The Melbourne Convention
Centre is a modern convention centre and hotel complex on the banks of
the Yarra river and close to Melbourne's city centre. It is not one of
those aircraft hangar style exhibition halls which have to be partitioned
and have awful acoustics. Melbourne does have one of those - it is just
across the river. Hopefully they will have something interesting on to
coincide with the Worldcon, but if not walk a few metres downstream and
take a look at the nautical museum and preserved sailing ship, Polly
Woodside.
Just across the Yarra River at Southbank is the Crown Casino, just in case you haven't spent all of your money in the dealers room. In fact, it's the biggest casino building in the world. Who needs Las Vegas anyway! In front of the Melbourne Convention Centre, fronting onto the river, is Batman Park, named, not after the caped crusader, but after John Batman, one of the founders of the city. This small but pleasant strip of green is, as is traditional in Australia, supplied with public barbecues. Weather permitting, one of our program items will be training in that most excellent part of Aussie culture, the barbie. The park is supplied with public barbecues that will be available for use by our members.
A free tram
service (the City
Circle) leaves from in front of the Convention Centre and connects
with the shops, restaurants, museums, art galleries, concert halls and
other essentials of a capital city (Melbourne is the capital of the State
of Victoria). It also passes close to many of the city's major hotels.
For the more adventurous, a Daily ticket (currently priced at A$4.30) gives
you unlimited travel by train, tram and bus within about 15 km of the city
centre. Take a trip up to the bargain hunters' paradise of the Queen Victoria
Market, to the Royal Botanic Gardens with their fine collection of Australian
plants, or down to Saint Kilda beach and go dolphin spotting in the bay.
Food-wise, Melbourne is stocked with a fantastic range of restaurants of all shapes and styles. Seafood fanatics can try species of fish unavailable anywhere else in the world. And, being so close to Asia, we have a particularly fine collection of Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese eateries. For homesick Americans, the Hard Rock Cafe is on Spring Street, right on the free tram route.
For the sport-minded, it is a short tram ride along Flinders Street from the Convention Centre to Melbourne's sports district where you can find a basketball stadium, an Olympic class swimming pool, Flinders Park, the home of the Australian Tennis Open, and of course the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground. There will not be any cricket in August, but you will be able to find a game of Australian Rules Football, one of the fastest ball games in the world. With a capacity 100,000 crowd, the MCG is every bit as exciting as Wembley or an NFL stadium.
The one thing
that most people know about Australia is that we have some really weird
wildlife. Melbourne Zoo has a fine collection, but you are probably better
taking a day trip out to Healesville Sanctuary where you can come face
to face with kangaroos and koalas, watch the magnificent wedge-tailed eagle
in falconry displays, and, thanks to a specially built display room, see
the amazing duck-billed platypus in its natural habitat - underwater. You
may also be able to combine this with a trip round the beautiful Dandenong
mountains. An ideal way to see them is from the famous Puffing Billy steam
train.
If you are planning to stay longer in Australia, each state tourist board has offices in Melbourne which can suggest places to go and help with accommodation. Not that there is any shortage of ideas. Here are just a few options:
Sydney, with its world-famous harbour, bridge, opera house and surfing beaches, is an hour flight away and well worth a weekend or so. A particular favourite attraction is the Darling Harbour Aquarium where you can walk through a glass tunnel in a pool full of sharks.
A further two hours north takes you to tropical Cairns in Queensland, the main tourist centre for the Great Barrier Reef. The organised trips to the Reef are great value, with snorkelling equipment provided free and scuba at a small extra charge.
A long way out west (3.5 hours flight) is the beautiful city of Perth, home of Australia's yachting community. Western Australian beaches have to be seen to be believed, and are practically deserted because the population is so low.
For the more adventurous, there is an airport at Alice Springs in the middle of the Australian desert. Here you really are outback, and you can visit the famous Aboriginal sacred site of Uluru (Ayers Rock). All in all, Australia is a world apart: a modern Western culture, but never far from unusual sights you cannot find anywhere else in the world. And, of course, really friendly people.
We'd love to see you here.
G'day!
Here are some links to information about our convention venue and nearby hotels. There are more useful links about Melbourne's and Australia's attractions in general on our Links Page.
World Science Fiction Society, WSFS, Worldcon,
Science
Fiction Achievement Award, Hugo Award and NASFiC are
service marks of the World Science Fiction
Society, an unincorporated literary society.