8 Most Overrated Places To Go To In Melbourne

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Melbourne is a city full of hidden delights, from gourmet coffee vendors to vibrant green spaces perfect for picnics and late-afternoon napes. However, some its larger tourist destinations have been praised a little too overzealously. These places do have their fair share of merit, but beware the untold drawbacks you’ve never been warned of.

1. The Eureka Skydeck

‘What is the tallest tower in Australia doing on this list?’, you say. Correction: was the tallest tower in the Australia. That is the Q1 in Surfers Paradise. It isn’t even going to be the tallest building in Melbourne soon. If you desperately want to see the tower before it becomes a relic, by all means go ahead.

2. Federation Square

Wow, another open space with a giant LED screen. How original. ‘Squares’ like this exist the world over, only Melbourne’s is slightly more of a tripping hazard with weird sloping tiles and steps. It’s also been voted one of the top ten ugliest places in the city.

3. Hosier Lane

One of the most culturally significant sites in Melbourne is a cramped alleyway with a dizzying array of graffiti bedecked walls. Hailed as street art, it is usually just a pitstop for those who want to make their Instagram feed slightly edgier. And need I reiterate that it’s an alleyway? The moment you step into the lane you are choked by the smell of smoke and garbage. Luckily, Instagram hasn’t developed a smell-o-vision feature yet.

4. The Docklands

An easy target. The Docklands are well-renown for being a catastrophic failure of an entertainment space. The wind is appallingly strong, but really you should be thankful for it. The wind is just doing its best to ward people away from the dismal harbourside. Those who brave the wind can expect to find a post-human wasteland. No people are in sight, just empty boats bobbing along the shoreline. Creepy. The Melbourne Eye has been stuck there like a bandage to divert tourists from the vacant surroundings.

5. St Kilda

Hear me out. St Kilda beach is not even a good beach. And if a beach-side suburb can’t even get a beach right, how do you expect it to be good in any other respect? The Sunday market is one long arduous walk filled with okay-at-best trinkets at the price of a kidney, and at least one brazen conspiracy theorist every two hundred metres chomping at the bit to tell passers-by his insane theories.

6. The Melbourne Cup

Only at Flemington Racecourse can adults get away with playing fancy dress. Not only does the event promote overtaxing horses (sometimes fatally); the muddy race grounds seem like the worst place in the world to sport stilettos and a silly hat in the vain hopes of being allowed entry into the illustrious ‘Birdcage’. Add in long cues for toilets, inebriated masses, and thousands lost in bets, it’s amazing the race doesn’t devolve into a riot every year.

7. Degraves Street

Do you fancy eating in a dimly lit, claustrophobic, smoke filled street? Where you can’t hear the person next to you struggling to shout over the rabble of passers-by bumping your elbows as you try and eat overpriced smashed av? Boy, do I have the eatery for you. Degraves Street is filled with such ‘treasures’. If you’re a self-conscious eater who doesn’t want to interact foot-traffic at lunch time, then stay far away.

8. Southbank

Southbank is located on the shores of the Yarra River, a river so brown and murky they named it twice (Yarra having evolved from an Indigenous term for river). Southbank is essentially a sprawling shopping centre, only with a Casino. Very classy. You may be better off shopping at your local mall. At least there the water fountains are clean there.