A tour of Merri Creek for people looking for inner city peace from People's Tour on Vimeo.

Merri Creek is a 70 km waterway that starts in the small town of Heathcote Junction on Melbourne’s northern outskirts, and flows down through Fairfield, East Brunswick and Northcote to join the Yarra River in Collingwood.

Tour guide Lucy Foley made this tour for people looking for quiet in Melbourne’s inner north.

Lucy shows us the stretch of the Creek she knows intimately from eight years of regularly walking her dog alongside it. If only dogs could be tour guides too…

Starting at the Arthurton Road entrance to the Merri Creek Trail and heading north, Lucy points out places of quiet and beauty, as well as places of beautiful noise and quiet ugliness.

Listen now or download for later

This tour goes for 6 minutes and 30 seconds, and has five tour stops.
Download audio file (merri-creek.mp3)
Lucy Foley’s tour of Merri Creek (6 megabytes).

Tour guide

When not walking her hound by the Merri Creek, Lucy Foley works part-time in community development for Darebin Council in Melbourne’s inner north.

She has a background in electronic arts and undertakes occasional freelance work in design. Currently, Lucy is spending a lot of her time hanging out with her lovely electric guitar writing and playing music, with the aim of recording a solo EP by the end of 2008.

Tour map

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Music

Cloudboy from their debut album Down at the End of the Garden:

• Walk along (Promenade mix)
• Tebo
• Red Rubicon

Music is used under Australian Fair Use law and/or with permission of the copyright owners.

Tour stops and links

Merri Creek Trail map
An excellent PDF map of the walking and cycling trail along Merri Creek, with nearby public transport and amenities included.

Friends of Merri Creek
A community group that has worked to restore and protect Merri Creek since 1988. It holds volunteer Planting Days and other activities around the Creek.

A tour of the imaginary past from People's Tour on Vimeo.

A tour of fictional characters in the past inspired by places in Fitzroy and Carlton, for people who like to imagine the past.

Tour guide Bree McKilligan shows us five places that inspired stories of four fictional characters in Melbourne’s past.

We meet one character at a significant juncture in her life, another as a mischievous child with a tale of late-night subterfuge, one stopping to take in the moment in a familiar Fitzroy scene, and the last pondering life and trees and Proust.

Listen now or download for later

This tour goes for 14 minutes and has five stops.

Download audio file (Bree-tour-FINAL.mp3)
Download A tour of the imaginary past.mp3 (12.7 megabytes)

Tour guide

Bree has a background in film directing and script writing, with two films funded by Australian government film bodies. She teaches film at Swinburne University of Technology in addition to working at 3CR Community Radio.

Bree co-presents Jump Cut on 3CR, a weekly program on independent film, and is currently directing a feature documentary to be completed in 2010.

Tour map

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Music

Music by Minimum Chips, from their EP Freckles (2000):

• Sweet Lady
• Bouncing Boy with a Bubble

and their EP Sound Asleep (2004):

• Sleepy Pea.

Music is used under Australian Fair Use law and/or with permission of the copyright owners.

Tour stops and links

Fitzroy
The Wikipedia entry on the suburb of Fitzroy, Melbourne.

Carlton Gardens
Carlton Gardens on Melbourne City Council website.

Fitzroyalty
A blog on the suburb of Fitzroy in Melbourne, Australia, and reflections on life in the postmodern information economy.