Destination:
Melbourne

Moomba Waterfest

Melbourne's biggest and brightest annual event, with a hearty tradition of free family fun, pays tribute to the important role water plays in citizen's lives. Each year the program for the four-day fair grows bigger and better, with activities like open-air movie shows, giant sand sculptures, waterski and wakeboard championships, Dragon Boat races, the crazy 'Birdman Rally' and a spectacular fireworks display, to name but a few. Highlights are the Moomba Parade and the Waterfest Carnival. Contact the Melbourne Moomba Waterfest at waterfest@melbourne.vic.gov.au for more information.

Australian F1 Grand Prix

Motorsport fans have a real treat when it comes time for the Australian Formula One Grand Prix at the superb modern Albert Park Lake circuit. The main race is the first on the annual Formula One schedule, and forms the centerpiece of four days of events from karting through all racing categories and off-track entertainment.

Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Visitors come to Melbourne from all over the world for a good laugh during the city's International Comedy Festival, when the downtown precincts turn into a melee of mirth provided by comic artists in a feast of funny stand-up, theater, cabaret, street entertainment, art exhibitions, film and music. This is the only event of its kind in Australia, and one of the largest (and funniest) in the world, reflecting the city's well-known comedy culture. For more information, email info@comedyfestival.com.au or call (0)3 9417 7711.

Melbourne Cup

Melbourne's premier turf event is not just any old horse race. The annual Melbourne Cup has been variously billed as 'the celebration that stops a nation', and 'Australia's most famous Tuesday'. The race is the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere, and draws interest from elsewhere in the world besides Australia. The race was first run in 1861 and carries a proud tradition. It is the highlight of the four-day Melbourne Cup Carnival.

Melbourne International Arts Festival

Melbourne's International Arts Festival is recognized as a leader of its kind in the country, presenting unique national and international experiences of dance, theater, music, opera, and visual arts, most of it free and offered outdoors during October each year.

Australian Open Tennis Championships

What started out as the Australasian Championships in 1905 has become what is known today as the Australian Open. It has been staged at six different venues: New Zealand, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. Since 1972, the tournament has been held every year at Melbourne Park. The Australian Open is one of the four tennis championships that make up the 'Grand Slam,' and a coveted prize for the top professionals.

Melbourne's Big Day Out

The famous Aussie touring label crashes into Melbourne's Princes Park South for a festive day in the sunshine every year. Some of the biggest names in popular world music entertain the crowds with the latest tracks from the commercial and alternative music scenes.

St Jerome's Laneway Festival

A unique rock festival with a twist that is taking the cities of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide by storm, the St Jerome's Laneway Festival brings music and culture lovers together for one unforgettable day, to get up close and personal in one of the many lanes and alleyways that intersect Melbourne's city center. Quoted as one of the Australia's most insurgent and unique pop music events ever, the annual Laneway Festival hosts over 30 different cutting edge Australian bands in four different locations, all performing at the same time. Tickets sell like hotcakes so start booking in November.

Chinese New Year Festival

With over 10,000 residents in Melbourne speaking a Chinese language at home, it is no wonder that the annual Chinese New Year Festival attracts thousands of exhilarated festivalgoers, who come to celebrate the dawn of a new year. With colorful floats, dancing and singing from Chinese Opera to karaoke, the Chinese New Year Festival offers an eclectic mix of Chinese culture. With attractions for young and old, visitors can enjoy stage performances, numerous culinary stalls, calligraphy demonstrations and lion dances, all culminating in an anticipated countdown to the New Year. Afterwards, festivities continue and by touching the traditional dragon, which is paraded down the streets of Chinatown, new fortunes and prosperity can be evoked.

Chinese Museum

The Chinese Museum was established in 1985 to preserve and display the history of Chinese Australians since the mid-1800s. It has become a living part of Melbourne's modern Chinatown, with its five levels of galleries, showcasing artifacts and photographs depicting the life and culture of Chinese Australians. The museum is also the home of Dai Loong, the world's largest dragon. There are numerous other museums catering to different national cultures in the heart of Melbourne.

Cooks' Cottage

This cottage was originally built in the village of Great Ayton in Yorkshire, England, in 1755 by James and Grace Cook, the parents of Captain James Cook. When the cottage was offered for sale in 1933 it was bought by a prominent Melbourne businessman, Sir Russell Grimwade, for 800 British Pounds. He arranged for it to be taken apart brick by brick and transported via ship and train to Melbourne. In early 1934 the cottage was rebuilt on its present site in Fitzroy Gardens, East Melbourne. Today it provides visitors with the opportunity to glimpse what life was like in 18th century England.

Yarra River

A visit to Melbourne would not be complete without a good look at its main river system, the Yarra River. Often the center of many jokes due to its brownish color, it is actually not dirty, just muddy. The Yarra has become the focus of much development in the central business district, with many new buildings, walks and parks having been created along its banks in recent years, including the relatively new Riverside Park. For the best view of the Yarra River walk to Princes Bridge, St Kilda Road, or take a cruise along the river from Princes Walk (below Princes Bridge).

Government House

Government House is the official residence of the Governor of Victoria, located within the Botanical Gardens. The house is built in the style known as Italianate, and is one of the finest examples of this type of architecture in Australia. The house was built during the gold rush and is said to be the grandest house in Victoria. Tours of the state apartments start from La Trobe's Cottage (home of Victoria's first Lt Governor, Charles la Trobe) on the corner of Birdwood Avenue and Dallas Brooks Drive, South Yarra.

Old Melbourne Gaol

Victoria's oldest surviving remand prison gives visitors a chiling insight into prison life in a model 19th-century gaol. Behind the thick and forbidding walls Ned Kelly, the infamous bushranger, was one of 135 men and women who were hanged on the gaol's scaffold. Visitors can view the Hangman's Box, the Particulars of Execution book and other exhibits relating to this grim period of Victoria's history, as well as the death masks used in the study of phrenology to predict criminal behavior. The Women in Prison exhibition reveals the fascinating stories of the crimes committed by the female inmates. There are free performances every Saturday of The Real Ned Kelly Story - Such is Life at 12.30pm and 2pm, and night performances on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday with hangman 'Michael Gately' as he recounts stories of the gaol by candlelight (not for the faint hearted or children under 12 years of age).

Royal Botanic Gardens

Established in 1846 by the first Governor of Victoria, Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens are considered one of the worlds finest. They contain extensive landscaped gardens covering 35 hectares (86 acres) and are home to more than 51,000 individual plants, representing over 12,000 different species. The gardens have become a natural sanctuary for native wild life including black swans, bell birds, cockatoos and kookaburras, filling the air with their distinctive song. Free guided walks are available.

National Gallery of Victoria

The National Gallery collections are divided between the redeveloped gallery at St Kilda Road, which houses Victoria's impressive international collections (including Picasso's Weeping Woman) and the Ian Potter Centre, the spectacular new home for the country's most important Australian collection.

Ballarat

This historic town of great elegance and charm is the gateway to the goldfields. The name is an Aboriginal word meaning 'resting place', which is well suited because a tranquil lake and botanical gardens are the focal point of the city. The main Avenue of Honour is lined with 4,000 trees as a memorial to citizens who served in World War I. The city is steeped in the history of the Gold Rush era. Visitors enjoy the Eureka Trail, a two-mile (3km) walk that retraces the route taken by the police and soldiers during the Australian rebellion of the Eureka stockade in 1854. It is also possible to undertake a self-guided Heritage Walk through the inner city's streets.

Great Ocean Road

From Melbourne one of the most popular self-drive routes for tourists to follow is the circular Great Southern Touring Route, which includes spectacular scenery and takes in some of Victoria's most beautiful, scenic and cultural attractions. The first part of the route hugs the coastline going south along the Great Ocean Road, renowned for its coastal scenery, passing lush Otways rainforests and on to the magnificent limestone rock sculptures known as the Twelve Apostles in the Port Campbell National Park. Other attractions along the Great Ocean Road include the historic villages of Port Campbell, Queenscliff, Portland and Port Fairy, as well as resort towns and coastal cities such as Torquay, Apollo Bay, Geelong and Warrnambool.

Grampians National Park

The lofty summits and ridgelines of the Grampians region provide for some inspiring natural beauty in a park that is home to a variety of habitats, unique wildlife and more than one third of all plant species found in Victoria. The park is particularly well known for its colorful displays of springtime wildflowers, particularly during October. There is an abundance of wildlife in the lowlands, including emus, kangaroos, possums, koalas, wallabies and more than 200 species of bird. The park also has some interesting Aboriginal art sites among its 167,000 hectares of woodland, heath, swamp, forest and sub-alpine zones.

Eureka Tower

The Eureka Tower is the tallest building in Melbourne and the tallest residential building in the world, standing at just over 984ft (300m) tall, offering 360-degree views over the city. There is a public observation deck on level 88, the Skydeck, which affords visitors with a head for heights a testing experience: a chance to be suspended above the city in a glass cube (The Edge) that extracts itself from the building by 10ft (3m) to hang out over the city far below. On entry into the cube, the glass is frosted and moves out over the edge of the building, but as soon as the cube is in place the glass unfrosts to the sound of smashing glass.

Melbourne Museum

A fascinating museum complex situated in the Carlton Gardens, the Melbourne Museum is the largest in Australia, with over 30 different exhibits covering history, culture, science, animals and more. Its most notable galleries include the Bunjilaka, which explores the history of Aboriginal culture in Victoria, the Science and Life Gallery, focusing on insects and spiders, the marine world and Australia's local flora and fauna; and the Children's Museum, housed in a tilted cube, which offers colorful and interactive displays. Opened in 2000, the Melbourne Museum is a showcase of modern exhibition standards, with a three-dimensional Imax theater screening documentary films and a resourceful public research center, where visitors can investigate any subject they wish.

Federation Square

Occupying a whole city block, Federation Square is one of Melbourne's major attractions. A cultural nucleus, Federation Square hosts over 2000 events a year, in its outdoor public spaces, St Paul's Court and The Square and vibrant covered space, the Atrium. Renowned for its unique design, the triangular shapes that characterise Federation Square actually create an abstract map of the Australian Federation. Affording spectacular views of the city, Southbank and the Yarra River, visitors can not only explore the peculiar design of this cultural precinct, but also visit the many galleries, cinemas, museums, restaurants and shops that surround it, most notably the Ian Potter Centre and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

Queen Victoria Market

If you are planning a picnic at Birrarung Marr or the Botanic Gardens or just looking for some affordable souvenirs, head to the Queen Victoria market, one of the largest open-air markets in the Southern Hemisphere, with almost 50 percent of the market dedicated to the sale of fresh produce, such as fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, chicken, seafood, cold cuts and cheese. A popular meeting place for locals and foreigners, this cosmopolitan market is best visited on a Sunday when adjacent Queen Street is closed down and converted into a sidewalk café area, where buskers entertain passers-by and children's rides are available. Officially opened in 1878, the Queen Victoria Market has been affectionately frequented by Melbournians for more than 125 years and still proves to be the best place for perusing a myriad of clothing, shoes, jewelry, bric-a-brac, antique and toy stalls.

Melbourne Zoo

Housing more than 350 different animal species, Melbourne Zoo is a worthy stopover, in a country famous for nature conservation and interesting diversity of animals. Built in 1862, certain areas of the zoo have been preserved as historic zones, demonstrating to visitors the significant changes the zoo has undergone. Famous for its endemic inhabitants such as the kangaroo, wallaby, koala and wombat, the zoo also has elephants in the Asian Rainforest area, a gorilla exhibit, Orang-utan Sanctuary and Butterfly House. Only four kilometers from Melbourne city center the zoo is situated in a breathtaking botanic garden setting that extends 55 acres, covers over four different ecozystems and has a biodiversity of 70,000 plant specimens.