Seaside living

Last weekend we said goodbye to our house guests from the last 4 months as they resumed their travels around Australia, next stop Sydney.   In celebration of Adam's birthday we took Adam and Coralee for lunch in Williamstown.  Barnadi found a nice looking seafood restaurant called the Strand which had views across the bay with the city skyline as its backdrop.  We shared a couple of starters including a selection of various sharing dishes and some soft shell crab.  For mains, Adam had lamb an unusual choice for a seafood restaurant.  Barnadi had the salmon after a difficult decision between the salmon and the risotto.  Both Coralee and myself had the Barramundi, we were all very happy with our choices and still had just enough room to try a little dessert.  We walked off our big lunch along the rocky seafront between the harbour and the beach.  The walk left me with a sense of envy as we looked at the stunning mansions along the shore with their even more stunning views.  An earlier check at a property website revealed that most of these foreshore mansions would require funds in the millions to acquire.  It is therefore an unrealistic dream that one day we might be able to move to a sea front property in Williamstown. 

View from Williamstown

The other big change in our household this week was the addition of central heating.  Despite Melbourne being hot in summer and cold in winter, insulating never seemed to play a part in building designs.  With our heating now installed the next step is to improve our insulation, double glazing being our first big priority, although at a cost of $13,000 + it may have to wait a little bit longer. 

We have created another area of poor insulating recently by installing a cat flap into our back door.  The flap itself didn't last long as Goofy constantly banging his head through it has successfully removed it permanently.  Jessie is really enjoying her new found freedom, having lots of space to run around and learning how to climb trees keeps her occupied most days.  She has even started hunting, although starting small, her current quarry is crickets.  She catches one and brings it into the house minus its back legs, she then lets it run for a bit before pouncing on it.  This process would be repeated indefinitely until the cricket gives up trying to escape, then she gets bored and leaves it alone, shaken but still alive.

Goofy trying out Jessie's new cat flap

Trials and Tribulations.

So finally after 3 long months of waiting I have started my new job at the Alfred, working within their clinical trials department.  It is strange to be back working on clinical trials again, and yet it is also all so familiar.  Thanks to the implementation of ICH GCP guidelines, trials are conducted in almost identical ways in most countries around the world.  Working in clinical trials is certainly not everyone's cup of tea.  It is highly regulated and involves excessive amounts of record keeping to the point of OCD.  It is also quite reassuring to see how similar the trials department here in Australia is to what I was doing back home, as where I worked before I was the only clinical trials pharmacist and with the help of my one technician I pretty much had to work it all out for myself.

Goofy has now finished his 5 week puppy school and his behaviour is much better, although that may also be linked simply to his maturation.  Goofy has pretty much got a full set of adult teeth, but unfortunately that hasn't really stopped him wanting to chew everything.  He does seem to be getting better with Jessie and isn't biting her quite so much.  Barnadi was unable to join me and Goofy for the last 3 lessons, as he had to work instead.  The dynamic of the group changed over those last lessons quite drastically.  Daisy continued to be hyperactive, but the others got bored of her antics and tended to ignore her.  Romeo got much braver, and seemed to latch on to Goofy as his new best friend.  Mr Fitch turned quite grumpy and Austin was growing into quite a precocious young upstart, in the final week he even tried to violate Goofy....Goofy being Goofy however, didn't even seem to notice.

Bundoora

When we first moved to Bundoora I always felt it was a bit of a nowhere place, an outer suburb which has been developed only very recently to cope with Melbourne's expanding population.  Its size, shape and politics gives one the impression that Bundoora is simply the space left behind when all the other surrounding suburbs were created.  It does not therefore contain the depth of history, variety of architecture or cultural significance of some of Melbourne's older inner suburbs.  Bundoora is governed by 3 separate municipalities, Darebin to the south, Banyule to the east and Whittlesea to the north and as such Bundoora has no obvious town centre or focal point in which its population of approximately 26,000 can congregate at or feel proud to be a part of.

But maybe I am being to harsh on the suburb I have now chosen to call my home, I have recently been doing quite a bit of research on the history of Bundoora and it seems there is still a great deal that Bundoora has to offer.  If the three opposing councils can stop competing and work together, then Bundoora looks like it might have quite a bright future after all.

Geography
Located 16km north of Melbourne CBD, and covering an area some 15km2 lies the suburb of Bundoora.  The southern border is marked by the Bundoora campus of La Trobe University and its northern border by Bundoora RMIT.  It's east and western edges are in part bordered by the Darebin creek and Plenty river respectively.  The main access to Bundoora is via Plenty road which runs north to south and is the route of the 86 tram and the Northern ring road which crosses Bundoora east to west.  Bundoora is a very green suburb and a lot of its area is given up to open parkland, golf courses and wildlife reserves, perhaps the most significant of these is Bundoora park which encompasses an area some180 hectares included in which is Mount Cooper a long extinct volcano and claimed to be the highest point in the metropolitan area of Melbourne.  Whether this is true or not I do not know, but it does give one an incredible view of the city.


View from Mount Cooper

History


Bundoora Homestead

The area along the Plenty river was first settled by white people in 1839, in that time the area was mainly given over to farming due to the rich fertile soil found in that area.  The name Bundoora is thought to come from the aboriginal word meaning "a plain where Kangaroos live".  The first post office was built in 1863 on the corner of Plenty road and Grimshaw street, the present day site of Narai Thai restaurant.  The area of Bundoora park was used for breeding thoroughbred horses and the Bundoora homestead was built by John Matthew Vincent Smith in 1900.  By 1920 however Smith sold the homestead to the government to convert into a hospital for returned world war 1 veterans with psychiatric disorders.  Perhaps the most famous doctor to work there was Dr John Cade, an Australian psychiatrist who first discovered the effects of lithium as a mood stabiliser.  The rural isolation of Bundoora meant that this was not the only psychiatric hospital to be built in the area, the Janefield training centre also opened in 1920, and a third psychiatric institution opened in 1949, Larundel, an extension of Mont Park hospital.  The birth of psychotropic pharmacotherapy after world war 2 lead to a complete change in the way mental health disorders were managed and one by one each of these hospitals closed down.  Most of the Repatriation hospital was torn down, with only the old homestead being left intact, La Trobe built their campus on the site of the old Mont Park hospital and the RMIT on that of the Janefield training centre.


Facilities and recreation
There is a lot to see and do in Bundoora...if you like Golf.  There are two golf courses in Bundoora, one in Bundoora park and the other, Strathallan golf club located between the La Trobe nature reserve and the Gresswell habitat link.  For those who do not like golf however there is still a surprising amount to do. 
For shop-a-holics there is a factory outlet store at University hill a shopping centre near the RMIT and two other shopping centres at Bundoora square and Polaris. 
There are also plenty of restaurants to choose from, if you like Thai, Indian or pizza that is.  There is a 10 pin bowling alley and pool hall along Grimshaw street, but unusually for a University rich area there are not really any bars or clubs to go out at night. 
For those into culture, the Bundoora homestead is now open as an art gallery, it is free to enter and they have continually changing exhibits and a small café if all that art work gets you thirsty.
For kids there is the Cooper settlement, located in Bundoora park inside which you will find a heritage village, a petting farm and a small wildlife reserve, educational and fun.
For those more into nature then there are several wildlife reserves including one at La Trobe university and there is also a beautifully winding cycle track along the Darebin creek to explore.


Larundel, Main hospital building

Development
Bundoora is currently undergoing a mass of new developments some good, some not so good.  The old shopping centre at Bundoora square is getting old and tired, its design was never that attractive primarily consisting of a giant car park with a few ugly shops dropped in the middle.  Their attempt to brighten the place up with murals does little to improve the character of the place.  Two new shopping precincts are currently being developed.  The first to the north is University hill, located by the RMIT the plot encompasses a wide area that is now being developed.  The first stage is already complete and includes a large factory outlet store as well as some smaller retail outlets, the majority of the rest of the development will be given over to medium density residential properties.  Polaris to the south is a much smaller site and yet I feel it has a much greater potential.  Located just north of La Trobe university and to the east of Bundoora park, Polaris is being built on the old Larundel site.  What remains of the old psychiatric hospital which closed in 1999 has been extensively vandalised with several of the buildings completely unsalvageable, some however have been incorporated into the redevelopment of the site, giving the development the opportunity to mix old and new architecture and retain the history of the area for future generations to appreciate.  Combine this to its favourable location by Bundoora park and you can see why this is the development I am most excited about.


Polaris

Residential development is also exploding in Bundoora, not just at the Polaris and University hill sites, but all along Plenty road new apartments and townhouses are being constructed.  One which is probably less favourable amongst the current locals is being planned on the site of an old Smorgys restaurant that burnt down last year.  The site is located by the edge of Bundoora park, and approval has been gained for 5-6 apartment blocks, the tallest being 8 stories high.  As well as being higher than any other building in the area, its proximity to Bundoora park seems a little out of place and unsympathetic to its surroundings.
One area of development that still really needs to be looked at is transport, as previously mentioned the 86 tram runs up Plenty road.  This route is always slow and unreliable, trams frequently are late or break down and the journey into the CBD can take over an hour.  There are no train lines that run through Bundoora and buses are as much victims of the ever increasing traffic as all the other commuters.  If the population continues to boom as planned by all this development then improvements to transport links need to be seriously considered.

So all in all I guess Bundoora is not really that bad after all.  There is a surprisingly large number of things to see and do and It has quite a unique history which is being preserved, shopping facilities are improving and a lot of money is being invested in developing the area.  Transport links to the CBD and other suburbs are slow but they do exist.  Bundoora might not have the obvious class of Northcote, the hipster appeal of Fitzroy or the nightlife of St Kilda but it does have its own charm and I for one am proud to call Bundoora my home.