The Other Melbourne List

Melbourne is city famous for its café culture, street art, and colonial era architecture. Inevitably, travellers will be encouraged to visit the Queen Victoria Market, Royal Exhibition Building, and Botanical Gardens. While all these sights are worth a visit, there is much more to see and experience in Melbourne. Here is, The Other Melbourne List.

Rock out with some live music

Melbourne is well known for its live music scene and has given birth to some of the biggest names in Australian music including AC/DC, Crowded House, Jet, and The Living End. While some legendary venues have closed their doors in recent years, making way for inner city, high rise apartments, there are still many excellent places to see the best in local music. Check out The Tote and Bendigo Hotel on Johnston St, Collingwood, The Dogs Bar and Esplanade Hotel in St Kilda, or The Northcote Social Club in Northcote. Beat Magazine, Melbourne’s longest running street press, is found throughout the city and is also available online.

Melbourne band King Parrot in full flight

Attend a game of ‘Aussie Rules’ football

Australian Rules Football, of footy, is the lifeblood of Melbourne. What started as a pastime to keep cricketers fit in the winter has evolved into the national sport. Each year, between March and September, footy is everywhere in Melbourne, and dominates the news. There is no better place to watch a game than at the ‘home of football,’ the MCG. A short walk from the CBD, the ‘G as it is colloquially known, holds around 100,000 people and games are played there on most weekends.

My team, the St Kilda Saints, play the Docklands stadium – and if you’re in town and would like to attend, please get in touch!

The MCG on Grand Final Day, 2009

Take a Ghost Tour

In the daylight hours, Melbourne’s laneways are home to cafes, restaurants, and tourists snapping pictures of street art. At night though, Melbourne is best experienced by taking one of the many Ghost Tours. Exploring the city on foot, and hearing stories of colonial miscreants, underworld figures and notorious prisoners, a Melbourne Ghost Tour will leave you with a different impression of the world’s most liveable city.

Get Foots-crazy

The inner city suburb of Footscray was once famous for being home to the working class of Melbourne, the factory workers, dockers, and housewives. The dour, rugged spirit of Footscray was epitomised by their football team, the aptly named Bulldogs. Footscray underwent its first transformation in the late ‘80s, with the arrival of refugees from Vietnam, and has recently undergone another with more refugees arriving from the Horn of Africa. The suburb is now a wonderful microcosm of multicultural Melbourne, boasting a vibrant fresh food market, and restaurants from all corners of the world. A short train ride from the CBD, Footscray is an often overlooked destination to spend a day.

Next Stop: Dandenong

A chequered history and edgy reputation keeps many Melbournians away from Dandenong. Despite its flaws, which are fully experienced by a train trip to Dandenong, this suburb on the outskirts of Melbourne is another cultural melting pot. Populated by refugees from the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, and with a growing Pacific Island population, Dandenong has something for everyone. Nowhere else in Melbourne can you dine on Afghan, Sri Lankan or Vietnamese cuisine, shop for a sari and African hair extensions, then smoke a sheesha pipe with friends.

The famous Najafi barbershop in Dandenong (photo credit: Barat Ali Batoor)

Abandoned and underground

For those who enjoy a bit of adventure, Melbourne has an array of abandoned buildings and underground tunnels to explore. While visiting many of these places is dangerous and even illegal (you could be fined for trespassing), it sure beats visiting another café, for another overpriced coffee. Atlas Obscura lists the Melbourne Storm Tunnels on their app, while the Facebook group Abandoned Melbourne updates sites around town. The Cave Clan are a group of Melbourne explorers who formed in the 1980s, and while they remain active, they are notoriously difficult to contact.

Go Geocaching

If you prefer your urban exploration above ground and legal, then geocaching may be the way to go. Sure, you can do geocaching in any city, but if want to discover somewhere different in Melbourne and stray from the common tourist paths, then geocaching is novel way to do it. Try geocaching around the inner suburbs of Melbourne and you never know what, or who, you’ll discover!

Sydney Rd

It’s not often that a Melbournian will recommend you go to Sydney, however Sydney Rd is an exception. Stretching from Brunswick to Coburg, Sydney Rd boasts an incredible array of cafes, bars, live music venues, and second hand shops. The suburbs that surround the northern end of Sydney Rd have a large Arabic speaking population, and this is reflected in the sweet shops, bakeries, and restaurants that pepper the strip.

Join a rally

Melbournians, no matter their political persuasion, love a rally. If you hang around town long enough then you are sure to find one that suits your taste. There are often marches and protests for Climate Action, Aboriginal rights, and Palestine, while in the covid years of 2020 & 21, there were protests against lockdowns and for Black Lives Matter. Attending a rally is a great way to appreciate a different side of whatever city you are in and understand the people who live there.

There is always something happening on the streets of Melbourne.

Attempt Melbourne’s steepest day hike

There are many excellent hikes outside of Melbourne, particularly in the Dandenong Ranges (which FYI, are nowhere near the suburb of Dandenong). However, if you are looking for something a little more challenging that the Thousand Steps, and a little less crowded than Werribee Gorge, Mt Juliet might just be what you’re looking for. Mt Juliet, outside of Healesville, takes walkers up a steep, rugged and often overgrown path. At the top, a stone cairn makes for a nice spot to recuperate and enjoy a packed lunch before a careful descent.

The top of Mt Juliet.

Do you have a favourite sight in Melbourne? Leave your recommendations in the comments section below.