I woke to daylight at 6:48 am but realised it’s 3:48 Perth time and probably the usual time I wake and can’t get back to sleep anyway! Can’t sleep anymore but know from the gritty feeling behind my lids that I have a sleep deficit.
I raise the hotel room curtain to grey skies and unruly corvids prowling window ledges eight stories up. Below is a playground, but not far below – a childcare centre, a school? Five stories up – fake lawn, a sand pit and a bitumen bike track for toddlers. Rooftop recreation in the CBD.
People stir in the building adjacent – accommodation of some sort, old school box airconditioning jammed into window frames. A building that defies logic looms above – S Shaped glass construction. People on their way to work/breakfast stroll the street below.
We sit above the tops of London Plane Trees stretching to reach the light between narrow passages in this concrete jungle. The ubiquitous pigeons swoop and land, experts in city navigation and finding scraps.
I head out for a walk, leaving my partner softly snoring. A sign shouts ‘Best Steak Sandwich in Melbourne’ and workers in high-vis sip coffee from takeaway cups and scoff toasties chatting about Netflix and the night before.
Clique nightclub is still open and it’s now 7:30 am. Punters tumble out into the bright light drunken and dazed.
The bouncer gives me a resigned look as he clips the red velvet rope back into place after searching someone who wants to enter. Concealed weapons? I love that a red velvet rope has so much power.
The streets are mostly empty but for some joggers and young families with early rising children. Rowers in an eight glide across the Yarra leaving swirls where their oars have swept through the water. Street sweepers sweep streets after last night’s Christmas crowd at the Crown. Rough sleepers still asleep on benches and the hard ground.
The 24/7 gym on the river front looks sleepy – no one working out this morning. Birds flit in and around urban parks and gardens seeking insects and croissant crumbs in equal measure. The sun catches windows and highlights street signs as the city wakes. Has it even been to sleep?
Later…
Family get together – early Christmas lunch/birthday celebrations. A Christmas spread washed down with prosecco and homemade cakes. Eat fit to bursting and relax on recliners catching up with my expanded family, while the Bengal cat darts between furnishings avoiding the sticky hands of a 4 year old.
Later still…
Plans to head into the night and find some music. Live music, beers and dancing is on the agenda. An espresso martini is agreed upon as a necessary plan of action to combat the food coma.
A long tram ride through affluent Melbourne suburbia into the city for a quick change in our Stanley Kubrick inspired hotel – red corridors and doors seemingly streaked with blood. On closer examination I think it is supposed to be theatre curtains – badly drawn in both senses of the word.
Train to Brunswick following hasty espresso martini in the hotel lobby. The Union Hotel is an old-school inner city pub that still has live music – free entry. People spill onto the street and the waft of beer and hot chips escapes from the door. Dark inside even though it’s still daylight (saving) outside. We find a large square table in the lounge.
Checkerboard Lounge is setting up on the small stage, drum kit, Hammond Organ and steel guitar. Bass is yet to arrive. We order our first round of pots of beer, cold and frothy. A bowl of chips and zucchini fritters – though god knows we don’t need food!
The band sound checks, clattering drums and guitar riffs, silencing the 80s soundtrack playing in the background. ‘Twang’ – take that Hall and Oats, ‘Thump thump crash!’ no more Abba and sickly sweet nostalgia.
The chips arrive and despite a full stomach I can’t resist a taste – just the right salty oily taste.
My sister declares them the BEST she’s ever had, but maybe it’s like that declaration I heard a long time ago about live music, that at any given time any band can be the best band in the world?
Checkerboard Lounge start their set, our toes tap under the table until one of us (my sister) breaks away. “I’m going in” she declares as she grabs her beer and disappears into the lounge. We all follow. Dancing is necessary with the drummer who doubles as the singer whips the crowd into a frenzy. The espresso martini kicks in and three beers later they are playing their last song.
It’s only 10:30. Are we up for more adventure? Yes, why not? There’s a bar up Sydney Road, Bar Oussou that plays world music. We jump in the car and our trusty skipper gets us right outside. It’s impossible to enter the bar without dancing – a nine piece band is crowded onto the narrow stage elbow to elbow.
They thump and whoop the crowd into some body shaking moves. Before we know it it’s almost midnight and the band says they have two songs left. With each song lasting 15 minutes that’s another 30 minutes of booty shaking and our feet are feeling the pinch. Sweat pools and punters spill out onto the footpath where they continue their moves under the street lights. A couple rumba cheek to cheek while others smoke cigarettes.
The music stops and starts and then stops and we stumble to the car with ears ringing and smiles from ear to ear. Back at the Stanley Kubrick Hotel we fall into bed for our last night of sleep in Melbourne town.
All in a Day Adventures 