, or some gale blowing), Melburnians run outside like they haven’t seen the sun in months. Which isn’t true because Melbourne does see the sun between April and December, it just doesn’t usually last longer than an hour.
2. The weird half-lane on roads with trams and parked cars
I don’t have an issue driving with trams, but roads which feature tram lines and parked cars, particularly in inner suburbs, seem to feature this weird half-lane between the parked cars and the tram lines.
Can someone explain this to me? It’s not really wide enough to get a car through… but a bike perhaps? Is it a lane?
3. AFL is religion
Everyone in Sydney seems to think that AFL is like Melbourne’s version of the NRL – a game draws people every week, and colleagues tip their teams every Friday in the office.
It’s so much more than that – it’s religion. A large number of people arrange their weekly schedules around football matches, which team you support is an inquiry about your place in society (sort of like when a Sydneysider asks which suburb you live in), and I’ve heard of at least one case of someone having major issues with their daughter’s choice of husband because of the football team he supported. They weren’t even joking.
4. Small city? Or big village?
I grew up in a city where something could be happening in one part of the city and we, in another part, wouldn’t even know about it, much less care.
(Image: Chris Phutully)
In Melbourne, everyone knows what’s going on, and everyone goes to see it. There’s an exhibition on at the NGV? A lot of Melburnians would know what it was, and whether they wanted to go or not.
It could be a sign of Melburnians being more involved in their “liveable” city than Sydneysiders, or it could be a certain tribalism from being a smaller city. There’s a public holiday for a football final, and a parade of horses for a horse race. As the horses and jockeys make their ways down a Swanston Street lined with cheering crowds, squint for a minute and it almost looks like race day at a country town, and everyone has frocked up and come out to say hi. Quaint or cosmopolitan? I’ll let you be the judge.
5. Pub culture
I’m not one for the pub anyway, but I was really surprised by Melbourne’s pub culture when I arrived.
Some days it feels like everyone in Melbourne has “a local” (especially in the northern suburbs), and they might even know the publican, or have gone to school with his children. Or maybe that’s just who I started associating with when I arrived in a new city?
6. Shabby chic
At least until the rise of hipster chic, I knew a lot of people who would squirm or roll their eyes if they ended up sitting next to someone on the train who was wearing 70s or 80s op shop fashion.
Enter Melbourne, where rocking op shop wear is vintage fashion, and being ironic is the norm.
7. That’s not a beach
It’s not that Melbourne doesn’t have beaches…
…but if you’re from Sydney, 30 metres of damp sand do not a beach make.
8. Everything looks grungy
I know that’s the Melbourne cliche, but it’s true. Even heading out into the suburbs, I’m yet to find anywhere that matches the white sandstone spectacle of Sydney eastern suburbs, or the palatial leafy boulevards of the north shore.
Part of this is due to geography, which can’t be avoided, but part of it is also architecture. There are neighbourhoods like Toorak and Brighton, but they still seem to err on the side of faded Victorian grandeur rather than plush grange estate.
9. Concrete jungle in the city
For the capital of a place which used to call itself “the Garden State”, Melbourne’s CBD is conspicuously devoid of green spaces.
Yes, there are stately gardens around the CBD, but if you work in the city centre there simply aren’t that many gardens in the city centre where you can take a sandwich to have for lunch.
10. Where is the ________ area?
Sydney is a city divided by money, class, ethnicity, religion and train lines. Where you live probably says a lot about you, in a lot of people’s eyes. Therefore, if you are looking for a suburb with a particular social make-up, it’s easily identified and found.
Melbourne, on the other hand, is much more integrated. When I first arrived in Melbourne I asked someone where the Arabic area of the city was (I was looking for a grocery store), and got told that “there are a lot of Arabic shops on Sydney Road… or anywhere…” Ethnic enclaves, in Melbourne, don’t seem to exist in the way they do in Sydney.
11. The rivalry matters
Call it arrogance, call it ignorance, living in Sydney I never used to think about Melbourne or the supposed rivalry that much.
From my first day in Melbourne, I was told that “I had made the right move” and that “Sydney is a great place to come from“. Some were less jovial about it; in one conversation with colleagues about where to find quality coffee, I was told that being from Sydney I probably wouldn’t know what they were talking about. It’s not that I minded that much, it’s just that I never realised being from Sydney meant so much, and that the rivalry matters as much as it does to some.
…and if you’re worried that this might be totally one-sided, fear not – here is my Melburnian in Sydney post!
What is your favourite thing about Melbourne? What about your least favourite? Comment below!
For a long time is has been apparent that Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge is filling up. The city’s answer to Sydney’s harbour bridge (ok, not quite) is the main road link from Melbourne’s Central Business District to the western suburbs. Melbourne’s western suburbs are currently experiencing a boom, with the populations swelling in places like Point Cook, Tarneit, Hoppers Crossing and Truganina. All of these will feed into a planned satellite city at Werribee. Things are looking tight on the West Gate Bridge, which was originally opened in 1978.
(Image: Thad Roan, Wikimedia Commons)
Enter the West Gate Tunnel, a second motorway to cross the Yarra/Maribyrnong Rivers and link Melbourne’s CBD with the west. Announced earlier this week, the West Gate Tunnel will connect the northwest of the city centre (Docklands and West Melbourne) to the western suburbs near Altona.
The purple line shows the approximate route of the West Gate Tunnel (Map: Google)
The proposed tollway is in three main sections;
a duplicated West Gate Freeway from the Western Ring Road to near Spotswood
a four-kilometre tunnel from near Spotswood to Footscray
a network of roads from Footscray to the edge of the CBD near Docklands
Under the current proposal the West Gate Freeway would operate as express lanes from Altona to the West Gate Bridge, without entry or exit ramps. The existing entry and exit ramps would be adjusted to feed onto the new, parallel West Gate Tunnel lanes. A small feeder lane near the West Gate Bridge will allow the motorists joining after Altona to use the bridge if they wish.
Express lanes to the city on the new, duplicated West Gate Freeway (Image: Victorian Government, Transurban)
The network of linking roads in the inner-north west is perhaps the most interesting part of the project. The tunnels will emerge near the docks in Seddon, then become an elevated expressway past the docks, above Footscray Road. From there, motorists will have the option to join CityLink northbound (towards the airport), or continue and join Spencer Street or Wurundjeri Way southbound.
The West Gate Tunnel emerges near Footscray and crosses the Maribyrnong River, near the existing Footscray Road bridge (bottom of shot). Note the green veloway at the left, and the existing West Gate Bridge in the distance. (Image: Victorian Government, Transurban)
Associated with the project is an elevated, partially-covered veloway which will allow cyclists to ride from Footscray to the city on a dedicated path. Around the tunnel portals in Seddon and Footscray an extensive new wetlands area is to be created.
The West Gate Tunnel Veloway from Footscray to the city’s northwestern fringe (Image: Victorian Government, Transurban)
The project is to begin construction next year and be open in 2022. For more information, go to the West Gate Tunnel website.
What do you think of the West Gate Tunnel project? Is it needed? Comment below!
White Night Melbourne 2017 is tonight, and I’ll be there for UrbanDuniya bringing the action to the world, live on Facebook. So what can you expect?
What is a White Night?
White Night is an international series of all-night cultural events, featuring art, music, dancing, light and community. St Petersburg, Russia originally held arts and music festivals on the shortest night of the year, but it wasn’t until Paris held its first Nuit Blanche in 2001 that the concept began to spread worldwide. Nuit Blanche is French for an “all-nighter”, but the words literally mean “white night”.
Melbourne held Australia’s first White Night in 2013, and has held it annually since.
What’s it like?
Big, beautiful and crowded. Between 7pm and 7am the city is alive with throngs of people taking in public art, music and dance. The first one attracted about 300,000 visitors in a twelve-hour period. Numbers have been hovering at around 500,000 in years since.
Attractions in past years have included light projections on Flinders Street Station, a giant glowing lotus floating down the Yarra, galactic images on the dome of the State Library, indigenous dance at sunset, opera in St Paul’s cathedral, a roaming Cuban salsa troupe, tours of the Old Melbourne Gaol at midnight, Bollywood dance lessons in Federation Square, and group yoga by the river at sunrise.
Click here to see my photography from previous years; 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.
What’s on where?
The White Night Melbourne website is your friend – click here to see the programme and map for this year’s event. There are 81 attractions spread across 10 city blocks, as well as the Carlton Gardens precinct, and south of the river.
How can I take part?
The best way is to go to the city! If you can’t make it to Melbourne for White Night, you can view the action online with my live video updates from the main attractions! Log on to facebook.com/urbanduniya and “like” my page to receive notifications when I go live!
Live coverage will be at the following times;
Sydney: 7pm – 7am
Pakistan: 1pm – 1am
India: 1:30pm- 1:30am
Perth:Â 4pm- 4am
Dubai: 12noon – 12midnight
Tokyo: 5pm – 5am
Central Europe: 9am – 9pm
London: 8am – 8pm
Bangkok: 3pm – 3am
Sao Paulo: 6am – 6pm
Videos will be saved on the page, so if you miss any you can always catch up later.
Tips if you go to the city
Wear comfortable shoes, carry something warm to wear, and pack lightly. There’s a lot of walking involved.
Take a refillable bottle of water, your phone charger, and a camera.
Use public transport if possible – there are extra services running until the morning for many parts of the city (details below).
Be flexible with your night, and don’t be too disappointed if you “miss out” on something – it’s a popular event, and some venues (like the Matt Irwin Gallery) can only accommodate 25 people at a time.
The evening kicks off at 7pm, but the lighting effects really only work after sunset at 8:30. 8pm – 11pm is the busiest period, as most visitors arrive at this time, and it’s ideal for families, so if you want to avoid the crowds you could consider arriving after midnight. Alternatively you can arrive early, visit a gallery or exhibition before midnight, then head to the more popular projections (like Flinders Street) after midnight.
How do I get there (and home)?
Public Transport Victoria have released pamphlets about the transport arrangements on the night. Images of these pamphlets are below;
This week, I’ve been a little bit obsessed with the new Qantas inflight safety demonstration video. It is, in a word, beautiful. For me, Qantas’ new inflight video is more than just a safety demonstration, or even a clever tourism campaign.
Frequent readers of this page will know that I’m not a huge fan of the country in which I was born. The cultural trajectory of Australia in my lifetime seems to have swerved in a direction that I don’t identify with; one where the unquestioningly patriotic, mindlessly crass, drunk alpha male is held up as the quintessential “Aussie larrikin” – and therefore something to aspire to.
(Image: David Jackmanson, Wikimedia Commons)
And occasionally Australia gets it right, and when they do, it’s incredible. One excellent example of this, in my opinion, was the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Love or hate the Olympics, the opening ceremony was culturally rich and for the times, spectacular beyond words. It didn’t shy away from “iconic Australia”, while glossing over the parochial stuff that we could really do without. Those crap inflatable kangaroos from the Atlanta Olympics closing ceremony only made a brief, self-deprecating appearance in 2000 – long enough to be endearingly laughable, but not too long to make us cringe.
It is arguably one of the best showcases of what can be contributed to the canon of “Australian culture”, a notion that so many people used to (and still do) snigger at. Qantas’ new inflight safety video, I believe, falls into the same category. If you haven’t seen it yet, here it is;
A multiethnic cast of otherwise “ordinary” Australians going about their daily lives, creative reimaginings of otherwise banal safety procedures, a modern-yet-classic-sounding backing track and the stunning natural beauty of Australia on show for the world. This is a refreshing approach to the vision of Australian identity; varied, warm and articulate, with no Lara Bingle, racist redneck or drunken yobbo in sight. The idea is not completely new, as it’s actually an upgrade to the Qantas inflight safety video from last year which had a similar theme. There’s something about the new video however which, in my opinion, takes it to another level – I just can’t quite put my finger on what it is.
Creative, warm, diverse, refined but free-spirited. Isn’t this another (potential) narrative of Australian culture?
What do you think of the new video? Do you like it? Comment below!
