The economic depression of the 1930s saw thousands of Melburnians thrown out of their homes and into the streets.

However, these actions did not go unopposed, as across the city pickets, occupations and protests were organised to disrupt and prevent evictions and auctions.

This walking tour visits the sites of some of Melbourne’s fiercest anti-eviction battles in the northern Melbourne suburb of Brunswick.

Listen now or download for later

Download audio file (Iain-McIntyre-Lock-out-the-landlords-PeoplesTour.mp3)

This tour has six stops and is 20 minutes long. Download the file here (14 mg).

Your tour guide Iain McIntyre

Iain is an author, radio presenter and musician who has contributed to a number of publications including Rolling Stone, Chain Reaction and The Big Issue about Australian and international music, history and popular culture.

He has edited Tomorrow Is Today: Australia In The Psychedelic Era, 1966-70 for Wakefield Press, self published a book on the AIDEX ‘91 anti-arms fairs protest and contributed radical dates to Community Radio 3CR’s 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 Seeds Of Dissent calendars.

Iain’s latest book is How to Make Trouble and Influence People, published by Breakdown Press in October 2009. It reveals Australia’s radical past through tales of Indigenous resistance, convict revolts and escapes, picket line hi-jinks, student occupations, creative direct action, media pranks, urban interventions, squatting, blockades, banner drops, street theatre and billboard liberation. It includes stories and anecdotes, interviews with pranksters and troublemakers, and 300 spectacular photos documenting the vital history of creative resistance in this country.

Getting there

See a larger Google map

Public transport

• Train: catch the Upfield line to Jewell Station and walk north to Dawson Street. At Dawson Street turn right, walk past Brunswick Library. The Town Hall is on the corner of Dawson Street and Sydney Road.
• Tram: catch the 19 Coburg tram from the City, get off at Brunswick Town Hall.

Car

• Public parking opposite Brunswick City Baths on Dawson Street, turn left off Sydney Road.

Bike

• Take the Upfield bike path and at Dawson Street, turn right. Bike parking in front of Brunswick Town Hall.

Credits

This tour was recorded and edited by Nicole Hurtubise, produced by Community Radio 3CR and funded by the Office of Public Records Local History grant program.

2009 Melbourne Fringe Festival event

We were proud to be part of Melbourne Fringe Festival. Check out the photos on Flickr of the Fringe Festival walking tour on Sunday 11 October 2009, led by Iain McIntyre and Margaret West.

Geek sleek chique tour of places to hide in Brunswick from People's Tour on Vimeo.

Brunswick is a suburb in the north of Melbourne that mostly tries to resist its recent moniker, “the New Brunswick.” It’s about 6 km from the City, with Parkville, Carlton and North Fitzroy to its south. Brunswick has a mix of restaurants, pubs, shops, and cafes where its newer residents – students, artists, and young professional singles or families – mix with its older, predominantly immigrant residents.

Brunswick local before-it-got-trendy and People’s tour guide Francesca Sculli shows us places to find peace or to hide, or do both, in Brunswick.

Before you picture quiet, shaded parks, darkened church pews or as far away from Sydney Road as you can get, Francesca’s tour stops are not the usual suspects (despite her thoughts to the contrary). She narrows down exactly the type of “quiet” you may be seeking, introducing us to unique Brunswick hideouts that are “geek,” “chique” and “sleek”.

Listen now or download for later

This tour goes for 5 minutes and 30 seconds, and has five tour stops.
Download audio file (francesca-tour-FINAL.mp3)
Download the geek-chique-sleek tour (5 megabytes)

Tour guide

Francesca is a self confessed surrealist. She has worked in various occupations, most notably as a cake smasher in performance duo ‘slit’. She likes music, dabbles in art and the artistry of circus, and lives in a suburb that is considered cool but wasn’t when she moved there.

Francesca has dabbled in cake decorating and marriage. She has contemplated life as a Buddhist nun but gets around town with motley bunch ‘Quiche Lorraine’, which distracts her from this path quite a lot.

Francesca’s current phase is to ask people face to face if they will be her Facebook friend. She has been informed that this defeats the purpose of Facebook.

Tour map

Geek sleek chique map

Music

Music by b(if)tek, “Read to me” from Frequencies will move together (2003).

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

Tour stops and links

Brunswick Library
Francesca’s local public library on Dawson Street.

Brunswick City Baths
Francesca’s local gym and swimming pool conveniently opposite Brunswick Library.

The Republic of Moreland
The blog that first brought attention to (and rejection of) the term, “the New Brunswick.”

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

View larger map

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.

Coburg is a suburb in Melbourne’s north, about 8 km from the city.

Tour guide Felicity Grey made this tour for people who live in Coburg and for people who live the “cooler” suburb just south of it – Brunswick – who are yet to venture north of Bell Street. Are they scared?

People know Coburg for two things – the Sydney Road shopping strip and Pentridge Prison. Because this is a People’s Tour (i.e. a tour that guide us through less or not-at-all famous places), Felicity’s tour features neither! Instead, she shares some favourite spots that she has discovered and come to love since “accidentally” moving to Coburg four years ago.

Listen now or download for later

This tour goes for 9 minutes and 10 seconds, with four tour stops.
Download audio file (felicity-tour-complete-FINAL.mp3)
Felicity’s tour of Coburg (8.4 megabytes)

Tour guide

Felicity moved to Coburg by accident. With a bunch of friends, she was in the process of setting up a huge sharehouse in Eltham/Warrandyte but somehow ended up in Coburg instead  – the huge, permaculture back yard satisfied her naturelust.

Coburg has since wiggled its way deep into her heart, with its big backyards and cheap rents, cheap good coffee, great public transport and bike paths, the Merri Creek and a host of delightful surprises.

Now she calls Coburg home, along with her partner, dog and chook. They like it here.

Tour map

View Larger Map

Music

Music by Harmanick, “Velvet Bannister (Ana Remix)” under a Creative Commons license.

Tour stops and links

Coburg Leisure Centre
Felicity’s local gym off Russell Street, Coburg.

Sydney Road
Wikipedia entry on the longest shopping strip in the Southern Hemiphere, and half of which runs up the middle of Coburg.

Pentridge Prison
Wikipedia entry on Pentridge Prison, the most unique housing redevelopment in Melbourne.

Moreland Sculpture Show
An annual outdoor sculpture exhibition of permanent and temporary works.

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