Think Australia for your next Gaycation

Why not consider The Outback as one of your next gay friendly vacations? Melbourne is a cultured girl, the rival sibling her brash older, northern sister, Sydney, is always watching. Australia’s second-biggest city — with a Montreal-size metro-area population of 3.7 million — reveals her secrets in snug bars, a lively music scene, street art in labyrinthine lanes, and, arguably her finest feature, a wealth of excellent eateries.

Visit Gay Friendly Restaurants

The food revolution in Melbourne began in the 1960s with a strip of Italian restaurants in Lygon Street in the suburb of Carlton, a whisker north of the city. It strengthened in the ’70s when Vietnamese restaurants began popping up just south of the city on Victoria Street in Richmond and spread to the once-ghostly central business district in the 1980s when the Melbourne council started encouraging people to live, wine, and dine in the city.

Melbourne eats from a more diverse plate than Sydney, thanks in part to the many immigrants hailing from countries with strong food cultures who have chosen to locate here. Coffeewise, a Melbourne long macchiato easily beats a Sydney latte. The competition among Melbourne’s cafés is fierce, and the baristas know what they’re doing.

To begin a culinary tour, spend an afternoon wandering Flinders Quarter, including chic Hosier Lane and Degraves Street, where laneways once lined with tiny 19th-century workers’ cottages boast al fresco delights. In a Flinders Lane basement, you’ll find Ezard, a decade-old “Australian free-style cuisine” restaurant with Chinese and Thai influences. The Age Good Food Guide, published by Melbourne newspaper The Age, has given the restaurant the highly prized two-chef’s-hat status and a nod for having the city’s best wine list. Melbourne loves its graffiti artists, who have been invited to ply their trade in the neighborhood.

Gay Travel

With over 350 wineries in the Yarra Valley, less than an hour east of the city, you can’t go wrong with a local vintage. Just ask any of the “damn attractive” men (according to cheeky gay manager Joshua Anlezark) working the restaurant floor to suggest a wine.

For another upmarket city eating choice, visit gay-popular Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne at the Crown Complex, an entertainment precinct on the southern bank of the Yarra River. (Avoid the gaudy casino.) Based loosely on great American steakhouses, with leather and dark wood furnishings, it’s the bastion of ponytailed Sydney chef Neil Perry, who caused a media storm by beating local competitors to win The Age’s coveted 2008 Restaurant of the Year title.

“There is a strong accent in Melbourne on restaurants and bars with strong personalities and individuality,” says Perry, who won over skeptical local reviewers with a model of luxurious accessibility, with fresh food as king.

In turn, the Sydneysider concedes Melbourne’s scene is second to none for a gay friendly vacation. “For true foodies, it is possible to experience, over the course of a weekend, true tapas sitting at the bar at Movida, classic French bistro fare at Bistro Guillaume, Italian at Grossi Florentino, the country’s best Chinese at Flower Drum,” he says.

Farther south of the Yarra in the suburb of Prahran, the food scene includes a helping of gay buzz — particularly on Saturdays at Ice Café on Cato Street, opened in 2000 by life and business partners Geoffrey Wood and chef Steven Haby. Here, you’ll find great recovery food: bacon and eggs, omelets, and good coffee. Not to mention great people watching: The glass-fronted, gay-friendly gym Colts across the road allows diners to watch iron pumpers (and vice versa) and the odd drag queen wandering in from nearby nightspots.

After breakfast, take in the vibrant Prahran Market on Commercial Road, with its fresh produce, much of which comes from small local growers. At Organic Fix, stall 110, which started as a farm-based operation in the rural region of South Gippsland, the produce comes from the small town of Koo Wee Rup. In the mood for sushi? Try Claringbolds at shop 510 for Japanese smoked eel. The local farmhouse cheese selections at Delicatess, shop 706, also earn raves.

Just north of the city center, funky Brunswick Street in the suburb of Fitzroy has Australia’s greatest critical mass of cool cafés — approximately 150 on just one street. Gay-friendly Mario’s is a long-standing local favorite, all white tablecloths and waiters in vests. Sit in the window and watch the passing parade.

Check the backstreets of Fitzroy for clever politician- and celebrity-skewering graffiti, and when you’re done, drop into the Vegetable Connection. This fresh produce store, with its rustic, lived-in look and big Moroccan metal lights hanging over market tables, has graced the main drag since the 1930s.

Residents and restaurateurs alike come here for the local organic fruit and vegetables, the bright red pomegranates and strawberries, and imports such as French truffles. “It’s quite a smart bohemian set around here,” says gay store manager Steven Maccora. “It’s one of those great areas where it doesn’t matter if you’re gay, straight, or transgender, it all blends in. Very 22nd century!”

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Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
Annual Sydney Festival

The Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras is the world’s premier gay & lesbian arts festival and includes the world famous nighttime Parade through the heart of Sydney, the harbour party which takes place right beside the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge and the enormous and spectacular Mardi Gras Party.

It all takes place during the wonderful Sydney summer so you can enjoy the buzz at the beach, on the harbour or getting to know this cosmopolitan, tolerant city, its great food and architecture.

The Sydney Mardi Gras has a new format for 2010, lasting two weeks and punctuated by  major events on three successive weekends – Launch at Fair Day, Parade and Party.

Launch / Fair Day – 21st February
Parade / Post Event – 27th February
Harbour ‘10 – 28th February
Party – 6th March

In June 1969, in a bar in New York called the Stonewall, gay men, lesbians and transsexuals barricaded police as a protest against police raids on gay and lesbian bars. This event, resulting in what is now remembered as the Stonewall Riots, is commemorated as International Gay Solidarity Day.

In 1978, in Sydney, more than 1000 marchers were marking International Gay Solidarity Day along Oxford St, southeast of the city centre, when police revoked the March permit and 53 of the marchers were arrested in the riot that ensured. Another 100 people were arrested in later protests. All charges were later dropped and another march was held the following year, 1979, when the name Mardi Gras was adopted.

Grandiloquent display

Thirty years after the arrests of 1978, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras has become less of a protest march and more of a grandiloquent display of color, art, excitement and Sydney’s spirit of both tolerance and acceptance of its gay and lesbian community.

The festival, now encompassing all the creative arts, was moved into summer, usually starting in early February. Currently it runs from three to four weeks and ends with a spectacular nighttime Mardi Gras parade which is said to be the biggest outdoor nighttime parade in the world. The parade is followed by an all-night Mardi Gras party which ends the following morning.

Australians like a good time. That’s one reason it’s such a popular travel destination for Americans. “Australians still have the kind of attitude that Americans had a century ago, before we got too self-important as a nation,” commented one spunky visitor on his gay holiday.

And Australians want you to have a good time, too. Attitudes toward gay men and lesbians vary in Australia, just as they do in the U.S. On average, however, you’ll find fewer Australians than Americans who think it’s any of their business whether you’re gay or straight. The extravagant annual Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras celebration gets endorsements from many of the country’s most prominent politicians. While religious-right protesters will often heckle the parade from the sidelines, most Australians consider them a fringe minority.

Sydney and Melbourne:

In few cities of the world is gay culture as mainstream as in Sydney. The annual gay Mardi Gras festival brings in more international visitors, and tourist dollars, than any other event in the country. Gay culture is omnipresent during the month of February, leading up to Mardi Gras.

Head for Taylor Square, on Oxford Street at Bourke St., and you’ll be in the heart of the gay district while on one of your most memorable gay getaways, with plenty of free newspapers and maps to guide you to the latest attractions.

The beaches, too, are part of Sydney’s gay life. Lady Jane Beach, the gay, clothing-optional beach just outside Sydney. Clothing-optional Lady Jane beach is a leisurely ferry ride from town.

Melbourne, the second largest city, is also well worth a visit. A staid and unexciting town just a generation ago, Melbourne today is a vibrant metropolis with European character. It offers visitors a busy gay community, quite different Sydney’s. Located further south, and thus in a cooler climate, Melbourne offers more indoor activities than Sydney, and perhaps less emphasis on the perfect body.

Elsewhere, the kangaroo-like wallaby is just one of Australia’s many unique life forms.

Brisbane, Canberra, and Perth each have a small but visible and easy-to-find gay community. On the Great Barrier Reef, a gay hotel named Turtle Cove, (officially a resort; in reality, don’t expect a sprawling complex; it’s a hotel and a private beach), draws many gay visitors.

Most of Australia’s population lives in one of these cities, and nearly all of its gay culture and life is in them. Many other destinations are worth a visit, but do it for the natural beauty — not with expectations of finding much gay nightlife.

Legal Matters

Until 1861, “buggery” was a capital offense in Australia, which was ruled under British law in the 1800s. In that year, the penalty was changed to mere life imprisonment.

Things have changed! Australia is one of the few countries (the U.S. is another) where laws pertaining to sexual orientation and gay rights are generally made on a state level. Most states in Australia dropped their sodomy laws long ago. The scenic but highly conservative island-state of Tasmania was the last holdout, and dropped its sodomy laws only when a federal court forced it to do so.

You may be taken aback to find ads for “Escort” services (usually heterosexual) in phone books, hotels, or upscale tourist booklets. Prostitution is legal in many states, although face-to-face “soliciting” often is not.

The age of consent ranges from 16 to 21, depending which state you’re in. (In Sydney, at this writing, two men can have consenting sex at age 18; two women, at age 16.) On a practical basis, private sexual relationships between consenting adults are not an issue. If you’re skating close to that 16-21 region, get up-to-date information about laws in the state where you’re traveling.