Acland street

Most tourists strolled along this St Kilda street’s southern end after a Luna Park visit. Crowds dawdled by shop fronts, peered into restaurants or entered the many cake shops that enticed customers with their calorie-laden goods.

beyond port phillip bay

St Kilda’s Pier and Albert Park are well known landmarks in Melbourne, so it was time to explore some of the suburb’s back streets on my daily hike. St Kilda’s terraced houses had gradually disappeared, but there were still majestic homes along the route I took.

St Kilda’s ngv exhibition

St Kilda’s National Gallery of Victoria was a buzz of activity when I stepped through its entrance past the Haring copy that graced the watery glass front. The New York artist’s original design on the large NGV window had been done years back before someone threw a stone through the glass. I was on my way to Haring and his colleague, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s exhibition at the insistence of my daughter.

albert park lake

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been to Albert Park, but some how the lake alluded me. So I set out on an errand detouring with determination to walk by St Kilda’s lake.

Sailing across the bay

On the first sunny fourteen degree day in a week, I raced to St Kilda pier to catch a ferry across the northern end of Port Phillip Bay. After the ferry docked at Port Melbourne pier, we sailed over calm waters towards Williamstown.

The lure of a spirit

The Bay Trail from St Kilda to Port Melbourne was about a five kilometre trip one way. I stepped on to the trail somewhere at the midpoint and usually turned south, but that day I headed in the opposite direction. Far in the distance sat the Spirit of Tasmania and I had this urge for ages to walk right to the pier.

A taste of magic and laughs

I waited in a queue outside Melbourne’s State Theatre for a children’s performance in a temporary structure with magical appeal. But what was that painting on the front near the entrance? Was that scantily dressed woman really appropriate for children’s eyes?

A hike to Point Ormond Hill

I headed south past the lighthouse along the path that meandered close to Port Phillip Bay. On this perfect autumn day, there were plenty of bikers and hikers taking advantage of the sunny conditions. Off shore, sail boats bobbed over the choppy sea while wavelets splashed against the rocks below.

Over a bridge and out to sea

Along the southern end of St Kilda beach, a trickle of water headed into Port Phillip Bay from Elwood Canal. This was once Elwood Creek during the days when much of the area was swamp and birds swarmed over the muddy creek bed in search of worms.

Old and New in the St Kilda Road NGV

After the paintings in the National Gallery of Victoria, I walked through period furniture to discover an exquisite marble fireplace originally from a house in Dublin along with the glass candelabra manufactured in France in the early 1900s.