Immigration Museum

The sky over Melbourne changed from grey to blue and out popped the sun, spattering sunbeams through the clouds and painting the new leaves bright green on the trees.  Melbourne took a collective breath and ran outside into the sun, clogging up the beaches and al fresco cafes and pairing their puffer jackets with shorts and sandals.  We put on our hats, packed our lunch, and sallied forth on BD's first post-surgery public transport adventure which, let me say, went swimmingly and she walked faster than she has in  years.

Unlike the Melburnians, none of us trusted the weather enough to go to the beach.  No, we pursued culture and history instead, and trotted off to the Immigration Museum which was conveniently located in the old Customs House not far from Flinders Station.

The Customs House started as a tent, morphed quickly through a wooden cabin in the 1830s, and became an ugly bluestone construction which nobody liked and everyone thought gave a very poor impression of the growing colony.  Floods of revenue from the gold rush inspired the construction of a grand building in 1855,  but unfortunately the gold rush petered out and the Customs House languished in building limbo until it was finally finished in 1876.

Up close and personal with the lion from the crest on the front of the building.

The plan all along was for the Customs House to be one of Melbourne's grand buildings, modelled on an Italian Renaissance palace with a touch of Greek architecture thrown in for good measure.

Grand is achieved.

 The Long Hall was where all the customs business happened, with lot of to-ing and fro-ing and paying of duties to move goods between the separate colonies.  In the absence of income tax (not introduced until 1915) customs duties provided a substantial amount of filling for government coffers.

Still grand.

And much more peaceful than it would have been when everyone was arguing about how much duty they owed.

The Customs House was also where all the immigrants were processed, so it was fitting that it's now the Immigration Museum, and we spent hours immersed in the information on display and playing with the interactive exhibits.

On the top floor, via the grand staircase, we heard some more personal stories of immigration including the opinion of a Chinese grandmother that risotto is nothing more than Italian for 'stuffed up rice!' 

Then we found the exhibit on 'Becoming Yourself', and tripped out on lights, mirrors,and colours.

There's some creepy people in here! Oh, hang on...

Lights

Mirrors.

Colours.

Peace out.

Outside in the street we ate our sandwiches in a tram stop and declared the day a success. We jumped on the train at my favourite station:

and home we went, via BD's for dinner.  She, poor soul, was not yet allowed to lift the heavy frypan and thus was relegated to a supervisory role which she embraced with vigour, happily bossing us around until we went home to our abandoned cat.

Just for fun.