Old Warehouses & Grooviest bars

Near the Swanston street entrance, I walked past the statue of Matthrew Flinders. I googled him later and realised he was a British explorer. From 1802 - 1803, Matthew Flinders circumnavigated the continent in a leaky and rotting vessel, 'Investigator', producing a map of remarkable accuracy on which for the first time the word ‘Australia’ was provocatively inscribed.

Flinders proved there was one landmass: the east, New South Wales, was joined to the west, New Holland. He had already proven that Tasmania was separated from the mainland by a navigable strait. Matthew Flinders gave Australians their geographic identity, a necessary precursor to political federation a century later.

From Flinders’ Street to Hoiser Lane, I laid my footsteps all over the cobblestones to Flinders Lane. Flinders Lane was once the home of the city’s rag trade. Today, the old warehouses and factories hide the apartments, artisans and galleries and some of the city’s grooviest bars. From No. 129-131 stood the Levy and Robinson’s Warehouse that dates back to 1857.

Near Spring Street, is the Milton House that was built as a hospital in 1901. The Aboriginal Art Gallery on the corner of Spring Street and Flinders’ Lane is one of the many temptations for browsers and collectors in Flinders Lane.