Skip to main content

Little Bourke Street 1 of 7 - A Road that Beckons

Construction
Cities always seem to be reshaping themselves, I find it both exhilarating and disconcerting.

My Mum came from Melbourne. At the end of the war she found herself transplanted to my Dad's home town in sleepy country Queensland.  While she became an exemplary woman of the country she did often speak of her home city with nostalgia. One of the things she talked about was the nice grid of straight streets in Melbourne and that there were "Little" streets between the big ones.

As a result I have had a lasting fascination with "Little" streets. I decided to pick the one where our hotel was located, just up from the railway station. We had an early train to catch the next morning.


Comments

  1. Nice post, look forward to more of this Little street.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You've got a week's worth Jo though I had trouble cutting it down to 7 shots. A city street has so much going on.

      Delete
  2. When my family moved to Melbourne from Toowoomba in Qld, that was one of the things we were fascinated with - the "Little" streets.
    Mum and Dad moved back to QLD but every time they come down, Dad has to make a trip to Little Bourke to visit Chinatown.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes there are no Little streets in Toowoomba or Brisbane. Just higgledy piggley streets, I notice there are some little streets in Adelaide too.

      Delete
  3. It has been 20 yrs since I was last in Marvelous Melbourne, I remember the little streets well. I think I stayed on little Collins St.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Too long Mark. You must visit again.

      I was only saying to my husband today how our tastes and interests change over time. When I think back to my visit to Europe 30 years ago I would do very different things today.

      Delete
  4. Brave woman your mum, to be transplanted so far away.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think she realised what she had bought into until it was too late!

      Delete
  5. Lovely to have a wander, through your photos, back in Melbourne again Joan. I had my very first job there, in Lonsdale Street and will always enjoy those memories of walking from the train, then catching a tram. The Little Streets always held interesting sights and smells :D)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Quite a well known street as well.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Larras Lee

We passed through Bakers Swamp without noticing anything.  Then reached our last dot on the map for this trip - Larras Lee and saw this.  The roadside monument says: In Memory of  WILLIAM LEE  (1794 - 1870)  of "Larras Lake"  a pioneer of the sheep  and cattle industry  and first member for  Roxburgh under responsible  government (1856 - 1859).  This stone was erected  by his descendants.  --- 1938 --- This is a repost from a few days ago. Thinking I would use this for this weekā€™s Taphophile Tragics post I dug a little further into William Leeā€™s story, itā€™s a very colonial Australian one. William was born of convict parents, living his childhood years around the Sydney region. In his early 20s he was issued with some government cattle, recommended as a suitable settler and granted 134 acres at Kelso near Bathurst. He was one of the first in the area and did well. A few years later he was granted a ram and an inc...

The end

I retire from the workforce this week and to celebrate have decided to retire my current blogs and start afresh with a single consolidated blog -  My Bright Field  - to record the delights of my new life adventure. If you are interested follow me over there.  I will still be Sweet Wayfaring and collecting Royal Hotels.  The delights I discover along the way will appear together with my gardens and towns where I live.

Yetholme

Our last stop on this trip was to see if there was anything left of an old town once called Frying Pan which was later renamed Yetholme.  I knew Yetholme to be a roadhouse on the highway near the pine forests and didn't expect to find anything but again I was wrong.  There was a lovely little settlement  with homes, a neat community hall and a church still in use.  The perfect spot for the creatively inspired. Apparently it was a tourist town back in the early 1900s and in more recent years was bypassed by the Great Western Highway leaving it to settle into its pleasant tranquil existence, hidden from the travellers speeding by. I remembered it is Tuesday so have added a supplementary photo to participate in Taphophile Tragics  this week.  This is St Paul's Anglican Church in Yetholme.  The burials in the church yard date from the 1873 to the present day. You can see a little more of  Yetholme  over at 100 Towns.