Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BUNJIL
As you drive on one of the many roads surrounding Docklands, or catch a train to or from Southern Cross Station,
you can't miss
Eagle
. Let's just say this bird has presence. Local sculptor Bruce Armstrong was inspired by the
figure of Bunjil, the Wurundjeri creator spirit. The cast-aluminium bird rests contentedly on a mammoth jarrah
perch, confidently surveying all around with a serene, glassy gaze. (Upon its unveiling, one cheeky journalist
called the sculpture 'a bulked-up budgerigar'.) He's a reminder of the wordless natural world, scaled to provide a
gentle parody of the surrounding cityscape's attempted domination.
East Melbourne & Richmond
East Melbourne's sedate, wide streets are lined with grand double-fronted Victorian ter-
races, Italianate mansions and art deco apartment blocks. Locals here commute to the city
on foot, across the Fitzroy Gardens. During the footy season or when a cricket match is
played, the roar of the crowd shatters the calm: you're in lobbing distance of the MCG.
Across perpetually clogged Punt Rd/Hoddle St is the suburb of Richmond, which
stretches all the way to the Yarra. Once a ragtag collection of workers' cottages inhabited
by generations of labourers who toiled in the tanneries, clothing-manufacturing and food-
processing industries, it's now a rather genteel suburb, although it retains a fair swag of
solid, regular pubs and is home to a thriving Vietnamese community along Victoria St.
Running parallel with Victoria St are clothing-outlet-lined Bridge Rd and Swan St, a
jumble of restaurants, shops and smart drinking holes. Richmond's main north-south thor-
oughfare is Church St.
