Trysting Steps and Bluff Walk
Originally wooden steps mounted the bluff, providing a means for pedestrians to go from the front street business section to the hotels and residences along the high bluff.
At the top of the steps, along bluff walk, were the Carelton Hotel, built by Emma Strawbridge, and the Idlewylde Hotel. The Carelton was destroyed by fire in 1904 and rebuilt almost immediately.
(The Idlewyled was also destroyed.) The second Carleton Hotel burned in 1925.
The steps were a popular place for the young people of Melbourne to meet during their courtship and bluff walk was the local "Lover's Lane" on cool evenings, if the mosquitoes weren't too bad.
Marker is at the intersection of New Haven Avenue and Front Street, on the left when traveling east on New Haven Avenue.
Courtesy hmdb.org
