Bonus features
This page is for people who have been on my Melbourne / Narrm tour. As you know it's impossible to condense the story of an entire city into a few hours of walking. I had to cut lots of stops and facts to save time or the tour would go for days. Consider this like both the deleted scenes, and directors commentary of a DVD.
Bars and Restaurants I might have mentioned:
Union Kiosk. My favourite cafe. 10 Howey Place. I especially love their cheeseburger jaffle (toasted sandwich).
Comedy Republic, 231 Bourke Street. Owned by Kyran & Rhys Nicholson, and Alex Dyson. They curate the best comedy lineups in Melbourne, 5 nights a week (Tues - Sat). Showcasing big names from the television, but also highlighting fresh new voices of the comedy scene. Keep an eye out on the lightbox for my sister Daisy Webb who performs here occasionally. Even if you're not seeing a show it's one of my favourite bars in Melbourne.
The Atrium On 35, Level 35, 25 Collins Street. Take the elevator half way up the building, grab a cocktail at the bar, and enjoy the great view of the eastern suburbs from the toilets.
SPQR Pizzeria, 26 Liverpool Street. Great Italian wood-fired pizzas, surrounded by murals by local Melburnian street artists.
Shanghai Village, 112 Little Bourke Street. Affordable and efficient. Usually go for some fried vegetarian dumplings, share some Chinese broccoli and some pumpkin cakes with a friend.
Metro Burgers 12 Degraves Street. A lot of people like to ask me where they can eat kangaroo. I'm a vegetarian so haven't tried this restaurant myself, but my friends say the kangaroo burger here is good.
Mabu Mabu, Federation Square 25/2 Swanston Street. All-day bar and kitchen serving food with unique Indigenous ingredients including crocodile, wattle-seeds, emu, finger-lime, and wallaby.
Centreway Arcade
In the past my tour would pass through the Centreway Arcade instead of going through 271 Collins Street. The 1920s interior was entirely remodelled in 1987 by Cocks Carmichael and Whitford. It was a really wacky and post-modern. If you looked up from the ground floor you could see a hidden message spelled out in spaced-out letters lamenting the destruction of the 1920s interior. "We live in a society that sets an inordinate value on consumer goods and services." A little anti-capitalist message in the heart of a shopping arcade.
Unfortunately it was removed in 2020 when the arcade was yet again remodelled. The place looks as boring as a domestic airport terminal now so I avoid it on my tour, but you can read more about it in my friend Tristan's article here, and see more photos on Rohan Storey' website here.
Amphlett Lane
Amphlett Lane was blocked from public access for a few years while the Le Meridien Hotel was being constructed. It reopened in March 2023 and created shortcut between Bourke Street and Little Bourke Street. I made a Tiktok showcasing this new path and thought it might be useful to know for Invasion Day rallies, or potentially for counter-protesting the so-called "Let Women Speak" rally that was happening later that month. Fortunately some of the organizers saw my video and incorporated it into their action on the day.
We started at the Exhibition Gardens, but police presence at the top of Spring Street prevented us from marching down to join the other counter-protesters on Bourke Street. We made our way around the block of LaTrobe, Exhibition, and Lonsdale Street. Instead of being blocked again we rushed past the cops down Spring Street. This forced the cops to form a line of horses to block us out the front of the Princess' Theatre. They wanted us to retreat back north, but we held our ground. The cops didn't like that and eventually pepper sprayed a few of us.
That was when organizers decided to use my shortcut. We pretended to march down Little Bourke Street, but then sprinted through Amphlett Lane and joined the other counter-protesters on Bourke Street.
Having this shortcut to get up nice and close to the Let Women Speak rally meant we were able to drown out their speeches with boos and ruin their livestream of the event. The success of our Melbourne counter-protest, emboldened other cities on Kellie-Jay Keen's "Let Women Speak" tour, and meant that by the time she got to Aotearoa/New Zealand there had been enough negative press and community mobilization that she abandoned her last two rallies.
Unfortunately nowadays cops are aware of this path, and block it during protests. But on other days whenever I walk through this shortcut I think about how my city knowledge once helped a counter-protest, and think about how my other shortcut videos might be useful for other protests in the future.