Tourists, watercolours and the sad, still Star: sketching the route 35 tram showed me a Melbourne I had never really noticed

‘I decided to be a tourist. I’d sketch route 35. And I’d do it on postcards.’ Photograph: Josh Nicholas/The Guardian

In a city of trams, there’s one kind that’s really hard to ignore. They make a phenomenal racket as they rattle along down the street. You feel the shrieking brakes in your teeth every time they grind to a stop. And, unlike the sleek-spaceship-modern trams, they look exactly like how you would have drawn a tram when you were six years old.

I moved to Melbourne about three years ago and, until recently, I hadn’t ever taken route 35 – a free vintage tram that circles the CBD. Few of the Melbourne-lifers I’ve asked had either. It’s for tourists. It’s even got a voiceover that tells you about the sites.