Things To Do In Melbourne No One Knows About

When you travel to Melbourne and stay at Docklands Private Collection of Apartments there are so many things to do that people rarely tell you about.

It’s the birthplace of Vegemite. The brown spread was invented by food technologist Cyril Callister in Melbourne in 1922. The iconic Aussie staple is still made only in our city, down at the Vegemite factory in Port Melbourne. That makes us happy little Vegemites.

You can find the world’s largest stained glass ceiling here. Pop into the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria and check out the gorgeous design by artist Leonard French. The vivid colours stretch 51m x 15m. While you’re there, don’t forget to check out the NGV Triennial, on until April 15.

Those deliciously insatiable dumplings in Chinatown come with a fascinating side of history, too. Chinatown was established during the Victorian Gold Rush back in 1851, and is still the longest continuous Chinese settlement in the western world.

All Melbourne pubs closed at 6pm until 1966. Lucky for you, the doors are open many hours longer, and we’re now spoilt for choice with an abundance of drinking holes. In our patch, we’ve got Woolshed, Tap 831 and Nixon Hotel, to name a few.

Two pugs got married here in 2015. Jasper and Jasmine tied the knot at St Kilda’s West Beach Bathers Pavilion in a charity gala fundraising wedding to raise money for pug rescue. Melbournians are very dog friendly. You can take your best mate to karaoke (at Benjys in Brunswick East), share a paleo meal with your pooch (at Patch Cafe in Richmond) and even go on a chauffeured winery tour with your faithful furry pal thanks to Gourmet Paw Prints.

The iconic Fosters Lager beer was concocted in Melbourne. Arguably the most famous Aussie beer (even if we don’t really know anyone who actually drinks it), the hoppy delight was brewed here by two American brothers.

Before it was Melbourne, it was Batmania. Unfortunately not influenced by the superhero, the city was named after a colonist Tasmanian farmer, John Batman. When Batman arrived first in June 1835, he recorded in his diary: “About six miles up, found the river all good water and very deep. This will be the place for a village.”

More than a third of our population was born overseas. We’re not exaggerating when we say we’re proudly multicultural. Out of our 5.8 million people, one in three of us weren’t born in Australia. Call us biased, but that’s why you seriously can’t beat the food in our city. We’ve got it all.