Heavenly Queen Temple: Melbourne Travel Guide (4.7★)

Joseph Road is not where you’d expect to find a goddess of the sea. It’s a stretch of Footscray close to the Maribyrnong River, where apartment blocks are going up on what used to be industrial land. Then you reach number 20. Red and gold take over, incense smoke rises from the forecourt, and a Chinese temple is going about its day.

This is the Heavenly Queen Temple. It’s a working place of worship dedicated to Mazu, the deified protector of sailors and fishermen, who is honoured along the coasts of southern China and across the Chinese diaspora. It is consistently well rated by visitors and still fairly under the radar. Most Melburnians who know Footscray for its phở have never been inside.

Who the Heavenly Queen is

Mazu goes by many names. In Mandarin she is Tian Hou, which translates as “Heavenly Queen” and gives the temple its English name. Tradition holds that she was a young woman from Fujian who rescued people at sea. After her death she became the goddess fishing communities prayed to before going out on the water.

That makes the location fitting. Footscray grew up around a river port, and many families in the area came to Australia by sea. A temple to the goddess of safe crossings, a short walk from the Maribyrnong, makes sense. You don’t need to share the faith to feel that link.

Getting to Joseph Road

Train is the simplest way to get here. Footscray Station is only a few stops from Southern Cross and Flinders Street on the Sunbury, Werribee and Williamstown lines. From the station, walk south towards the river and Joseph Road.

• By train: Footscray Station, then a short walk through the Joseph Road precinct.
• On foot or by bike: the Maribyrnong River Trail passes close by, so you can walk or ride along the water from Footscray Wharf.
• By car: street parking in this area changes as construction continues. Read the signs on the day before you leave the car.

Timing it around the weekday lull

Visiting hours are short, so plan around them. The temple opens at 9:30am every day. It closes at 3:30pm Monday to Friday and at 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. If you arrive in the late afternoon, you’ll find the gates shut.

The crowd pattern makes the choice easy. It’s calmest on weekdays between 10am and 3pm, which covers nearly the whole time it’s open. That’s when you can stand at the altar without other people behind you. Weekends are another story. Try not to come between 10am and 4pm on a Saturday or Sunday, because that’s the busiest window and it runs right up to closing.

If a weekend is your only option, get there at 9:30am. That gives you a short spell before the busy period starts at 10am.

Lunar New Year and Mazu’s birthday are the big days in any Mazu temple’s year. Her birthday falls on the 23rd day of the third lunar month, which is usually April or May. Expect it to be much busier then. Go on those days if you want to see the temple at full ceremony, and skip them if you want quiet.

Inside the temple grounds

Mazu is the focus of the main altar. She is typically shown seated and robed, with a beaded crown. Offerings sit in front of her, and worshippers bow with lit incense held in both hands. Around her you’ll see the standard pieces of a working Chinese temple:

• large bronze or stone burners where incense sticks are planted
• donation boxes
• tables of fruit and flowers left as offerings
• people who come in for a few minutes, bow, plant their incense and leave

Allow 30 to 45 minutes to look around properly. That’s enough time to walk the grounds slowly, sit for a while and watch how people worship without rushing them. Photographers often stay longer, since the red and gold look best in the even late-morning light.

Moving through a working temple

Keep in mind that this is somewhere people come to pray. The etiquette is simple, and the volunteers who keep the temple running will notice whether you follow it.

• Dress modestly. Cover your shoulders and avoid very short shorts.
• Enter quietly and keep your voice down near the altars. Put your phone on silent.
• Don’t step on raised thresholds at doorways. In Chinese temple tradition you step over them.
• Ask before photographing worshippers. Taking photos of the building is usually fine. Pointing a lens at someone in the middle of a prayer is not.
• Never point your feet at an altar when you sit down, and don’t touch the statues or the offerings.
• Lighting incense is welcome if you want to take part. Hold the sticks in both hands, bow three times and plant them in the burner. If there’s a donation box near the incense, leaving a contribution is the usual courtesy. The amount is up to you.

If you see someone shaking a cylinder of bamboo sticks, they are consulting the goddess. That’s fortune-telling. Watch from a polite distance and don’t hover.

After the incense: Footscray on a plate

Footscray is one of Melbourne’s best suburbs for Vietnamese food, so leave time to eat. Walk back up towards the station and you reach Hopkins Street and Footscray Market, the suburb’s main fresh-food market. Inside the market you’ll find:

• butchers and fishmongers
• stalls piled with Asian greens and herbs

The surrounding streets are packed with places selling phở, bún bò Huế and bánh mì.

The order of your day matters. The temple closes mid-afternoon, so visit first and eat a late lunch afterwards. Or have an early phở breakfast near the station, then walk down to Joseph Road for 9:30am on a weekend.

Along the river

The temple’s best neighbour is the Maribyrnong River. From Joseph Road you can join the riverside path and walk along the water past Footscray Wharf. The old port area has been opened up with walking and cycling paths. This makes a slow, flat loop after a temple visit, and you’ll be beside the water that gives Mazu her role here.

Head upstream and you reach the green stretch near Footscray Park, with Flemington Racecourse across the river. With a train ride, a temple, a bowl of noodles and a river walk, the visit adds up to a full half-day in the inner west. Most visitors to the city never see this side of Melbourne.