Over the winter break in Dec last year, I went to Australia for two weeks. As has now become customary on any trip that I take, I try to spend atleast a little time looking for stores specializing in handmade books and bookbinding. You never know what you might find!

I visited a few different cities in Australia – Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns (gateway to great barrier reef), and the Uluru area in the Australian desert. My bookbinding excursions were unfortunately neither extensive nor comprehensive. Only in Melbourne was I able to carve a portion of an afternoon to look around. Even so, something is better than nothing!

The only store I was able to visit in Melbourne was called “Bookbinders Design“.

First of all – the fact that a store can be called “Bookbinders” anything in this day and age was a revelation to me 🙂 I was super intrigued when this name popped up on Google Maps! Inside I found all kinds of handmade books and sketchbooks. I’m not sure if anything stole my heart to be honest but it’s still worth a visit if you’re into bookbinding and visiting Melbourne. They stock Travelers Notebooks which are gorgeous – I’d already seen them in Tokyo (see my bookbinding excursions in Tokyo), but if you’ve not seen those before, they are definitely beautiful 🙂

While I did not have the time, an “Ortbindery – Melbourne School of Bookbinding” showed up on Google Maps too when I was trying to find places to visit. I would have loved to visit had I the time, but unfortunately I didn’t 😦 If you’re in Melbourne, do check it out!