Usually throwing yourself off a building is considered a fairly anti-social act, but in Melbourne they're encouraging tourists to do it. But it has to be the sixth-floor roof of the Urban Central backpackers' building, under the guidance of someone from Macka Mackail's Rap Jumping.
Rap jumping is a bit like abseiling, except that you're staring down at the ground, which makes it a whole lot scarier. For A$65 ($55) you can jump off the hostel not once but three times. It's not that tall--but it looks kind of terrifying.
Rap Jumping in Melbourne boasts a 100 percent safety record (which sounds kind of like Aussie carrier Qantas, until recently) but if you're still not sure, check this video and decide if you're brave enough to rap jump or not.
Jaunted's Amanda Kendle just got back from Melbourne. This week: Read all about it.
Melbourne might have great cakes, but it's got even better chocolate. With half a dozen excellent chocolatiers across the city center, it's hard to choose but once you've tried the chocolate mousse at Koko Black you'll be completely converted.
Koko has several locations across Melbourne and a store in Canberra now, too, but the sweetest shop is in the Royal Arcade off Bourke Street.
Head upstairs and order a sit-down chocolate meal with a smooth and steamy hot chocolate, or just buy up a selection of incredible truffles and other assorted chocolates at the front counter on the ground floor. Or do both.
Jaunted's Amanda Kendle just got back from Melbourne. This week: Read all about it.
You don't have to spend all your time eating cakes or drinking vodka to enjoy Melbourne. Just wandering the central streets of downtown Melbourne is probably going to get your camera clicking.
Melbourne has a well-deserved reputation as Australia's cultural capital and it does a much better job of supporting art, music and theater than other cities. Street art is alive and blooming in Melbourne and you can find it along heaps of alleyways running off the main streets. Just follow your nose and turn right or left--the grid layout of Melbourne makes it impossible to get lost.
For example, stumble into Heffernan Lane between Bourke and Lonsdale Streets, and you'll see the results of a "camouflaged street art" project where street signs are actually full of wise sayings. Others have spectacular graffiti and then there are lanes with cool names: There's even ACDC Lane, named after the great Aussie band. Only in Melbourne!
Jaunted's Amanda Kendle just got back from Melbourne. This week: Read all about it.
OMG. There is actually a heaven on earth and it's at Brunetti, Melbourne's most famous spot for cakes. You might not even be in the mood for cake--or even particularly like it--but walk into Brunetti and you will be converted for life.
All Melbournites seem to know that the best Brunetti cakes are at the Carlton branch--try to head into the City Square branch and you'll only find tourists. The best way to deal with the mind-boggling selection is to go for a few of their bite-sized cakes and if you find your favorite, take away an entire cake. It's not even expensive.
Curiously, Brunetti all started because owner Giorgio Angele came to Melbourne as the Italian chef for the 1956 Olympics. He liked it and later migrated; everyone but the Italians should be grateful for that. Don't leave Melbourne without your Brunetti sugar fix or you haven't seen Melbourne at all. Of course, we could be biased towards cakes--but all the best travelers are.
Jaunted's Amanda Kendle just got back from Melbourne. This week: Read all about it.
Melbourne's got a reputation for being ultra-multicultural, along with being a place where you have a great meal out without paying a fortune. On Chapel Street there's a thousand and one places to eat but only one famous Polish spot: Borsch, Vodka & Tears.
If you can't remember that name, it also gets referred to simply as the Vodka Bar, with good reason--they stock over a hundred different European vodkas and have a huge list of incredible vodka cocktails that will guarantee you have trouble finding the tram stop to get home.
The best chance you have of limiting the effects of the booze somewhat is by gorging yourself on their Polish food. Served on particularly funky plates, it's a kind of Australian twist on Polish food that's not as heavy or rich as you might get in Poland. But be warned: It doesn't soak up everything. Stand up often during the meal to test your vodka legs or you'll really be in danger of not making it back to your hotel.
Classy, artsy Melbourne would never invite those dirty "Real World"-ers in. Find someone who will be with you off-camera at these hot spots:
Amaretto Pasticceria -- Get your espresso straight or sweetened with a liqueur at this coffee bar, which also features delicious gelato. 565 Hampton St.
Double Happiness -- Travel + Leisurerecommends the ginger-and-vodka Great Leap Forward cocktail at this chic little lounge. 21 Liverpool St.
B.coz -- Take your honey to this tiny fusion restaurant with a liberal wine list. (Don't worry, the waiters are there to help, not embarrass.) 403 Riversdale Rd.
Wow, we nearly missed this one, but just in time we can tell you about the Chocolate Rush in Bendigo, south-eastern Australia. The rush isn't meant to make it sound drug-related; it's a play on gold rush, since that's how the town of Bendigo came to be famous.
Anyways, the Chocolate Rush is on this weekend (August 4 and 5) and it sounds pretty high-brow: it aims to "educate, indulge and challenge your palate". There are workshops on making chocolatey desserts or handmade pralines, demonstrations by renowned chocolate masters and, of course, tons and tons of chocolate to try and buy. The grand finale is the Australian Chocolate Championships. We wanna marry the champion!
It's a basic principle of tourism and marketing that you need some key point to sell your town to the world. Paris has that big tower, Chachapoyas in South America has a really big waterfall, and Mandurang in Victoria, Australia, is the geographic center of the state.
Congratulations, we say, to Mandurang. We would be proud to live somewhere whose claim to fame was calculated like this:
you can imagine that we cut [Victoria] all up in to little triangle, worked out the centre of each triangle, summed them all together to calculate the actual geographic centre of Victoria
That's easy to explain on a T-shirt, right? We have to admit to never having been to Mandurang, but given the basic geography of Australia--a huge continent with only 20 million inhabitants, 90% of whom live on or near the coast--it doesn't take too long to guess that while Mandurang lies in the middle of the state of Victoria, there's probably not much else there.
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by amandak
