Life in bloom and on the wing

When Heather Wheat and her husband Lindsay Doig first moved in 24 years ago, “Southbank was a bit of a community desert,” she says. But these days it’s greening up a bit and developing into “a really good neighbourhood”.

As empty nesters who had found themselves “rattling round” a big terrace in Richmond, Heather and Lindsay had started looking at the newly developing southern edge of
the city.

As well as its convenience and proximity to theatres, galleries and the museum, they liked “the anonymity” of city living, which meant you didn’t have to conform.

The couple chose their apartment off the plan in a building on the corner of City Rd and Power St, which at the time was only about the second residential tower in the area, they say.

One of their criteria was having space for a garden.

There are terraces on two sides of their dwelling with gardens created from a mix of native and non-native plants, including fruit trees.

Heather describes the terrace gardens as “our green barrier to the world”. “We come in here and shut the door and we think it’s like drawing up the drawbridge,” she says.

“And then we’ve got a barrier of green around us, and in a busy city on a very busy corner, it’s a really nice sort of a hideaway.”

To the couple’s delight, the greenery – which includes a popular fig tree and grevillea shrub, and bird baths set up in the sun – attracts a lot of avian life.

Among 20 species they have spotted landing or spending time there are butcher birds, currawongs, honey eaters, wattle birds, sparrows and doves.

“I think it’s a stopping place to get a bit of food or water,” Heather says. “They come and forage in the garden.”

“They love the water,” Lindsay adds. “They come in there, and splash around and toss water everywhere.”

The garden also attracts insects, notably “lots and lots of bees”, according to the couple.

A copy of the City of Melbourne’s recently released Insects of Melbourne guide lives on their coffee table.

Although it is a key part of their life in Southbank, the garden is intended, primarily, to provide a patch of wildlife for nature, Heather says.

And given the amount of time they often spend away from it, apart from some irrigation to keep it basically watered, it “has to be able to look after itself”.

The couple, who had both been married before, got together after working in the public service in Canberra, where Lindsay was Heather’s boss.

They were considered by friends to be an unlikely match.

“He was a bit of a tyrant as a boss and sort of very serious, and I was a bit gay, I loved a party,” Heather says.

But over the 40 years since, they have thrived together.

After studying for a PhD and working as a neuroscience researcher, Heather had an interesting role on a ministerial advisory council, she says.

In retirement she and Lindsay did an extraordinary amount of volunteer work – on the board of Life Activities Victoria, in setting up U3A Port Phillip, at Foodbank, Neighbourhood Watch, the Bili Nursery, local sustainability groups and in foster caring.

Of late, though, their main game has been travel – with the pair notching up an astonishing series of adventures, from a month-long journey on an ice breaker along the coast of Antarctica to train trips to Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and the Caucusus, sailing the Northwest Passage; and caravanning around the country from Tasmania to the Top End.

At times they have been away for eight months of the year.

“It’s boots and all, whatever we do,” Heather says. “I think the excitement keeps us on the go.”

After an early trip to Paris, they “sort of got the travel bug,” Lindsay says and have been travelling, and blogging about it, ever since.

Now 79 and 82, the pair, who have four children, six grandchildren and five great grandchildren between them, plan to keep on going.

Their next trip will see them complete a circumnavigation of Antarctica they started three years ago.

But meanwhile between journeys they are happy to be back at home watching birds and enjoying the area.

“Now Southbank’s got a great library, a community centre and a big supermarket,” Heather says.

“There are some terrific Asian groceries, we’ve got dentists and doctors and laundries and the neighborhood garden, down at the Boyd, which is terrific.”

“It’s developing into a really good neighbourhood.” •