Corrosion Conference Destination Information

Travel Information

Travel Information from www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/australasia/melbourne/index.htm

Australia’s second city is a place of contradictions and hidden charms. A leafy, bayside community on the ‘upside-down’, brown Yarra River, it is cosmopolitan, suburban, cultivated, football crazy, conservative and a haven for the avant-garde. Visitors come for its shopping, restaurants, nightlife and sporting calendar, encouraging many Melburnians to believe that they live in one of the most civilised cities in the world.

Population: 3.4 million
Country: Australia
Time: GMT/UTC plus 10 hours
Telephone Area Code: 03

Orientation

Melbourne’s suburbs extend around the huge Port Phillip Bay, into the plains to the west and east and out to the foothills of the Dandenongs. With a population of over three million to house, this sprawl extends for more than 50km (30mi) from east to west and 70km (43mi) from north to south, covering a massive 1700 sq km (663 sq mi). This huge area of settlement has been necessitated by the dying but intractable goal of the Great Australian Dream - a detached home on a quarter-acre block, 2.5 children and two cars.

The city centre is about 3km (1.8mi) inland, on the north bank of the Yarra River. It consists of a mixture of elegant and kitsch 19th-century architecture and self-important skyscrapers. The main north-south artery, Swanston St, while Bourke (a pedestrian mall for part of its extent) and Collins Sts, which cross it, are the city’s other two main shopping thoroughfares. The Yarra forms the city area’s southern boundary. Melbourne is notoriously flat, but this lack of definition makes it an easy city to get around. Transport is also assisted by the network of trams - today a mixture of characteristic old green-and-yellow rattlers and more modern pneumatic monsters. The city’s airport, Tullamarine, is 22km (14mi) north-west of the city centre. The interstate train station (Spencer St) and the main metropolitan station (Flinders St) are both in the city centre, while the bus station is just to the centre’s north.

Melbourne’s excellent eating opportunities have been a welcome feature in the last few decades. They range from Chinatown in the city and Richmond’s Victoria St (commonly known as ‘Little Saigon’) to the Italian fare of Carlton’s Lygon St and the numerous cuisines available in Southgate in the city, Fitzroy’s Brunswick St, Prahran’s Chapel St, and Fitzroy and Acland Sts in St Kilda.

When to Go

Just about any time of year is a good one to visit. Melbourne’s climate has an unfortunate reputation: wet, windy, unpredictable and liable to extremes - very hot or very cold and often both on the same day! On the plus side, Melbourne’s multitude of parks makes it a beautiful place to witness the changing seasons: it is rarely unbearably chilly, the mercury rises above 35°C (95°F) only a few times each year and Melbourne’s soggy reputation outstrips the reality - it receives only half the average rainfall of Sydney or Brisbane. In winter the average temperature ranges between a maximum of 13°C (55°F) and a low of 6°C (43°F).