Michael Batson

On what was once the outskirts of Melbourne, at the foothills of the Dandenong Range in Scoresby, 25 km from Melbourne, are the Caribbean Gardens. There’s a lake, Lake Caribbean; markets, the Caribbean Market. Nearby are the Caribbean business park and a large display yard full of boats, Caribbean boats. The market is a drive away. Like just about everywhere else in Melbourne, Australia’s second city in size after Sydney, you need a car. And they come in their thousands in hundreds of cars. The markets are open three days a week but this, Sunday, is the busiest day. It’s a family day out with rides for the kids, live music and heaps of things to buy.  Entrance is $2.50 per person, discounted for children. The parked cars line up in the fields in row after row like multi-coloured gravestones in a military cemetery. Fitting then that the lines of cars are overseen by two military tanks, looking somewhat out of place, but a great attraction for children climbing all over them. The drive to Scoresby, a suburb of Melbourne took 30 minutes from St. Kilda, a seaside suburb east of the city centre. Melbourne is a vast sprawl interconnected by speedy dual carriageways. Over this road system is laid a network of pay-as-you-go freeways. Inner city Melbourne is well served by public transport. As of 2011, it had the world’s largest tramway network, and rail and bus routes. It’s a much maligned system run by private franchises since the late 1990s, and one, according to