A walk around Prahran

Back in 1975 - 76 we lived in the suburb of Prahran which is an inner suburb just south of Melbourne. 

Since Robin had never seen the church we were married in back in 1975, we took a tram towards the city and got off close by the church which is marked in the top left.

After visiting the church, we walked across Fawkner Park to Albion Street where we rented an apartment and then visited Prahran Market. We walked back to St Kilda via Chapel Street.

St Kilda Rd which is a very wide street which carries most of the tram traffic to the south side of Melbourne. For such a busy thoroughfare, it is quite pleasant since it is lined with trees.

We headed up the road that leads to Melbourne's most exclusive suburb, Toorak.

We stopped to look into the window of an art gallery. This was on display.

The older suburbs of Melbourne have some wonderful old houses.

These simple old cottages would be worth millions. We then visited the church which will get its own blog.

Some Art Deco buildings.

We crossed busy Toorak Road and headed into Fawkner Park. Back in 1975 - 76, I worked near here and I would walk across this park every day to and from work. 

Tennis courts. Back in the day, I often used to see an older bloke giving tennis lessons to young players. I presume he is long gone now.

The park has numerous sports fields . This one will be used for cricket.

An avenue of magnolia trees.

Of course there are toilets and a drinking fountain. Australia is very good at providing public conveniences, particularly as you only rent beer and a lot of it is consumed.

Tree trunk. Although my commute to the college was pretty good, I always reckoned my favourite commute to work was the walk across this park. It was about a mile each way so it was good exercise and except for crossing a couple of busy roads, very pleasant.

A house I lusted after that overlooks the park.

This used to be a shop but now is a residence.

A former pub with a good restaurant is now units. Housing is more profitable than booze and food in Australia these days.

A small Russian Orthodox church. This part of Prahran used to be a relatively poor neighbourhood and houses were inexpensive, even when we lived there. No longer.

Small park.

These bikes are all over Melbourne. Read more about the sharing system here.

We crossed over the train line that leads to the far south of Melbourne at Frankston. Melbourne has a good public transport system with trams, trains and buses. Overcrowding is a problem at peak hours but most big cities suffer from that problem.

The peg board house was interesting. I would be inclined to create a very large saw and hammer and hang them on the fence one night.

We strolled around the Prahran Market for a while and also had lunch. 

Prices are much higher than forty years ago. We still remember buying 5 lb of lamb chops for $1. Ok, they were not the best chops but it was remarkably cheap compared to today.

If you buy booze in Australia, you would recognize the name Dan Murphys which is probably the largest chain of booze shops in Oz. Dan opened this shop (to the right of the yellow shop) back in 1952 and we would buy wine there. You can read more about it here.

Dan Murphy used to run a wonderful restaurant called the Epicurian in the space where the yellow shop is now. We had some wonderful meals there and the waiter service was the best I have ever experienced. Ah, those seafood in mustard sauce pancakes. You can read more about Dan Murphy and the building itself that used to house an arcade here.

It was a good long walk down memory lane.