Glimpse of Hawthorn with Friday walking group

Glimpse of Hawthorn with Friday walking group POST 1

Seven years of living in Melbourne and I'm feeling its time to broaden my horizons and explore more of Melbourne suburbs. What is the best way to do this I wonder? 

One idea I had was to look for a walking group. Melbourne has a culture of locals regularly walking their local area for exercise. Often on their own or with another friend. 

Now I fancy walking and exploring with others, hoping it will be social too. I always like the opportunity to broaden my friendships / acquaintances. I love learning about other peoples experiences and perceptions of life, I find it quite fascinating how different we all are!

The website Meetup, seems a good option for me. It has a handful of groups, so its just about finding one that also suits my schedule, I really want to walk during the school day. Hawthorn walk and talk fits the bill, and its a newly started group, run by the lovely Kate who works for the Hawthorn Community house. Kate also happens to be an expat from England who has been here for many years and as part of her job, she is starting up new interest groups in and for the local community. So I stepped out of my comfort zone and decided to join them. Today was my second walk with them and I took a few pictures along our walk, to give you a glimpse of the variety of houses and features of this Suburb, which is apparently 6 kilometres east of Melbourne's central business district. 

Walk and talk around Hawthorn group

I'm imaging that I will become a regular of this group, as they are planning to do a handful of different walks and rotate them. So in the end, I should get quite familiar with Hawthorn. This also suits me because Hawthorn is right next to Kew, which is where my son goes to school. As I'm here every day, it will be really great to get to know where the good places to hang out are and what is on offer to do while I'm here. 

So I'm quite enthusiastic about it all. I'm thinking I will post a few photos of the suburb each time I go on a walk and try to record something different each time. I find the variety of buildings interesting, so I will feature those that catch my eye, as well as Aussie suburban nature. This should build up into a good visual record and help me to remember!  Hope you enjoy my journey getting to know Hawthorn too.

interesting cafes

trams run in the roads

grand houses

suburban parks

Every now and then you catch glimpses of the tall city building of the CBD, reminding you how close you are!

And of course I ALWAYS try out another cafe
 whenever I can :-)  This is the Counter Cafe, 
96 Auburn Rd, Hawthorn, VIC

Cute Little courtyard, blankets supplied to keep your legs warm :-)

Great selection of home-baked cakes & slices :-)