After the balloon flight, we still had a whole day ahead of us. Breakfast had been a Coles sandwich at a tram stop at 4:30am, so we went for breakfast round two at South Melbourne Market.
It’s been here since 1867, and it’s a proper local market: everything under one roof, and the people inside are doing their actual weekly shopping, not just taking photos like us. It’s only open four days a week, and Wednesday is one of them, so we got lucky.
The fruit and veg hall comes first, and it’s huge.
There was a queue at Agathé, a French pâtisserie, and in Melbourne a queue means it’s good. So we joined it. The pastry did not survive long enough to be photographed properly.
Then the homewares part, which is where Minmin slowed right down. Bowls, plates, baskets, candles, everything you don’t need on a holiday with a suitcase limit. I checked the map to see how much more of this there was. A lot.
The butchers and delis are serious business here. Steaks, sausages, cheese, cured meat, all piled up behind the glass. If we’d had a kitchen, we would have bought half of it.
Same with the seafood aisle. It goes on and on.
Breakfast round two, in the end, was a roast veg bowl at one of the cafés inside: pumpkin, capsicum and zucchini. Very healthy. We were making up for the lobster that night.
Then back to the city for something completely different: getting locked up at the Old Melbourne Gaol.
Postcard from South Melbourne
Melbourne's local market under one roof since 1867: fruit and veg, bakeries, butchers, delis, homewares and seafood. Open Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings to mid-afternoon.