Melbourne, part IV: Can't Hug Every Cat

Melbourne, Australia

On our fourth and last day in Melbourne, we still had a few things to tick off our to-do list. 

One of those was Messina, a chain of gelato stores that are highly recommended on TripAdvisor. We were a bit sceptical as to how good they could be while being a chain, but I reasoned that Grom is also a gelato chain and you know how much I like Grom. One branch is located in the famed hipster suburb of Fitzroy, which felt like a much larger version of the Wellington suburb of Newtown, with several more litres of hipster dumped in and fewer immigrants. Through a window of one of the first cafes we passed, we saw three separate people on their MacBooks and wearing sunglasses indoors. The cafe scene seems to be a big deal here. 

Once we found Messina, we saw that as well as the usual flavours such as coffee, mango and pistachio, Messina provides many atypical flavours like apple pie, caramelised white chocolate, bounty bar, and fondant (spiced dark chocolate). There was so much on offer, and then we saw the specials of the week!

Two of these caught my eye: the Messy Juliette (strawberry gelato with vanilla cream and pieces of sponge soaked in Marsala) and Old Gregg (Baileys gelato with a butterscotch sauce). They were both delicious and I'm glad I tried them. Messina chefs make all the ingredients, even going so far as to bake the apple pies, brownies and sponge cake themselves for inclusion in the gelatos. It's clear they put a considerable amount of effort into this enterprise, and great gelato is the result.

I love cats. I love every kind of cat. As such, another item on my agenda was Cat Cafe Melbourne. In the lead up to our visit, I had this song going round and round my head: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sP4NMoJcFd4
But crazy cat lady jokes aside, I really enjoyed the cat cafe. Most of the cats were sleeping, but the awake ones were very friendly and soft from many people petting them. We got to play with one who was more energetic and liked to chase feather toys. The only negative to this experience was that I suffered a freak laughing accident and got hot chocolate powder in my eye, but that was my own fault and though my eye was sore for a while, I did recover through intensive cat-petting therapy. 

A very special cat, Ruby lost one of her eyes to an infection when she was young. But that doesn't stop her having fun, as she cleaned my hand thoroughly when I started petting her (her scratchy tongue tickled!), and later on one of the staff members played fetch with her. He explained that if he throws the toy onto one of the tall cat structures (designed for feline climbing and sleeping) she will jump up and retrieve it, laying it back at his feet and turning around for a back scratch! It was funny to watch, as I've never seen a cat fetch. He said that her one eye doesn't affect her depth perception too much, but occasionally she does misjudge and topple off things. 

All the fifteen cats living here are from rescue shelters, and the cat cafe is keen to raise awareness of rescue animals. It costs $10 per person for up to one hour with the cats, which was plenty of time, and hot chocolates were $3. 

This weird structure juts out of a theatre building that sits next to NGV, the National Gallery of Victoria. If you tell locals you went to "the art gallery", they will not know what you're talking about. It's NGV. 

The gallery itself held some fascinating works, and even a Picaso. I was surprised to find a Monet of a quaint French village that I really liked, as well as paintings of Rome and Venice by Bernardo Bellotto in the 1700's (very realistic depictions which could have you believing you'd gone back in time). It's well worth a look, as is the largest stained glass ceiling in the world, which is in the main hall. They provide beanbag-like seating so you can lean back and stare up at it for a while. 

In the evening, we meandered along the Yarra River and watched all the bright lights twinkling on the rippled surface. You can't tell the water is brown in the dark. 

Every hour on the hour, huge bouts of flame erupt from tall columns by the casino. Who doesn't love fiery explosions? I can't help but wonder if the occasional passing bird gets caught in the fire and perishes, but hopefully they would feel the hot air before and move out of the way. I hear there are fountains by the casino but unfortunately we couldn't find them. Perhaps it was too late for them to be running. 

We ate dinner with a friend at Chin Chin, a restaurant and GoGo bar. Scoping them out online before arriving, I saw their website says "Looking for our menu? Sorry Mario, the princess is in another castle!" This remark kind of sums it up, as Chin Chin is trendy and a little mysterious. As such, I'll leave it at that. Go try it out, but do be prepared for a wait. For our table we waited 45 minutes downstairs in the GoGo bar, and I reccomend the Señor Chang cocktail. 

The next morning, we checked out of our AirBnB and caught a train, tram and bus to the airport. I reiterate that public transport here is easy to use, accessible, and much better than in NZ. We still had a bit of bread leftover so I held it, not wanting to squash it into my backpack. As I carried it down the street, I felt like a real backpacker.