Migration: bats/humans

As it's the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne this weekend a lot of other people have also arrived (though not all on the bleary overnight bus from Sydney) so accommodation was hard to find and the hostel I'm staying in for a couple of days, until somewhere that should be quieter has space for me, caters for fun-seeking youth. Not my demographic. It has table tennis and pool tables in a dingy basement that becomes a loud dance space in the evening and a strong smell of burgers and chips everywhere. There are organised 'find the bars of Melbourne' and dating nights that I'll give a miss. But it's welcoming - when I arrived at 8 am, six hours too early to check in, I was offered a breakfast and a Melbourne city tour for free.

So it was that I headed off on a minibus for several hours. A slight misunderstanding since the 'get to know the city' tour is different each week and I happened to be on the 'Northern Melbourne markets' week. But I was interested both to see mainstream, alternative, farmers' and craft markets, and to listen to our Melbourner driver, Phil, on the city and Australia.

At one point I climbed back into the van with my bag of vegetables to hear Phil and a group of Europeans in the middle of the discussion we've all heard before - about immigrants, work, the welfare state and housing. With a twist, for me, because I hadn't really thought about this properly before: in a country where the dominant group's heritage is that of incomers there is no appealing, as there is in Europe, to 'this country's' or 'our' values. But, absolutely against stereotype, Phil's take on the statistic that 24% of Australian residents are foreign born (not at all what I would have expected from what I'd read about Australian policy to refugees) was values-based, appreciating the richness of multiculturalism, whereas the Dane in the group, Bjorn, was the most opposed to immigration, seeing migrants to Denmark as there only to scrounge off their generous welfare state. (Bjorn can't work out how he came to feel so intolerant because 'I am a well-educated person' - a clinical psychologist with three first degrees and a masters. He and I are now involved in a more detailed discussion but, for the time being, back to the bus trip...)

As Melbourne is built round the flood-prone Yarra River, it has a swathe of completely undeveloped flood-plain running through it - wooded bush. (Phil was very shocked when I told him that Oxford has built on its flood plain.) At one point he turfed us all off the bus and told us which track to take through the bush to a car park where he'd be waiting. As we got out the chattering from the trees was extraordinary. Then we spotted thousands and thousands of fruit bats hanging from the branches and smelt the pungent (but not unpleasant) smell of the pheromones they use for finding family members. Apparently the bats used to live in Melbourne itself but somehow the council netted them and brought them to this place. Now they fly into the centre in the evening but come back to these trees to roost. Two of us were so caught up watching them that Phil sent out a search party from the car park where everyone else thought we'd got lost.

Now to catch up with sleep while the fun-seeking youth dance in St Patrick's day in sparkly green hats.

(Don't miss yesterday's recently-uploaded bit of unreality - much better than today's.)