I am a private tour guide who specialises in taking walking tours of Melbourne’s CBD and surrounding neighbourhoods. I use the free public transport during my tours.

I’m happy to take individuals, couples or groups. I have a deep interest in all things Australian, most notably history and politics, sport, music, literature and travel.

I was a freelance journalist for many years — mainly as a sports writer, but also as a sub-editor on desks throughout the newsroom. When newspapers declined, I became a tour guide.

Melbourne is my city, and I love showing people around here.

Visitors from interstate and around the world always find something to love, whether it's the food and wine culture, high-level sport or the renowned arts festivals.

Curious locals from within Melbourne get to see their own city in a new light.

The starting point of the tour depends on our meeting place – your hotel, the Flinders Street Station or the State Library of Victoria.

The tour can be tailored to your needs. Possible attractions include:

Degraves Street and Centre Place (bustling yet intimate);

Block Arcade and Royal Arcade (ornate 19th century shopping arenas);

Chinatown (the oldest continuously existing Chinatown in the Western world);

Hosier Lane (champion of street art);

Meyers Place (ground zero for the bar culture);

The Ian Potter Gallery (houses the major Australian collection);

Curtin House (seven floors of style and fun);

The Shrine of Remembrance (superb war memorial);

Nicholas Building (commissioned by the two brothers who made their fortunes selling headache tablets);

The Sports Precinct (including the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Rod Laver Arena).

Melbourne is the capital city of the state of Victoria. It's different to other the state capitals, like Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide.

Our weather is different – we have a temperate climate. Our politics is different –although it's not always been the case, we're now clearly the most progressive city.

While the rest for the country thinks of Melbourne as a dark city because we have a genuine winter, it actually looks and feels darker because many older buildings were made of bluestone.

As it happens, the bluestone creates the perfect atmosphere for the arts and epicurean cultures to flourish, most significantly in what we call “the laneways”.

Originally, laneways were small thoroughfares used for the delivery of goods, but now they're the homes of street art, small business, galleries and boutiques.

The laneways are the homes of what we call the Laneway Culture.

When I was a boy, the city was empty at night. Now it now comes to life after dark as merry-makers file into restaurants and bars.

Since Covid, the number of people who stroll around Melbourne's CBD at night has come to exceed the number or people who scurry about during the day. It's an amazing change.

Melbourne has aspects to it that other cities just don’t have.

Let me show you around.