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Overview
When your nine-to-five plays out like a well-oiled machine, it can sometimes feel like each week is a little same-same. But Melbourne is brimming with a fine bounty of things to experience and explore each and every day. So aside from casual laziness and a little lack of inspiration, there's really nothing stopping you from squeezing some adventure and spontaneity into your schedule.
We've teamed up with Mazda3 to help you celebrate the little things that bring a sense of adventure to life. Shake things up, as we give you seven different detours to take each week in Melbourne. From Monday to Sunday, enrich your everyday with one completely achievable activity that inspires you to take the scenic route as you go about your daily routine.
This week, take your lunch break in the Botanic Gardens, enjoy some jazz with your raclette and celebrate the mighty swimming pool with a dip at the NGV. Plus, we've got your future detours sorted for the new few weeks here.
All require no more effort than a tiny break from the norm — what's your excuse for not trying them all?
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Take the morning off and head to the Royal Botanic Gardens for a lunchtime walk in the park. While the gardens might be surrounded by the concrete jungle of Melbourne CBD, the shady treetops will soon envelop you from the summer heat and have you soaking in the peace and quiet. The myriad of paths takes you deep into the gardens, which you can wander aimlessly as you take in the sunshine. Besides the impeccable grasslands and garden beds of local flora, there are sculptural highlights, pristine lakes and pavilions hidden amongst the trees. Another must-see is Guilfoyle’s Volcano, which sat untouched for 60 years but after being overhauled, the surrounding boardwalks and viewing platforms provide unmatched views of Melbourne’s skyline.
Image: Sarah Worthy via Flickr.
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Sitting one level above Collins Street, Polepole is a slick little homage to Africa’s eastern coastline. With the venue’s name translating to ‘slow’, carnivores in search of some serious midweek indulgence will find a whole lot to love about Polepole, especially during Tuesday night’s weekly all-you-can-meat extravaganza. From 5pm, you can rock your taste buds and stuff your belly with a smorgasbord of slow-cooked, African-style meat dishes and sides for the budget-friendly price of $39 per person. We’re talking an endless array of melt-in-your-mouth ribs, vibrant salads and addictive harissa grilled corncobs – whatever you choose, Polepole’s extensive menu brings the striking African coastline direct to Melbourne with an array of flavours that’ll leave you wanting more.
By Libby Curran and Hudson Brown.
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Food, fashion, crafts and more — South Melbourne Market’s got it all. For 150 years, ‘the village market’ has been a quintessential part of the Port Phillip community and a favourite market for locals and visitors alike. There are over 145 traders currently housed here, covering just about every cuisine, style and niche that you could possibly think of. There’s also a year-long calendar of live music, exhibitions and family activities keeping the place feeling lively and full of surprises. While South Melbourne Market is definitely a market full of joy, one trader, in particular, is the happiest. That’d be Happy Place, which when opened by popular nutritionist Lola Berry in 2014, caused a bit of a stir with its commitment to delicious seasonal food and juices. Specialising in healthy on-the-go meals and fruit and veg smoothies, everything tastes just as good as it looks.
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Raclette is nothing new, but the deliciously gooey snack has become incredibly popular in recent years and Juliet is the latest venue to jump on the cheesy bandwagon. Located in a semi-hidden basement beneath Punch Lane, Juliet is Melbourne’s latest raclette hotspot, with a Thursday evening devoted entirely to the provision of the cheese plus jazz. As you enter the welcoming space, grab a seat on a Danish chair under the dim light of a hand blown chandelier. Juliet’s signature raclette, sourced from Heidi Farm in Tasmania, is the star. Slowly heated until the top layer is oozing, the cheese is then scraped onto your plate and paired with fingerling potatoes, 30-month aged prosciutto, cornichons and picked onions. With live jazz from 7pm until late, we’re hard-pressed to think of a better way to spend a Thursday evening.
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Staying in with just Netflix for company might be all the rage these days, but once upon a time, the local drive-in cinema was the must-do event. Dandenong’s Lunar Drive-In was first opened in 1956 but the introduction of the VCR in the 1980s crippled the drive-in industry. However, in 2002, two movie buff brothers got together and purchased the drive-in site, putting up four massive screens and modernising the experience. Showing the latest films alongside double features, family sessions and late-night screenings, load your car up with your best mates and head out to enjoy a night-time flick. Much cheaper than your regular cinema, a carload worth of tickets goes for as little as $25. Don’t miss the Lunar Café, the on-site burger joint that serves up a typical diet of movie-going snacks and hot food to enjoy throughout your screening.
Image: Thomas Hawk via Flickr.
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The splish-splash of water isn’t something you’d usually expect to find much of inside the walls of a gallery, but that’s all changed with NGV Australia’s homage to one of our great Australian icons: the swimming pool. The Pool: Architecture, Culture and Identity explores this cultural symbol in all its glory, with the help of a multi-sensory, 11-metre pool installation, set up within the gallery’s Design Studio. The free interactive exhibition plays with water, sound, light and scent to highlight the connection between culture, landscape and architecture. It looks the real deal, too, complete with wooden decking and sun lounges — and visitors are even allowed to dip their feet in for a refreshing paddle. So beat that summer heat with a trip to the NGV to celebrate the pool and dip your tootsies in to cool down.
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In the leafy green eastern suburbs is the crème de la crème of secondhand clothing markets — with plenty of other bits and bobs to please the general market-goer, too. Everyone’s budget is catered for here. For a couple of coins you can pick up some snazzy threads with folk shedding their bulging closets, or you could invest in some designer fur jackets. Antique homewares, succulents, heavenly scented soaps and body lotions and even well-thumbed books are all up for grabs to the best haggler. All of which can be enjoyed with the background music of a warbling busker.
Personalise your next adventure via The Playmaker, driven by Mazda3.