Melbourne doesn’t hit you like the way New York does with its skyscrapers or Chicago does with its deep dish pizza.

When you think of Australia, what’s the first thing that comes to mind (besides kangaroos and crocodiles)? Probably the Sydney Opera House. Melbourne and Sydney have sustained a metropolitan rivalry ever since the latter surpassed the former on the economic world stage in the last half of the twentieth century. It’s true, Melbourne can’t really compete with Sydney on the surface. Sydney steals the spotlight with its iconic Opera House and complimentary Harbour Bridge claiming the award for most unforgettable postcard skyline. Not to mention the harbour itself, so charming with its white sails moving to and fro in water that sparkles in all the right places.

No, Melbourne is not a city that takes your breath away through the airplane window. It doesn’t boast many recognizable monuments or sit idyllically on the ocean. It’s weather is nothing to sing about, either. It is, however, a city not to be dismissed. Melbourne’s beauty runs more than skyline deep.

Our first afternoon in Melbourne fell hostage to our travel exhaustion. After a couple hour nap, we awoke to the daylight already bleeding away into evening. In an effort to make the most of it, we headed out to get some sidewalk under our sneakers.

Kirk can’t pass a bicycle shop without walking in, even if it’s only for a minute’s browse. As we neared the Chapel Street shopping precinct, a particular establishment advertising custom designed bikes attracted Kirk to the window like a fly to fruit pie.

A bell dinged our way in and the shop owner meandered over and introduced himself as John. “Looking for anything in particular?”

We told him not especially, we were mostly in to admire. Sensing genuine interest, he struck up a conversation with Kirk. Sensing a comfortable air and ensuing license for photography, I broke out the camera.

After shooting a fair amount of frames, they were still at it. “Any plans for Melbourne?” inquired John.

“Well, she wanted to go see the penguins,” Kirk said, nudging me with his elbow, “but the trip seems pretty expensive.” The ‘penguins’ were the famous Ferry Penguins of Phillip Island, a two-hour drive from Melbourne. Every evening they come waddling out of the sea up the beach in a big parade that ends only after each bird has found his own nest. Supposedly it was a sight to see.

“Now there’s a waste of time,” John countered. “The thing about the tourists is they always come with a checklist. Like in Sydney, they have to see the bridge, the opera house.”

What can I say? I’m a sucker for flightless birds dressed in feather tuxedos.

John goes on. “It’s not about the checklist. It’s the lifestyle. It’s harder to see, you need a little more time.”

And maybe some green. Unfortunately for us, attempting to experience the lifestyle of the urbanite requires a bit of cash, of which we couldn’t spare much. We stepped out of the bike shop onto the street, the sky now indigo in twilight. Past the nice restaurants and designer boutiques we walked, past the swanky bars and even the local pubs with happy hour specials. Like obedient children told not to spend their allowance all in one place, we dutifully stretched our dollars as far as they’d go. At the grocery store.

Apples, bananas, sliced meat and sliced bread. We acquired provisions to make ourselves packed lunches to avoid spending quadruple eating out. We would be seeing Melbourne on a shoestring. It was the ‘look but don’t touch’ method. Fortunately you don’t need to touch anything to admire – take a photo or two – and enjoy.

One more double-check followed by a cursory glance over the balcony.

“SHOOT KIRK! The taxi’s already here!”
“What?! He’s way too early!”
“Crap! He has to wait for us right?!”
“For 47 dollars, he better be!”

And so it began. Our journey from Sydney to Melbourne and all the dollars bills that went flying out of our pockets to get us there.

$47 airport shuttle, Manly to Sydney International Airport
$79 one-way coach seat (Lauren)
$89 one-way coach seat + one check-in bag (Kirk)
$32 shuttle bus, Melbourne Tullmarine Airport to Melbourne CBD

Five hours and $247 later, we busted out onto the sidewalk of downtown Melbourne. The wind blew hard. Smack in the face.

“Dang, it’s cold!” Kirk zipped up his hoodie.
I gritted my teeth. “We must’ve been on the express flight to Milwaukee in February.”

Oh but we weren’t. Right city, wrong weather system. We sure knew how to pick ‘em. California anyone? Kelly? Julie? Brandon? You know what I’m talking about. Biggest flood in the history of California sky happens to materialize out of nowhere and drown out the entire first week of our Let’s-Go-See-Sunny-California! trip. Monumental drowning. We all grew gills and joined Sebastian under the sea that week.

Back in Melbourne, at least it wasn’t raining… yet. It was, however, cold and windy and we needed to get to our hotel, preferably now. And without taking any more bills out of our pockets. We had already spent nearly a quarter grand (sounds like a lot, doesn’t it) in transportation costs for the day and it wasn’t even 8AM. No we would not be hailing a cab. Cabs are for sissies, quitters and drunks. We were none of these. We would find a way.

As if on cue, it started to rain. We dodged under the nearest awning we could find. Collapsing our sleep-deprived bodies down on the steps, we watched the downpour through bleary eyes. Courtesy of the Packing Procrastination gene I inherited from my mom, I wasn’t packed for the trip until 1:30AM the night prior, leaving a solid hour and a half sleep for the both of us before the alarm went off to get up for the early-arriving taxi.

“We shouldn’t call a taxi,” sighed Kirk.
“No we will not call a taxi.” My words stood firm while the sweet thought of a dry cab whisking us to our hotel melted in my mind like a Werther’s Original.

We hadn’t planned this very well. I knew there was a free tourist shuttle that could drop us about one kilometer from our hotel. I also knew of a free city circle tram that ran the perimeter of downtown. I knew not the when nor the where to catch either of these freebie-on-wheels.

I cracked open the dusty Lonely Planet and looked up Melbourne in the index. Kirk checked his laptop to see if we had left open any google maps of the area. We were digging in the couch cracks for half dollars, and not even a penny to be found.

Off we slugged, semi-damp urban sherpas with backpacks, suitcases, camera tripod and all. We reasoned that if we walked far enough, we were bound to see one of those city directory/”you are here” maps in the middle of the sidewalk. I hoped.

Melbourne is deceptively large. With first glance at a city map, the downtown area is only 4 x 8 blocks wide. Could walk that in 10 minutes, no problem right? Not a chance. Inside each one of these so-called “blocks” you could fit the state of Delaware with room to spare.

In about a quarter of an hour we had moved ourselves and all of our junk about three-quarters of a single block when we finally reached an intersection and were halted by a traffic light.

“All to save fifteen dollars.”
“You betcha.”

Two more enormous blocks and some rain showers later we managed to find a street map. Stop #12 of the tourist shuttle was just over the river near the casino. We could ride for about 1.5kms to its last stop. From there the only free way to the hotel was our feet.

The key jingled open the door of our room. Oh glorious! We dropped our bags on the floor and flopped on the bed. It had been two hours since we stepped out onto the streets of downtown Melbourne. We had traveled just about two miles, as the crow flies. One mile per hour. We laughed at our free inefficiency.

Was it worth it? Yes. You couldn’t write a story like this one about a five-minute ride in a cab.

Luna Park is a tiny little amusement park with an iconic clown-face entrance. It’s across the harbor, opposite downtown Sydney. To get there, Kirk and I walked from Circular Quay all the way across the Harbour Bridge (which wasn’t actually that far, just 1149m). Even so, we had worked up an appetite. At the end of the bridge, a fish & chip joint wafting a smorgasbord of seafood delights nearly did us in, like bees to honey.

No, no, photos first, food later.

Amusement parks are a photographer’s play-ground. Colorful lights, people, and moving objects abound. I love capturing motion-blur from the rides. The ribbons of light that show up on camera can’t be seen in real life. Normal pictures usually portray a moment in time, whereas a motion-blur image is a time capsule.

We set up shop in the median of the thoroughfare, where we could squeeze both the ferris wheel and the merry-go-round into the frame for a time-lapse capture. The remote shutter snapped only about a minute’s worth of pictures when a security guard walked right in front of the lens, his weight obscuring the entirety of the frame. Hey now! What’s the big idea, mate?!

“Sorry sir,” he says to Kirk, “No professional photography in the park.”
“Oh, no worries, I’m not professional photographer.”
“That tripod makes you a professional photographer.”
“Oh really? Will you tell my mother that?”

Grumbling but not yet defeated, we took the camera off the tripod. Fine then. We don’t need no stinkin’ tripod. We’ll set it on the ground. That worked for a little while. The camera couldn’t really take any other decent photos without something to rest it on. And the angle from the ground got old fast. Our photo shoot quickly petered out. You can see the security guard for a brief second in the time-lapse movie.

We walked back to the fish & chip joint only to discover dim lights and upside-down chairs on tables. Dang it. Oh how battered and deep-fried food had sounded so good! Now what? Up and down the street we roamed, and after much ado, we settled on the reasonably priced Stir Crazy Thai. We ordered one appetizer (here called an entree) and one entree (here called a main). (Confusing, no? When I first started waiting tables here I kept asking people if they wanted to order an appetizer with their entree, and they looked at me, stupefied.)

We split both dishes, the appetizer/entree – aka, the first food to arrive – being my favorite. It was called Money Bags. I wasn’t sure if this was a typical Thai specialty – wrapping vegetables and chicken up in deep-fried money-bag shaped dough – or just a cool dish that this specific restaurant had created. Although yesterday, I spotted a Thai place on the opposite side of town that was actually called Money Bag Thai. It would please me to no end to be able to order those little tasty bags of goodness at Thai restaurants everywhere. Or, in so many words, maybe there is hope to find Money Bags wherever I travel.

On this particular fair day, we stepped out the front door to walk north, destination: Curl Curl. We planned to explore the shoreline as it twisted around cliffs and arched along the beaches.

The Northern Beaches are a string of twenty-two beaches that stretch from Manly to Barrenjoey Head. By now, we’ve ventured to a handful of them. I must confess that both Mona Vale and Palm Beach we reached via bus. Unfortunately we can’t walk everywhere.  Oh, and Dee Why too.  Although in our defense, we didn’t know how close Dee Why was, it being our first destination beach trip, otherwise we definitely could have hoofed it.

From our apartment complex we walked out to the water, then pivoted north to follow the boardwalk. And the end of the beach we strolled over the bridge that spans the river inlet. During my first week in Manly in an effort to keep up with Kirk, I fell off my longboard and crashed it into the curb on this very same bridge. Up a set of steep steps, we past Café Splat. On a couple of occasions I had a coffee at this café out on the patio and relished the lovely views overlooking the ocean. Up more steps, then at the top of Queenscliff we stood.

The residential architecture demanded our scrutinization. As avid readers of Dwell magazine, we like to think of ourselves as amateur architecture critics. We ambled down a No Thru Traffic road, checking out solar panels and open-air garages. One house seemed to have the structure of an actual shipping container, although we couldn’t be certain. Another dwelling sported modern accordian sun shades on the outside. Nifty.

The descent through the cool vegetation down the backside of Queenscliff drops you at the south end of Freshwater beach. Pausing for a short break, we found some comfy boulders and sat down to take in the seascape and watch the surfers chase waves.

Every beach has its own personality. Its own individual fingerprint. You’d think, gosh, there’s only a certain number of combinations of water, sand and scrub before they all start looking the same.  Not so.  Just like people, every person – all 6 billion of us – are unique; as are the world’s beaches. Some are wide and sweeping, their dunes of sand whipped like the desert. Others, such as Freshwater, are sheltered by towering cliff heads on either side. Low grass fringes some beaches, while others like Manly boast giant pines. Sometimes the water is calm, a striking deep green-blue, like a giant bowl of Jell-O gelatin. Or it can be choppy, rising with aggravation and crashing onto its own shore.

We carried on. Just a hop, skip – not even a jump – and we stood at the north side of Freshwater. Looking south from whence we came, I shot a quick sequence of images to later stitch into a panorama. A couple of swimmers paddled laps in the seaside pool. Pools like this can be found at the end of nearly every beach, nestled into the rock cliffs and subject to the changing tide. Sometimes fierce waves crash up and over into the pool giving the focused breaststrokers a bit of a surprise.

Clambering up the rocks, Kirk and I stood at the edge, pondering the ocean. Giant waves hurled themselves into the cliffs, etching beautiful rippling patterns in the sandstone. A fisherman wrestled with his potential catch, every so often bending his pole into an “S” under the strain of the unknown sea monster.

We skirted the cliffs on towards Curl Curl. A thin, precarious looking sliver of rock jutted out over the frothy water and rocks below. “Wow, that looks a bit scary.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t go near that,” said Kirk.

We both walked past it, and looked back at it from the other side. It looked even less supported from this new angle. An old couple had just stood up from their seat admiring the ocean and headed toward us. The man spotted the outcropping. “Don’t you dare!” squeaked the woman. In defiance, he stepped confidently out onto the rock, right out to the edge. The woman looked down at the ground, shook her head. I looked at Kirk. “Take a picture of me!?” I couldn’t have my audacity for a good dare outdone by an 80 year-old man.

“Oh no you don’t.”
“Come on!”
“Lauren, what if that rock breaks off? Are you going to be happy then with your picture and a pair of broken legs?”
“It’s not going to break. That old guy just went out there.”
“Yeah, like opening a jar of jam. He probably loosened it for you.”
“Whatever.”
“Ok, fine! Go out there. I’ll take your picture. Go. Go!”

With Kirk’s reverse psychological blessing, suddenly a mild cold sweat came over me. My head said no, but my feet turned me around, and I walked tentatively toward the precipice. I crouched down, then edged out spider-walk style, my feet in front and my hands behind me.

“Alright, alright! Far enough!” yelled Kirk. I dangled one foot over the edge, but kept the other one on the rock in preparation for a quick flight at the sound of any creaking or cracking. “OK, I got a million, come on, get back here!”

Clouds started to darken the sky. We walked down to Curl Curl. Between the frontage road and the sand stood a café. A couple sat outside on the terrace in the orange chairs and white tables. Kirk so considerately indulged my request to sit and have a coffee. We stared out at the ocean. Its bands of white waves had begun to thrash and rip themselves apart in the preview of the coming gale. “We should get going, aye?” suggested Kirk.

For a minute we pondered taking the bus back. Ah, but it was only a half hour walk taking the road through town. If it rained, we’d be wet. Oh well. Our two pairs of feet it would be.

The beach was getting emotional. As Sting sang, “she can be all four seasons in one day.”