10 things to do in Melbourne

1. Aromatic bliss
When travelling to Melbourne from Auckland you usually have to catch an early-morning flight. After a sleepless night spent worry-ing about getting up on time, two hours of waiting in queues at the airport and then three hours’ travelling, you can wind up feeling a little jaded on landing — even though it’s a relatively short trip. I stayed at the well-run Langham Hotel, situated on the south bank of the Yarra River, and on arrival from the airport went straight to the hotel’s luxury Chuan Spa.

Treatments at the highly acclaimed spa are strongly influenced by traditional Chinese medicine, and I opt for the Aromatic Bliss one-hour facial. The spa’s blurb states the treatment is designed to ‘rejuvenate a dull and fatigued complexion’ and it lives up to its name. It was the best facial I’ve ever had and a great way to recover from flying. It includes a foot and head massage and the spa also threw in a complimentary brow plucking. I was a new woman. Watch out Melbourne.
www.chuanspa.com


2. Go the footy
If you’re staying in Melbourne for more than one night you’re bound to have a conversation about Aussie Rules. Sports-mad Melburnians just love the game although hardly anyone else in the world does. I went to the Friday night footie with Melbourne Sports Tours, which organises tours for sport lovers. It took the hassle out of having to buy tickets or find your own seat at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and meant we had expert advice on the rules of the game. I was an Aussie Rules rookie but it only took a beer or two and a couple of missed calls by the referee before I was yelling “ball!” with the rest of them. Everyone dresses up to support their team and we wore scarves backing the Collingwood Magpies who were playing in this Friday night clash against local rival the Richmond Tigers. The beer was watery, the chips soggy, and the swearing rampant but I had a whale of a time watching fit, young men running around in tight, little shorts. And besides, our team won. Go Magpies!
www.melbournesportstours.com.au


3. A foodie’s dream
The Foodies Dream Tour at Melbourne’s iconic Queen Victoria Market is my idea of a good time. For A$28 per adult, a market guide takes you on a two-hour tour of the food highlights in the market, which has some 1,000 stallholders and 10.5 million visitors a year. Opened in 1878, the site’s historic buildings have been retained, including the original meat market (though blood no longer runs down the gutters).

The more outgoing stallholders include fishmonger John the Cyprian who invites everyone to touch his giant squid and poses delightedly for the camera. Besides meat and fish, there are fresh fruit and vegetables and the deli section sells everything from black pudding to fresh basil pesto. Many of the stalls have been in the same family for generations. One stall selling kangaroo meat had a stuffed toy kangaroo sitting on the counter!

Melburnians turn up in droves to do their weekly shop at the market. Watch out for their trollies (my fave was a leopard-print one touted by a peroxide blonde of indeterminable age). Suffice to say, after all the tastings on this tour we skipped lunch.
www.qvm.com.au


4. Art for art’s sake
I’m more of a footy girl than an art lover but the National Gallery of Victoria in the heart of the city has one of Australia’s most comprehensive international collections. I was lucky enough to visit the gallery’s Ian Potter Centre while the Australian Impressionism exhibition was on (it ends July 8). Some 240 works were gathered from around the world for the show and depict the ‘plein-air’ and ‘direct painting’ of Australia in the late 19th century. The focus is on five major artists: Charles Condor, Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Jane Sutherland.

It’s good to hook up with a volunteer guide. Our guide, Caroline Brain, told wonderful stories detailing the history of the gallery’s iconic artworks, and has a passion for the subject that rubbed off and kept us wanting more. For just A$15 for the exhibition, it’s well worth the sore feet you get from traipsing around for hours.
www.ngv.vic.gov.au


5. Eureka!
I’m not good with heights so heading to the top floor of the 92-storey Eureka Tower in Melbourne’s Southbank precinct is nerve-wracking. At the speed these lifts work, however — 40 seconds to reach the observation deck on the 88th floor — I figure I can always come down again pretty quickly if I hate it. As it turns out, the view is so stunning you forget everything else. The tower, designed by Greek-born Australian architect Nonda Katsalidis, is the world’s tallest residential tower (not counting spires) and has 560 apartments. The upper ten floors even have 24-carat gold-plated windows.

The observation deck wasn’t yet open to the public when we visited but we did get a sneak peek at the funky top-floor reception rooms, which were being readied for a birthday bash that night. We indulged in a glass or two of champers at sunset — wow!

I wasn’t sorry to miss the movable glass cube on the observation deck, which (for an extra A$12) suspends you over the edge of the building some 300 metres above the ground. Time to head for the lift, I think.
www.eurekatower.com.au


6. Hidden secrets
“No Bingo. No giant buses. No stuffed koalas.” So began the press release that launched Hidden Secrets Tours back in 2004. The tours are the brainchild of Michelle Matthews who publishes ‘Shopping Secrets’ and ‘Bar Secrets’ (card packs for tourists detailing various places to visit with a map of where each destination is on the back). But the actual tours are conducted by fashion aficionado Fiona Sweetman who takes small groups on an intimate three-hour walk around the central city. I thought I knew Melbourne relatively well from previous visits but Sweetman knows this city like the back of her hand and showed us places I’d never been — from well-concealed lofts with designer clothing to basement music stores. The Lanes and Arcades Tour at A$70 per person is the most popular, and I enjoyed the heritage architecture in these lanes more than I did discovering places to shop later.
www.hiddensecretstours.com


7. The Press Club
Where do you take a bunch of journalists other than the city’s latest funky restaurant, The Press Club? It’s so-named because it is situated in the former Herald and Weekly Times building in Flinders St. Apparently it’s difficult to get a booking at this trendy place run by Greek Australians, including head chef and co-owner George Calombaris. The 28-year-old is well known around the city as an avant-garde chef, and the food at The Press Club is traditional Greek with a modern spin. The décor is elegant and the service exceptional. We have a traditional seven-course Greek meal and the waiter explains each dish in detail while managing to keep our glasses topped up and the dirty plates whisked away in record time. In a city where good food is the norm, this restaurant stands out. Go hungry as you’ll get generous servings as well.
www.thepressclub.com.au


8. Boogie nights
There are plenty of places to visit after dark in Melbourne and seemingly millions of people aged under-25 hit the streets on a Saturday night. Armed with the aforementioned Bar Secrets cards and with tour guide Fiona Sweetman in tow, we hit the streets around 10pm for a bar tour. Like the designer boutiques, bar owners are not big on signage and rely on word-of-mouth adver-tising. Our first stop was Lily Blacks, an art deco-style bar in Meyers Place that specialises in big palm trees and lethal cocktails. You have been warned. Passing through the backblocks of Chinatown we saw the packed Section 8 container bar in Tattersalls Lane. When I tell you this is a temporary bar that serves drinks from a converted shipping container to people sitting on old wooden pallets, I’m not kidding. Go figure. Our last stop was the Rooftop Cinema Bar, above Cookie in Swanston St, which is owned and operated by creative agency Hunter. As the name suggests it’s an outdoor cinema on the rooftop that can seat 200 people on deck chairs and the bar stays open late. It has dodgy iron railing, astroturf on the ground, and plastic cups, but it’s all compensated for by fresh air and great views of the central city. Cin cin.
www.rooftopcinema.com.au


9. Mornington ride
Allow at least a full day to visit the Mornington Peninsula — the famous wine-producing region on the coast about 45 minutes from Melbourne. Home to more than 40 wineries, the peninsula is the playground for Melbournians and a lot greener than the rest of drought-stricken Victoria. Here, the wineries take food as seriously as their grapes. We concentrate on the peninsula hinterland — Red Hill and Main Ridge — and my favourite stop is the Montalto winery owned by the Mitchell family. We’re greeted at the gate by owner John Mitchell who gives us a personal tour of the estate, which includes a 12ha vineyard planted primarily with chardonnay and pinot noir and some 1,500 olive trees. The best bit for me were the sculptures sited for easy viewing, the result of the family’s annual Montalto Sculpture Prize to encourage local artists. The winery also offers a picnic option where you escape to a private location and staff serve good wine and a restaurant-style lunch at a table set with white linen. You can make it a family picnic — or not.
www.montalto.com.au


10. Shop till you drop
There’s always time for one last shop before you fly out, particularly if you sensibly book an afternoon flight. So when you tire of the city’s upmarket fashion designers and bargains in Bourke St, try the outlet mecca of Bridge St in Richmond. It’s a quick tram ride past the MCG and you’ll know it when you get there — the outlet shops don’t stop. Prices range from the higher end for quality leather goods to dirt cheap for knocked-down jeans and T-shirts. I’ve always considered myself a good shopper but I confess I didn’t get to the end of the shops before ceding defeat and returning to my comfy hotel for a reviving cuppa. Cramming all those new purchases into an already full bag was no easy task and my luggage was several kilos over the weight limit on the return flight. But when travelling with someone else you can combine the weight of your suitcases and, luckily for me, my fellow Kiwi journalist had not shopped at Bridge St. On the return flight to Auckland I resolved to leave home with empty suitcases for my next Melbourne trip.

Fiona Rotherham flew with Air New Zealand and was hosted in Melbourne courtesy of the five-star Langham Hotel (www.langhamhotels.com)