Departing Naarm Melbourne and I stand on hotel balcony and notice the surrounding sandstone buildings with blocks all formed and hard, darker and firmer than our light, crumbling western limestones of Walyalup Fremantle.

Later, on the train down to Warun Ponds past Geelong, we start to bend and wind our way out of the city, but before we leave completely I look back and see it all lined up, one highrise after another, nestled into a foreground of land—Wurundjeri land—with mountainous hills in the background, looking down.