St Kilda Beach - Melbourne's Bondi

Manda writes:

St Kilda is only a fifteen-minute tram journey away from the centre of Melbourne. It is one of the city's most lively and cosmopolitan areas. It has the best of several worlds as it has a beach, an amusement park and streets lined with bars, cafés and endless pavement tables.

Shop facia on St kilda.

Our first mission was to locate a cake shop on one of the main streets. Chris mentioned that she likes a certain type of cake (called 'Rum-Baba') from a particular shop on Acland Street. We wanted to bring some home for her as she hadn't had her favourite cake for two years. Problem was that she'd forgotten the name of the shop and the only clue was that it was Austrian. No problem as we could find out which one was of said nationality. However, we found out that none of the cake stores were Austrian! Then I spotted a sign 'Edelweiss' - now that sounded promising ... and they sold cakes too ... but they didn't sell Rum-Baba. D'oh! In the end, after looking through several shop windows for a sponge cake, laced in rum and ladened with fruit on top, we picked a cake shop and hoped that it was the right one!

The Esplanade is lined with market stalls on Sundays and despite the late start, we managed to get there before they closed for the day. The stalls sell arty goods and although we were tempted, we managed to leave empty handed again. There is definitely a creative and more laid back atmosphere in St Kilda in general.

As we walked up and down The Esplanade, we picked out several set locations used in the filming of the Australian soap, 'The Secret Life of Us'. This soap was broadcast on Channel 4 a few years back and was modelled on the UK programme 'This Life'. 'The Secret Life of Us' is one of the best Aussie soaps I've seen (believe me, I've seen quite a few!) and the reason why it didn't take off in the UK, in my opinion, is down to the scheduling of the programme. Who is going to want to watch it at midnight, no matter how good it is?! In the end, it kind of dwindled off (in the UK) due to ratings, which is a shame.

The Palais Theatre on the Esplanade, St Kilda.

Luna Park is one of the symbols of St Kilda, in fact, it is one of the main attractions in Melbourne. This amusement park has been open since the early 1910's and even with its recent multi-million dollar refurbishment, its old charm has not been lost. There are plenty of roller coasters and rides that turn you sideways, up-side-down, this way and that. Definitely a must for thrill-seekers!

The entrance to Luna Park, a Melbourne icon.

We walked up and down the main streets, Acland and Fitzroy, stopping off for tea breaks every now and then. Since public transport runs sporadically over the weekend, we didn't stay late in St Kilda - we missed a train by 10 minutes yesterday (a Saturday) and had a two-hour wait until the next one came along, so we certainly weren't taking any chances on a Sunday! St Kilda is a nice place and we'd thoroughly enjoyed our day out there. When we arrived back at Chris', we found out that the Rum-Babas we'd brought back were from the right shop! The odds were not high but we had somehow picked the right one which was a bonus! Chris enjoyed her Rum-Baba and we'd enjoyed our day at St Kilda - what a perfect end to the day!