It’s a beautiful hot morning with barely a
breath of wind. The kangaroos have been and gone before we were up, but the
birds are still singing loudly. Sandy’s taking us into Bendigo today to explore
its heritage as a gold mining town and its subsequent development.
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Central Deborah Gold Mine |
Our first stop is the Central Deborah Gold
Mine, the lady selling the tickets says if we hurry, we might just catch the
10.30 tour so rushes us through to meet Jez our tour guide. Turns out there’s
only us 3 on the tour! But Jez is obviously under a time pressure as he rushes
through the first 15 minutes of the tour before slowing down to a easier to
understand pace. The tour makes us realise how hard the life of the miners was
with risks of death from tunnel collapse, inhalation of quartz dust and blast
injury. The tunnels from the numerous mines around Bendigo undermine the whole
town and even stretch out to Eaglehawk, Dave and I are pleased to hear there
are no spiders down in the mine, one less thing to worry about then! Above
ground, there’s opportunities to pan for gold though to be honest I don’t think
there’ll be even a grain of gold left in the sand. We climb to the top of the
walk way to enjoy the views over Bendigo, Dave’s very impressed that I’ve made
the climb up the exposed ladders.
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Bendigo Trams |
On to the vintage tram takes us through Bendigo
to the tram depot where trams can be seen in various stages of repair, though a
couple of them look so dilapidated its hard to imagine they will ever ride the
rails again. There’s even a rescue cat here who is more famous than the trams
but he’s no where to be seen! A lunch stop at Lake Weeroona revives us
especially looking at the beautiful view across the lake, watching the birds
especially the pelican floating majestically across the lake.
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Jan & Sandy |
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Golden Dragon Museum |
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Lansell Monument |
The afternoon fly’s by with visits to the
Lansell Monument, the Golden Dragon Museum, the Alexandra Fountain and Rosalind
Park where we realise that what we thought were birds flying overhead are huge
bats and they are so noisy, continually screeching. Our final stop is at Eaglehawk,
a small old town with several lovely buildings, covered walkways and Victorian
ironwork. It seems to have all the shops you’d need, a butcher’s, a baker’s
and…a candlestick maker’s? But that’s an old nursery rhyme isn’t it.
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Eaglehawk |
Our evening is spent watching the sun go
down, the sky turning from palest pink, to the deepest red, then purple and
finally night. The full moon rises almost looking like it’s climbing up the
tree branches to reach the night sky and finally the stars show themselves,
away from light pollution out here we can see so much more, so beautiful.
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Sunset at Sandys |
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