Mission to Seafarers @ Flinders St – For YEARS I have walked, ridden or driven past this place thinking that it was a siiiick looking disused building that must have some kind of cloak of invisibility over it cos why haven’t some international developers gotten their dirty claws on it #PeakHighRiseApartmentLocation. Damn glad they haven’t cos legitimately it is the KEWLEST place you have yet to be in this great city of ours.
Established by a doctor who cared for the welfare of sailors and their dangerous lives at sea, I’m pretty sure that it hasn’t changed since it was built in 1917. A HUGE common room serves as the lounge, pool hall and bar area and is open to anyone with or without a seaman fancy. You can perch yourself at the 1980 classroom tables and chairs that occupy a space near the bar, pick up a cue and smash out a game of pool, chuck on a CD and have a dance, or, there are guitars, a piano and a microphone in the corner should jamming take your fancy.
The bar prices are from a country RSL in the 60’s and yes they sell burger rings. There is a huge dining room with ye olde paintings, ship bells and other um ship things adorning the walls where you most definitely want to sit and drink rum from a clay jug, and YAS an outside area for those summer months.
If you strike up a conversation with one of the volunteers working the bar, they might give you a little tour of the venue and take you through to The Dome which used to serve a church (and still does weddings on occasion). You can stand in the centre and sing Pie Jesu to hear the most insane acoustics bouncing back at you.
I can 100% guarantee that every single person who steps foot in this place will love it as much as The Sprink did. Also a good reason to go this weekend is that you can see Rosanna and Sam do their magic show.
Weekend = done.
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Be kewl.
