Who’s Saint Kilda?
If you’ve never heard of a saint called Kilda before, it’s hardly surprising. This strange name doesn’t appear on any calendar of saints and was actually the result of a cartographer’s transcription error! This is how, long ago, a small Scottish archipelago took the name of St Kilda instead of the Viking word Skildar. In 1840, a ship christened the “Lady of St Kilda” left UK waters to conquer Melbourne’s majestic Port Phillip Bay. Today, St Kilda is known to Aussies as one of the most famous districts of the Australian metropolis. This charismatic, half bourgeois, half bohemian suburb is the lair of Melbourne’s young and not-so-young “Bobos” (bourgeois bohemians). Whether or not you like this concept coined by author David Brooks in 2000, it’s hard not to appreciate the cheerful beach with its many welcoming cafés and restaurants with influences from all over the world, its wild festivals, organic gardens and multicoloured parrots. From Scots in boats… Let’s spend a day in St Kilda to
