Natural Park

Geographically underneath Sydney, we find another current and cosmopolitan city called Melbourne. Melbourne’s sophisticated environment is filled with some of the most well regarded restaurants in the world. Melbourne is second largest city to Sydney, with a population upwards of 3 and a half million people. It is also called the sporting capital of Australia.

Australia's second-smallest state is a melange of refined culture and raw countryside, a gathering of charming historic settlements dotting the edges of stunning rainforests, riverbanks, and rough-carved coastlines. Melbourne, the capital, is still the definition of Victorian style, with solid 18th-century buildings, cobbled streets, gilded trains, and exquisitely blossoming gardens. Tea time rings daily at city restaurants, and is served with linens, crystal, and silver, and the colorful horse races of the Melbourne Cup are the toast of the event season. Still, there's an edge to all of this mannerly character this is a place where locals fervently cheer their national sports teams; escape for weekends to wine country or along Murray River waterways; head up to ski and snowboard the Great Dividing Range slopes; or four-wheel-drive north to vast desert parks. Offshore attractions also abound, namely the rocky beaches and fairy penguins of Phillip Island and ferries heading south to Tasmania. And, towering offshore of the south coast is one of Australia's greatest. sights: the crumbling Twelve Apostles rock formations guarding the Cape Otway coastline.

The city, founded in 1837 and originally named Victoria after the monarch of England, was divided into two distinct areas that still stand today. The elite suburbs were gathered along the southeast edge of Port Phillip Bay, and south of the Yarra River. The industrial area, in opposite look and purpose, was created north and west of the water. The boundaries of the settlement also included grazier properties, vast swatches of land stolen from the Aborigines by burgeoning sheep farmers. The city of Victoria, still part of New South Wales, thrived with oncoming waves of British settlers, entrepreneurs, and fanners.

Then came the 1850s, a key era for the city, and the region as a whole. In 1851, the territory became the state of Victoria, separate from New South Wales. Notably, this was the first colony of free immigrants, rather than convicts on furlough from Australian prisons. Victoria was also the first Australian colony to receive its own flag when the Imperial Parliament passed an act in 1865 requiring state flags to mark war ships. During this era, "Marvelous Melbourne" thrived as a center for expansion and culture, building up into a neatly-planned cluster of Victorian edifices strung 5 km (3 mil along the Yarra River to Port Phillip Bay.

And there was still more excitement in 1851 as gold was discovered in Clone, 162 km (100 mil northwest of the city. Some 50,000 prospectors streamed into Victoria, and the quickly-growing settlement of Melbourne soon was the country's largest and richest metropolis. Immigrants from Asia and America also arrived, so that by 1861 there were around 540,000 residents in the region. Now the state itself had nearly half the population of Australia, and one in 12 were Chinese. Over the next three years, Victoria's population soared 400%, and a string of towns built up along the goldfields outside of Clone, including Maldon, Creswick, Beufort, Ararat, and Ballarat. Castlemaine headed another prospecting region, and by 1852 the area of 30,000 was the world's richest goldfield. The quick influx of riches brought vast changes to the simple pioneer lifestyle, and by the 1880s settlements had grown into cities adorned with enormous Italianate, Victorian, and Gothic-style buildings and homes.

Through the late 19th century, more pastoralists settled around the fledgeling towns and created seaside resorts all along the coast. A balmy summer climate, plus sweeping panoramas of oceans and the mountains beyond, were enough to draw hundreds of Melbourne's rich folk for seasons along the southwest coast.. By the late 1800s, the shores were dotted with pretty little colonial-style vacation homes, many of which are still occupied by descendants of the original owners. Dozens of exploratory, trade, and immigrant ships also entered these waters, including those of fishermen, seal and whale hunters, and loggers. However, many vessels met their fate in storms that shoved them into the shallow, rocky bays, and today their rotting carcasses are scattered offshore or below the waters of many a forest-ringed inlet.

The state of Victoria today is headed up at the capital of Melbourne, and led by a governor. There's also an 88-member Legislative Assembly, a 44-person Legislative Council, and a judiciary branch of Magistrates', Supreme, and Country Courts. Besides being one of Australia's strongest political cores, the state is one of the country's top educational centers, with eight state universities. Australia's first Parliament was commissioned and sworn in at the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens in 1901.

Melbourne, so proper, refined, and neat-looking, is somewhat surprisingly just as modern a city as Sydney. With high-rise hotels, major highways to Sydney and Adelaide, and a setting on the Port Phillip Bay, it's also a major international trade and transit hub, and Australia's largest and busiest container and cargo port. Rail lines and trams cut out of the city far into the suburbs, and you can get far into the hinterlands or along the coast in an hour. Other large towns in the state are Geelong and Portland, along the southwest coast, and Echuca and Mildura to the north along the Murray River.