Wasn't able to get on last night, too busy so here's 2 days worth.

31st May
A much more pleasant start today, 14 degrees inside, we’re on power and the heater is on . Even though we were both awake early we didn’t get out till 10.30.
Our first stop was the tourist information building, which is housed in the former Sandhurst public building, Sandhurst later to become Bendigo and the public building to become Bendigo’s post office, this grand building, opened in 1887, along with the court house, opened in1896, were built in the Victorian style, with the post office building boasting a 43 metre clock tower, both buildings were built to be viewed from all sides and are equally as impressive from which ever angle you see them.
After getting some info we set out to the gold mine where the famous Bendigo Talking Tram starts from, these are old trams which have been restored and are now in their 21st year of being used as a tourist attraction and information deck, they travel through the town with the recording pointing out the main buildings and attractions of the city, stopping at 6 strategic points, where passengers can get off to study the sights and attractions including the tram depot, where there is a 5 minute stop to have a look at all the restored trams, or stay on for the whole journey as we did, to enjoy the magnificent old building and houses, quite a few which are small weatherboard cottages with 4 post verandas and iron roofs, others built in the grand Victorian house style. The last stop on the tram ride, is at the Chinese Joss House, the oldest Chinese place of worship still in use, outside of China, there we got off to have a look, and thought we’d only be a few minutes, but it turned out to take nearly the whole hour before the return of the tram, the 2 guides inside, surprisingly Caucasian, were very informative, and guided you through every aspect of the Joss house, built in the early 1860’s it is the last remaining of 7 originally built to cater for the 1000 plus Chinese miners who came to Bendigo to hopefully make their fortune, we also spoke to the caretaker, whose family was one of the first Chinese to arrive in the area back in the 1860’s and is involved in the preservation of many old buildings and attractions in Bendigo, a visit at the Joss House is definitely a must.
At the end of the return journey, we stopped for some lunch and our next stop was the Sacred Heart Catholic Cathedral and according to the talking tram, this the largest Cathedrals in the southern hemisphere, the tower is 87 metres tall and is truly of the Gothic design complete with gargoyles at each corner, the sandstone for the building came from near Geelong in Victoria and the sandstone for the pointed arches and window surrounds, from Mt Gambier in South Australia. Work on the building started in 1897 and comprised of the main body of the church, building stopped in 1901 due to lack of funds, with the end where the altar was to be, being bricked off, work restarted in the 1950’s with Italian stone masons being brought in from the snowy Mountain Hydro scheme, being paid by the week as funds became available, due to this method of labour the building was not completed till 1977 when the 3 tonne bronze cross was placed atop the tower, we were absolutely amazed at the grandeur and excessiveness of this place, the maintenance costs alone, of the Cathedral, is $800 a day with a large portion of that being insurance, which is well in excess of $200.000 a year . Due to its size and style, it looks like a castle that has been taken straight out of medieval times and placed on the edge of the city on the side of a hill, to look over the people and keep them safe from approaching danger; this too is a must on a trip to Bendigo.
Time has gotten away from us, it is now 3.45 and as we have left the dogs in the van for the day, it’s time for us to go back and give them a treat, for being good, -- -- -- -- -- -- too late, they have found the bag and gave themselves a treat for having being left alone, ah well, no more treats for a while, we settled for the day with some reading before tea, and a bit of TV before bed

1st June
We seem to be enjoying the heater in the morning, as we still didn’t get out till 10.30, but we’re not rushing and trying to cram things in otherwise it’ll set Brenda back and we’ll have to stop for a couple of days rest. Although it is really cold in the mornings, we are so thankful for the beautiful weather we are getting, since leaving home nearly 6 weeks ago, we have only had 2 really bad days, and we were in Melbourne at the time, other than that, we have only had about 3 days where the rain slowed us but did not stop us from doing things, today promises to be another nice day
We only have a couple of things planned today, and also a bit of shopping. With the dogs in tow, as they behave better in the car for short stints than in the van for the day, we headed first for the Bendigo Woollen Mills, we saw assign for it yesterday and thought it would be interesting, we got there to find nothing but a factory shop open to the public and no tours, I just can’t understand why there would be a brown tourist sign, when there is no attraction and only a shop, disappointing but Brenda bought some wool anyway, to knit the Grandchildren a scarf for school.
Next stop was the Bendigo pottery, no first visit to Bendigo would be complete without visiting this well known icon, it was started in 1858 when a welsh miner found a large deposit of white clay in a nearby creek, while fossicking for gold, realising what he had found and the lack of pottery being available he went back to his trade and the rest is history, as they say. As well as the pottery, there are a few old building here such as the original stables, which are now part of the function rooms and are National Trust listed, and an old store which has been move to the site, we started by looking around these then moving inside for the main attraction, there are rooms after rooms of all types of pottery from plain to and painted and decorated, some by local artists, there is from neck pendants, to plates, goblets, cups and saucers, to mugs, jugs port pigs, condiment sets flower pots and urns, in blue, green, almond, red and orange, to full pieces of art, the prices reflect the degree of work in the individual pieces and range from a few pieces being well priced to, pretty well up there and then to O M G!! As well as the pottery rooms the main building contains a few antiques and collectables stalls which contain all sorts of things from old furniture to 70’s memorabilia.
Outside the main building are a few studios, of various artists, which we think are mainly open weekends, but a few are open today a quick look through and on to the next one, till we got to a glass bead studio, where the lady was working on some of her pieces but stopped to tell us all about her art, not something we would have thought would be so interesting but was actually quite amazing, and the pieces, of mainly jewellery, she turned out were quite beautiful.

Having spent the best part of 2 hours there we headed back towards town and the botanical gardens to have our lunch which we had brought with us, the White Hills botanical Gardens are not as grand as the buildings in the city, but are a nice place to walk or enjoy a bite of lunch, as many people are doing today, when we arrived it was quiet and peaceful, but that was to change quickly with the arrival of 2 school groups, one by Bus the other riding in with parents and teachers in hot pursuit, although the peace and quiet were shattered, the ambiance of the place was still great with the added shrills of the kids as they explored the underneath of bushes for possible cubby space, rode their bikes along the paths, played on the playground, ran around the lake, looked at the multitude of birds in the aviary which was part of the lake area and tried to coax the Kangaroos in the enclosure closer to the fence, in order to pat them. Our lunch over, we walked around the gardens looking at the variety of trees, plants and flowers some commonly used in home gardens, others that have been used in the past right back to the beginning of settlement, there were a few places where the sun was blotted out by the trees and would be welcomed on a warm summers day but we searched out those of open air to allow the sun to warm us on this beautifully sunny but cool day, we enjoyed the warmth of the sun on us as we walked around the gardens and came back to the car to head back into town for a few supplies. That finished we returned to the van and put them away, then went down to the showgrounds pavilions to enjoy the Home and camping Show, it was mostly set up as a home show with only a few things relating to camping and quite a good selection of caravans also available, I did ask if any of the sellers were interested in swapping a new caravan for ours, but they weren’t interested, even the Jayco dealer I told him he could proudly display ours as proof of the lasting ability of a Jayco caravan or place in the Jayco museum, but alas the temptation was not marketed properly and he declined, his loss I recon, LOL. By the time we finished the sun was starting to make its exit for the day and the temperature was dropping, it was time for us to feed the dogs, have our showers and get some tea, before stars filled the clear night sky and put an end to yet another fantastic day.

Young Frank if I could insert a wee little correction re your tram trip at Bendigo
as to where the talking trams do starts from
They actually have a depot along with a shop which is along side the woolen mills (yes a mis noma) where they store the trams wilst also trying to restore a lot of trams, one was able do a tour of this area which I did and it is unfortunate that alot of their work will not see the light of day for a long long time if ever
regards and Safe and Happy travels
GeoffC

Yes Jeff, that's where they start off in the morning the other terminus is at the gold mine, we did stop at the depot for a quick look but there was no mention of the shop. Something has to pay the bills I suppose and unfortunately the monstrosity we were in was painted like a travelling HOME Hardware store, the tram the next day was one of the old Melbourne ones done up in brown and beige
Frank

2nd June
Yesterday was a bit too much and walking around the home and outdoors shows and up and down the steps of caravans for a couple of hours didn’t help. so Brenda is quite sore today, we’ll have a day’s rest and leave other things in this beautiful town for another time, there’s always another time.
Other than some reading and being on the web for a while, I took a couple of hours to have a look at the Old Motors Show, there were displays of old single cylinder motors, large and small, cars dating back to the early 1900’s , trucks back to the 50’s, tractors as old as 74 and a few not that old but unusual or different such as a homemade caravan, in the shape of a teardrop, and a few hotrods as well, there was also, a one of a kind in Australia, Tiffany Classic Elite, it is built with a 1986 Ford Mercury Cougar, body and interior, but the bonnet, fenders and boot removed and replaced with hand crafted panels to look like a hybrid between a 1930’s car and something out of the movies, quite an impressive machine, a quiet day but sometimes you need one of those.

3rd June
We were up and packed by 9 this morning, but we wanted to have a look at the Sunday market, which people had been setting up for since last night.
This is one of the biggest markets we have seen in our travels bar none, but there were a lot of second hand stalls, with all sorts on offer, we resisted buy things, weight and space in the van were the big factors in that, with such a small van we hardly have enough room as it is let alone start carrying stuff home. Bendigo is a beautiful town full of history and the people are friendly, by 11 o’clock we were on our way out of town promising ourselves to return and have a look at the many things we didn’t get to see.
We were out of town in about 15 minutes and into flat dry land in ½ an hour, the contrast in terrain and scenery was almost like diving through an invisible curtain, before Bendigo we were in hilly lush green terrain, yet on the western side of town the first 15 to 20 minutes was similar till we came over a hill and saw the plains in front of us, down into it and the ground is flat and the grass brown, we have seen areas of the centre of Australia greener than this, although there are many tree left to add some colour to the landscape the only bits of green on the ground, are the sides of the road where a bit of rain and mostly morning dew has rolled off the road and given some life to the grass, in the paddock the remaining summer grass is still brown and the only fields showing signs of green are those where the farmer ploughed is field in anticipation of the autumn rains and some grass has returned in the minimal rain which has fallen in the area.
We arrived at a little town called Tarnagulla and were supposed to turn right almost as we entered town but, I missed the turn off so we went into town to turn around and found the most interesting little town. Without being derogatory, it almost looks like the town that time forgot, other than a couple of public buildings, such as the police station and a recently opened civic centre which also comprises the visitor information, and a couple of new houses, most of the town is made up of old buildings and weatherboard houses, dating back to the gold rush days and early 1900s, there is even the shell of an old church, which burned down in 2000 and is now privately owned, giving the town an almost ghost town look, it is a quirky place, but beautiful at the same time, I can’t speak of the people who live here, as we only saw and met one person in the street and he has only just bought a house here to use as a weekender, but I must say even with that the place “feels” friendly, definitely a stop on our next trip.
We drove on towards St Arnaud, with more of the dry fields surrounding us the terrain has not changed and it still flat and dry, this is the Wimmera, known for the crops and sheep farming, so the rain must surely come here, but at the moment the place looks desolate, we round a corner and I spot 2 very large birds in a field close to the fence, Brenda is creating scarf master pieces for the grandchildren with the wool she bought in Bendigo so I say to her “Emus” and even Kia looks to them, we drive past them ................. Then, it hits me .................. they were not emus I just saw....................... They were ostriches I know the terrain at the moment is strange! But did we go through a time warp? Am I asleep and dreaming? What in the heck are 2 Ostriches, African birds, doing in an otherwise empty paddock in the centre of Victoria? I turned the rig around and went back to have a look and take photos, I have not been drinking and people will not believe me, sure enough 2 ostriches are there by the fence, male and female, with the male staying there and standing proud as I take photos as the female goes on scratching at the ground, I get back I the car and ask Brenda if she too was seeing what I was, she said yes, so I pinched her and she slapped me, yes we are awake!!!! We drove on to St Arnaud still not quite sure why these 2 birds are here and doubting our own sanity.
St Arnaud, is yet another town filled with history and old buildings, it also has a beautiful park, so we walked through town for about an hour, looking at the magnificent structures of the civic and private buildings, it is Sunday and most shops are closed, a couple of milk bars and food places are open with some young people hanging around and one store which has a bit of everything, including car parts, hunting and fishing gear and camping gear, just what is needed by the traveller so they are doing a bit of trade, we spotted coats for the dogs and with the cold weather and their coats being a bit small for them we bought a couple, while I was there I summoned the courage to ask about the ostriches, expecting a funny look and the lady to reach for the phone to call the local asylum, but she just said “oh yeah, those 2 on the Bendigo road, they belong to Joe ???, they are all that’s left of an old ostrich farm” relived that I wasn’t in a white coat that does up at the back, and puzzle solved we finished our walk and headed out of town, to stop at Rupanyup a little country town where the shire has put in a camp at the end of town, with power, toilets, showers, water and a free electric BBQ, all for the cost of $10 per night, with an extra cost of $1 for a 5 minute hot shower, there are about 8 places and 3 were taken up when we got there, we chose to not have power, and no one came to collect money from us before we settled for the night.

And the next bit, minimal reception tonight hope it gets through

4th June
We woke up this morning with the tick, tick, tick, of rain falling from the roof to the van, meaning that there is a fine drizzle outside, the ground is wet and there are puddles of water around so it has been lightly raining for some time, welcome rain in the area, especially as it is the ground soaking type, not the type that runs off and damages the surface.
Only being 15 kilometres out of Murtoa, where we were to meet Allan and Mel, more members of a forum we had never met, we took it easy and even had some time to read before heading off and getting to there at 11.
Allan and Mel were really nice people and made us feel welcome in their home, we spent an hour or so with them over coffee and cake before heading off on our way and towards Warracknabeal passing through more of the same dry fields as the previous day, this whole area of the Wimmera is crop raising country and does account for the brown stubble in the fields, but the lack of green grass, even on the side of the road is testament to the lack of rain, according to some locals, other than the odd shower, there has been no decent rains since January, great if you are in a van touring the countryside, no so good when the livelihood of the whole area depends on soaking rains at the right time to till the soil and then again to germinate the seed.
We arrived in Warracknabeal at about 1 o’clock, we are spending the night at Tess and Craig’s house, they are the friends we met in Tasmania when we toured, we had chatted on the forum before our trip and were invited to their place there, they have since moved to Warracknabeal and have invited us to stay the night with them, we could not have gone past without calling in anyway, but the invite of a place to stay is welcomed.
We didn’t want to land up on their doorstep too early and also wanted to have a look around town, so we parked the rig and took the dogs for a walk, the drizzle is still falling, heavily at times so, out came the Dry-as-a-bones and off we went, there are a few old buildings here and although it is a nice town you can see that you have moved away from the wealth of the gold rush and into farming land, the atmosphere in town is different and the folks are down to earth, after having picked up some flowers and a bottle of wine for our hosts, we headed for their place to find them out the front, power cord at the ready.
Meeting friends again is always great and we were soon set up and chatting around the open fire out the back veranda, Craig showed me around town while Brenda was having a rest in order to be able to sit at the table to share a roast dinner and apple pie prepared by our hosts, after the dishes Brenda retired to the van while I stayed and chatted some more before saying good night and headed to the van to spend some time with Brenda before we snuggled in for the night.

It went through s this bit as well from the same place

5th June
Craig had gone off to work and Bethany came in to say goodbye before heading off to school, we had some breakfast and by the time we had our showers and got cleaned up, leisurely of course, it was 10.30 before Tess was waving us off, a fuel stop before getting on the road again.

No change in scenery other than the odd small hill, or rather a rise in the road it is the Wimmera and it is flat nothing to stop the wind, which today is blowing at 25 to 30 knots, it is a tail wind which we are thankful for. We pass a few small towns, actually not much more than a pub and a couple of houses then Hopetoun, the next “larger” town, still even small by Warracknabeal standard, which has a population of about 2000, by now all the grand buildings have all but disappeared and the only old buildings around are a few houses, but even they don’t go back to pre 1900, our tour of old towns has come to an end, we bypass all of these heading for Ouyen where we will turn west and head for SA . Once in SA we’ll head north to Loxton to spend a couple of nights there, before meeting up with our daughter, Son-in-law and grandkids for the June long weekend.

Before long yesterday’s extended evening on her feet starts to show in Brenda and her back is acting up, the pain is increasing and if we don’t pull over soon, she’ll suffer for days, with hardly even some shoulder on the road there is nowhere to pull over, but when we get to the locality of Gypsum we move out of crop fields and come across a large wooded area, there is a truck stop but, off the back of that a few tracks lead into the trees, and we find a place to pull up sheltered from the road, this’ll do, with lots of open space and sand at our feet, the dogs immediately set off about exploring while we pop the roof and Brenda settles with her Kindle, and I made some lunch.

After lunch we had a siesta then spent the afternoon reading and on the computer before we settled to some TV for the evening.


Frank

6th June
Brenda really needs a full day of not travelling and the only way to do that is to travel a long way (in our standards) and get to Loxton today, that means 230km or so to travel, we headed off at about 10 and being only 22km out of Ouyen we were there in no time, we parked the van and noticed an unusually large number of other rigs in town, some bearing the Australian Caravan Club stickers. We headed off for our usual walk around town noticing that this was a much younger town than we had previously come across, when we got to the site of the first Shire town Hall we found out why, the town of Ouyen was only settled in 1910 and proclaimed in 1912, the oldest building in town is less than a hundred years old, after about an hour, or as long as it took for our cheeks to get numb in the cold breeze, we got back to the van to see a lot more rigs parked up, out of one emerged Alby and Geraldine, a couple from Caravanners forum and we had previously met them 4 or 5 years ago, they were on their way to Mildura for the ACC muster along with numerous other people, after a chat we headed for the SA border, fuelled up in Pinnaroo, and turned north to Loxton.
Since Ouyen the landscape has changed greatly, we have left the Wimmera and arrived in the Mallee, the terrain is undulating and there are many more places where trees, or Mallee scrub, abound, the ground is mainly sandy and perfect rabbit territory you can see warrens on each hillock. We pass a few places which would be good for an overnight stay but push on to Loxton and the Thiele sandbar camp, we know is at the eastern end of town.
We get to our destination only to find it closed due to the high river level, so we went to the Visitor information centre and were given directions to 2 other places where we could freecamp, this is another town on the river that has realised the benefits to the whole town, of having freecamps as well as a caravan park in town.
We headed to the Millich’s camp area and once again set up next to the wonderful Murray River, Millich’s camp area is not as big as some of the camp spots we have been to but, there is something special about camping by the river and this is a beautiful spot, having set up camp we just relaxed for the rest of the day, soaking in the atmosphere of life on the river.

The last one

7th June
With a mild morning, compared to others we’ve had, and the temperature at around 7 degrees in the van, we were up and moving by 9.30, we headed back into town, firstly stopping for fuel, back in SA and the price is back up to 86.9cpl for LPG 10c dearer than Ouyen.

We parked the car and walked the main street armed with the historical map we were given at the Visitor centre, looking at modern buildings and “imagining” the old buildings which once stood proud, is just not the same, so we bypassed most of the sites and only stopped when we came to an older building.

Once again this town is only just 100yo so the old buildings do not have a construction date on them, which stopped in about 1900, and there are very few of them which have survived. Judging by one of the buildings which remain, there is a lot of ground movement in the area and it has a lot of cracks in it which have been reinforced but appears to be heading for the same fate as its neighbours, to be demolished and replaced.

We walked the length of the main street, down to the river front and enjoyed the scenery for a while before heading back the other way and taking a detour to “The Pines”. The historic sandstone villa built in 1908 and its gardens were bequeathed to the people of Loxton in 2002, for display and entertainment. Today people can enjoy a walk in the gardens, which are maintained by a team of volunteers, or for a modest fee enjoy a guided tour of the home which has been left as is was when bequeathed to get a snapshot of life for one of the early pioneering families of Loxton, the home can also be hired for weddings and other functions, as the home was closed today we chose to enjoy the many facets of the gardens, before finishing our walk of the town, doing some shopping and heading back to the van for lunch.

While we were out I had bought some fishing hooks and after lunch tried my luck once again at catching a fish, fish and I seem to have an unspoken understanding I stand on the shore with rod in hand, bait the hook and cast it in and they wait and watch till I loose patience so after about an hour I thought I’d save time and just threw the bait in the water and gave up, again, within seconds of it hitting the water the bait disappeared in a boil up of water as seen in piranha movies when the bad guy ventures too far in the water, I’m almost sure I even heard them laughing, the little bastards, time for a coffee.

We spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing as tomorrow we move on to Nuriootpa to spend the weekend with our Daughter, Son-In-Law and Grandchildren for the June long weekend, our Victorian trip has come to an end

What a great read guys. Look forward to your next blog

Wendy