So the Queen just visited to Melbourne and Princess Mary came to town.

If you’re not royal-ed out, take yourself to visit the Duchess in Spotswood.

Duchess of Spotswood is a cafe is located in an unprepossessing strip of shops near Spotswood station and when I arrived at 9am on a weekend it was easily the busiest place in the street. I’m pretty sure not all of Spotswood had descended on the cafe in the relatively early hours of Saturday morning, which means (like me) people had taken a special trip to try it out.

Was it worth 30 minutes through the Westgate Bridge forever-in-roadworks traffic jam?

Yes.

Because Duchess of Spotswood does something unique with breakfast in the crowded Melbourne breakfast arena.

The cafe is cute, with the outside boarded up windows framing a painted outdoor landscape and the inside all cool mint green and overhung with a crystal chandelier. A very suitable parlour for dining.

Along with their grand moniker the tongue-in-cheek royal references continue in the menu, which is British-leaning with a twist. The regal family tree includes the Queen of the Dam, Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Pork. Giggle.

Eschewing the healthier options I headed straight to the Duchess of Pork, a thick slice of crispy pig’s jowl plus two fried eggs, truffle sauce and sourdough toast ($17.50). The waitress suggested that the hash ($4) was excellent with the dish, so why not?

I liked the tender saltiness of the slab of pork.  I liked the eggs fried just enough to set them and not enough to make them into rubbery frisbees. I liked the decadence of the shaved truffles. I loved the fried crispiness of the hash. The whole dish was like an extreme Atkin Diet start to the day and my stomach approved.

Every good meal should end with dessert. And so I made room for a slice of the just-made Bakewell tart, a triangle of buttery fluted shortcrust pastry spread with blackberry jam, covered with an almond frangipane filling then glazed with more jam. So moist and fruity and seriously delicious.

The service was brisk but friendly and while the staff by no means shunt you out after your meal, the line-up outside at 10am guilted me into not staying for a leisurely newspaper scan.

Because it’s only fair that other people get to take a bow at the Duchess.

My travel to this cafe was made possible thanks to the Holden Barina.

Duchess of Spotswood, 87 Hudsons Rd, Yarraville +61 3 9391 6016

Read Part 1 of the tour here.

Another quick train ride to Spotswood then St John’s Op Shop (612-614 Melbourne Rd, Spotswood). ‘Great variety of household goods’ is an accurate description, with ‘variety’ being the operative word. This is an OCD sufferer’s nightmare.

The rabbit warren of a shop was full of surprises – an extensive collection of white shoes (apparently a local shoe store closed down and donated all of their stock), a veritable forest of clothing (another vintage scarf to add to my collection $5), a jumble of furniture out the back and boxes of haberdashery hidden away under shelves groaning with discarded VHS tapes – including this gem ‘A New Tax System – “How To Series””. Any buyers? Anyone?

1pm and a well-earned lunch stop at Cafe Miers (85 Hudsons Rd, Spotswood). This light and airy cafe serves Fairtrade coffee and simple cafe fare – toasted sandwiches/foccacias, pastries and muffins. I’m not sure it’s worth a special trip but it served our purposes well as we replenished our dimishing energy reserves and compared purchases.

Heave ho to Yarraville for Bargain Browser (9 Anderson St, Yarraville +61 3 9687 6307). This was a queer beast, stocking a mix between dollar shop junk and genuine op shop items. I wasn’t much inspired by the racks of Bridget Jones style grandma underpants and boxes of scented candles, but I did spot an unworn pair of Aldo canary yellow stilettos in my size. How could I resist, they were only $15!

Last stop, Footscray Salvos (199 Barkly St, Footscray +61 3 9689 7811) and then the Savers (The Recycle Superstore!) for those with more energy (33 Albert St, Footscray +61 3 9689 6811). Footsore and laden with purchases, I decided to forego the Savers and only go went to the Salvos, where I picked up a copy of Alan Hollinghurst’s 2004 Booker prize winner ‘The Line of Beauty’ for $4.

I can definitely see the appeal of  Melbourne Op Shop Tours for those of us who are not dedicated op shoppers. The tour combined a large variety of op shops, from well known superstores to undiscovered nooks, and with Jenny as our organised tour guide the whole trip ran very smoothly.   I think everyone went home with a bargain and ended the day on a happy note. Best of all, we helped a lot of charities on the way!

PS Here’s a pic of my $15 yellow shoes, matched with a Cylk dress from Eco Fashionista. Unexpected colour combination, but I think it works!

• Melbourne Op Shop Tours +61 421 431 278
• St John’s Op Shop, 612-614 Melbourne Rd, Spotswood. Mon-Fri 10am-530pm; Sat 9am-4pm
  
• Bargain Browser, 9 Anderson St, Yarraville +61 3 9687 6307. Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; Sat 9am-4pm
  
• Footscray Salvos, 199 Barkly St, Footscray +61 3 9689 7811. Mon-Sat 9am-5pm
  
• Footscray Savers, 33 Albert St, Footscray +61 3 9689 6811. Mon – Wed 9:30am – 6pm; Thur – Fri 9:30am – 9pm; Sat 9:30am – 6pm; Sun 10am – 5pm

Fashionistas know that the surest way to score a one-of-a-kind outfit is to scour old shops and vintage stores. Melbourne Op Shop Tours helps you take up the op shop challenge by running small group (max 10 people) tours through various areas of Melbourne. What makes it different from other op shop tours is that instead of being herded around on a big coach, the service is more personal and the tour is conducted with the careful coordination of public transport timetables – which means that your recycled shopping experience is super eco-friendly.

Melbourne Op Shop Tours invited me to one of their tours to experience it for myself, and I decided to follow tour guide Jenny along to the Inner West – a completely unknown part of Melbourne as far as I was concerned.

Starting at 10am at North Williamstown station, we headed to the Williamstown Uniting Church Op Shop (75 Stevedore St, Williamstown +61 3 9397 8066). The first thing I spotted inside this tiny op shop were some Number 14 bentwood chairs. The hooped back chair was designed by Michael Thonet in the 19th century and is now a design classic, to be found in many cafes. The two chairs remaining from the original set of eight cost $5 each! I was so excited that I could have gone home right there and then, mission accomplished.

A quick train ride to Newport then a stroll through suburban streets to the Newport Neighbourhood House and Opportunity Shop (40 Challis Avenue, Newport +61 417 032 617). Jenny’s favourite op shop is easy to miss because it just looks like your standard low-set weatherboard house. But now I’m sharing the secret with you – enter through the garden gate and you’ll find yourself in the biggest jumble sale of your life. It would take hours to sift through the rooms of men’s clothes, kid’s clothes, shoes, glassware, kitchenware, toys and women’s clothes – we’re talking mountains, tables, shelves and boxes of stuff everywhere you look.

A little overwhelmed, I decided to focus on women’s scarves and came away with three to my liking ($1 each) while also picking up a silver cake stand ($5) and small cut glass ice bucket ($5).

In a feat of op-shopping strength, one of our tour members Nathan (an intrepid and experienced op shopper) decided to tip out the whole box of ties in order to do a thorough sorting on the floor. In the end, he came away with 47 ties ($1 each) which included designer ties from YSL and Versace. What does a man do with that many ties? Nathan’s strategy is to wear them all once, clean them up and sell them on eBay for around $10-$15 each. So even if you’re not necessarily into the charity aspect of op shopping, it seems that with a bit of effort it can be a lucrative hobby.

Also, check out these fabulous, unworn shoes found on top of the mountain of shoes spilling out from under the verandah. These beautiful heels cost $2. I’m so jealous!

This was easily the winning shop for me – it’s so good that if you’re a keen op shopper, it’s worth making a trip especially to carefully work your way through the house.

Read more about the rest of the tour tomorrow in Part 2.

• Melbourne Op Shop Tours +61 421 431 278
• Williamstown Uniting Church Op Shop (75 Stevedore St, Williamstown +61 3 9397 8066 Mon-Fri 10am-4pm, Sat 10am-12pm
• Newport Neighbourhood House and Opportunity Shop (40 Challis Avenue, Newport +61 417 032 617) Mon-Wed, Fri 9am-4pm, Sat 9am-12pm

With Copernicus, what you get is a slumber-inducing show about Nicholas Copernicus. Who? According to Wikipedia, Nicholas Copernicus was the first astronomer to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. Scintillating stuff if you lived in the 1500s but probably not an obvious subject for a hit fringe festival show.

So why did I choose to see it? Basically, I did a Year 6 project on Nicholas Copernicus (Galileo was already taken), I like supporting emerging artists and the unique staging sounded really cool – the 180 degree surrounds of the Skydome Theatre at the Melbourne Planterium, complete with reclining seats . Those seats were really the last nail in the coffin for this less-than-exciting bed time story. All those long-winded monologues, intervals of soothing Baroque music and repetitive interpretative dances in dim surroundings meant that it was just so easy to fall asleep. The only time I noticed any sign of animation in RM was when he started silently giggling in the last scene as the dying Copernicus started to see his dead parents and relatives, just like the final scene of the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy wakes up.

I didn’t hate it, but RM said he would have walked out if he could have easily gotten out of his 45 degree recline. I certainly wouldn’t recommend making a trip to middle-of-nowhere Spotwood to see it and at $25 it hurts that it cost the same as my tickets to the Melbourne Theatre Company’s excellent productions of God of Carnage and August: Osage County.

• Copernicus, Melbourne Planterium, Scienceworks 2 Booker St, Spotswood +61 3 9392 4800