Soft Serve Melbourne

20th March, 2011

Melbourne was like a delicious soft serve ice cream cone today. My friend A woke me up from a cavernous jetlag induced sleep at 10.30am. “Its going to be HOT,” she said, and when an Australian says that, you know it will be very hot. After making my way through the morning rituals of shower, coffee, and the intermittent one of trying and failing to get online, I walked through the suburb of Preston, down Bell Street and its hissing six lanes of traffic, past the dusty unkempt cemetery to the tram stop. The aircon breezed around the insides of the #1 to South Melbourne, genteel, a lovely passage through the city, busy and bustling on this bright blue Sunday.

A picked me up on Domain Road, my old neighborhood on the southern border of the Botanic Gardens. On days like these the Moreton Bay fig trees smell so sweet, and there are often avenues of them in Australian parks. One of my favourite fragrances in the world, those figs, with their creeping limbs and giant shade patches.

At Black Rock beach we walked through the small harbour, with winches and utes and people hauling bits of boat around. The fish and chip shop has plastic tables and chairs outside, and ice creams for sale. It was like being in one of those colour photos where you can feel the joy of a summer’s day and know the flavour of that perfect light, the girl in the floral bikini’s tanned skin and golden hair like an Aussie flag.

We made our way through the familes to a quieter spot and immediately got into the clear water. The small bay of our beach is framed by mustard coloured sandstone cliffs behind us, the pier and harbor to our right and quite close to shore a wreck entices one to exploration.  The water was cool and perfect, and the day allowed us to ease in, lean back, and my jetlag ceased to be an issue.

A’s boyfriend T is an architect who recently won some awards and a commission for a large job in China, so we had some interesting conversation about how that all works.

A dropped me at the tram stop afterwards; the pavements of Carlton were packed …loud and lazy, great food and gelato being served. On the tram I watched the array of people board and alight – two Somali girls in loose head coverings, narrow skirts, one with spike heeled boots, the other with a leopard print skirt, a bit risqué for Islam, I’m sure. A couple speaking Arabic, some Phillipino friends, an exquisite Japanese girl opposite me with a cream chiffon dress and snake skin wedges, such a pronounced look of innocence on her face I thought it contrived for a moment. Many different accents and languages in and out of the carriages, many people silent plugged into their iPhones or Blackberries.

It was dark by the time I got off at the end of the line, and I walked home, to K’s flat, feeling safe and observing how easy it is to switch between two world in 24 hours, how I never ever walk at night in Jo’burg and how I love the night air, carrying its jasmin scent, in this soft, gentle city.