The Daily Boomerang

Another summer in Australia and more snow in Victoria:

IT MIGHT still be summer, but already there is snow in the air.

A 10-minute flurry of snow hit Mount Hotham about 4.30 pm yesterday as Victoria was hit by a sudden, sharp cold snap.

Blair Trewin, from the weather bureau’s national climate centre, said while alpine snow was rare in February, it was "not as extraordinary as people think".

Locals at Mount Hotham told The Age that the last time it snowed in February was in 2004.  [The Age]

This summers snow still hasn’t matched last summers snow that blanketed large areas of Victoria.

If you ever look at a map of Victoria you will see a large body of water just outside the city named Lake Eppalock. My wife and I decided to take a drive out there and see what the lake was like. As we drove towards the lake we saw lots of signs indicating fishing sites as well as even a sign for the Bendigo Yacht Club. However, once we got to the lake it wasn’t yachts that we saw but this instead:

The drought here combined with increase water usage due to the population explosion in Victoria has led to this lake being nearly sucked dry. Scanning north we actually could make out a little bit of water left in the lake:

Only along the dam is there any water left and I don’t even know if a canoe would get very far without getting beached or stuck on something:

I would have to say Lake Eppalock is definitely the most visible sign of the drought here in Australia that we have seen. So far this fall and winter Victoria has been receiving plenty of rain, however with catchment areas this low it is going to take a lot more rain to ever fill them again. I doubt the Bendigo Yacht Club is going to ever go to be doing any yachting on this lake any time soon.

Chinese immigrants have long played a major role in Bendigo’s history. The Chinese immigrants flocked to Bendigo when news of the gold strike there reached China. As the competition for the gold heated up the Chinese often faced harsh discrimination. However, Bendigo’s Chinese community preserved and prospered over the decades to where now a days Bendigo’s Chinese community is actually considered more Australian than most Australians themselves because they have lived in the country for so long.

The Chinatown section of Bendigo is quite evident by the Chinese gate that welcomes visitors to the area:

The Chinatown section of Bendigo is not what you would think of as a modern day Chinatown. This section of Bendigo is more or less a historical and cultural area for the city with the new Golden Dragon Museum being the main attraction there.

The museum is most famously known as the home to Sun Loong which is the world’s longest imperial dragon. You can see the head of the dragon pictured below in the museum:

The dragon leaves the museum only once a year to take part in the yearly Bendigo Easter Parade which my wife and I attended this year. You can read about our experiences at the parade here. The Chinese have taken part in the Bendigo Easter Parade since 1871 and is Australia’s oldest festival:

The museum also is filled with many historical exhibits and artifacts that describe the Chinese heritage of the city:

It is $8 to get in to the museum which isn’t to bad but I did find the museum a bit small. The museum also has a cafe where you try out different Chinese tea if you are so inclined. Located across the street from the museum are some Chinese gardens. The gardens have some nice pavilions, ponds, and viewing platforms that are nice to walk through and check out:

They are well maintained and is quite amazing to find such architecture in the middle of Australia:

If you look closely in the background of the above picture you can see Bendigo’s old Post Office building. On the northern outskirts of Bendigo and at the very end of the city’s tram system is the Chinese Joss House. The Joss House was built in the 1860’s and is still used by the city’s Chinese to this day:

It is open daily except for Sundays from 11AM-4PM. Check it out if you have the time. Any visit to Bendigo should at least include a visit to the Golden Dragon Museum to really appreciate the level of historical and cultural influence Bendigo’s Chinese community has had on the city. The Chinese have really added a lot of cultural charm to the already charming city of Bendigo.

Next Posting: Lake Eppalock

Rosalind Park in Bendigo sits directly across from downtown and adjacent to Charing Cross. The park is filled with many trees and walking paths and a nice place to find some shade during the summer. It also is home to Bendigo’s Soldier Memorial as well as host to a number of statues. One of the most famous statues in the area is one of lady luck blessing a gold prospector that you can see pictured below:

In the park you can also see what used to be the old creek that runs through Bendigo that started the gold rush in the 1850’s when prospectors found gold there:

The creek decades ago was covered over with stones and concrete in order to stop prospectors from digging up the creek.  A walk you definitely need to do while visiting Bendigo is to walk up the hill behind the park. As you walk up the hill you will the school to your right that used to be a church at one time:

To your left on the top of the hill you will see the tower of a former gold mine:

Stairs have been built up this tower that gives visitors a sweeping view over Rosalind Park and Bendigo:

The above picture is the view towards the east of downtown looking across the Rosalind Park. You can see the clock tower from the old Post Office building rising in the center of the picture. Here is the view looking towards the south:

In the distance over the various buildings you can see the Sacred Heart Cathedral. A walk up the mine tower is a great way to get oriented as well as to get a different view of the city.

Next Posting: Bendigo’s Chinese Heritage

The Sacred Heart Cathedral is one of the most prominent buildings in all of Bendigo due to its large size as well as its commanding presence on a hill overlooking the city. The idea to build the cathedral began in 1895 and completed with the opening of the cathedral in 1901. The cathedral would have more construction and expansions over the decades with the latest expansion being in 1977. Overall the cathedral is the second largest cathedral in all of Australia, second only to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne.

The building was built in the English gothic architecture which was popular in those days:

The outside walls are built with rocks of granite mined from the local area that is decorated with many fine sculptures and statues:

The inside of the cathedral is really quite beautiful:

The lighting combined with the high ceilings and atmosphere was really incredible. Here are some random facts about the cathedral from its website:

If you don’t have a car the cathedral can be a bit of walk and the tram doesn’t stop there. So if you don’t have a car it is up to you if you have the time available to walk up the hill to the cathedral. If you are driving it is definitely worth stopping by and spending a few minutes walking in and around the cathedral. Even if you aren’t religious you can still appreciate the beautiful architecture of the building.

Next Posting: Rosalind Park

A great way to see Bendigo is to take a talking tram tour which can be done either separately or in conjunction with the Central Deborah Gold Mine tour. Bendigo at one time had an extensive and widely used tram network that covered most of the city. The trams first began operations in 1890 and served as a means of mass transportation in Bendigo until 1972 when it was no longer economically feasible to keep the trams running due to the rise of the automobile. A new economic model needed to be created and 1972 the trams were transformed from being a system of mass transportation to one being used for tourism.

The trams operators kept one line of track open that runs from the Central Deborah Gold Mine, through downtown, and ends on the outskirts of town at the Chinese Joss House:

This route proved popular with tourists and is still a key tourist attraction of Bendigo today. Times and fares for the tram can be found here, but overall the round trip takes about an hour and forty minutes and you can get off and on the tram to see different sites if you like and then just jump on the next tram:

A nice addition to the tram system is that the tram stop for about 30 minutes at the tram station where you can get out and see the different trams they have in operation in the city:

At the station you can also see the different restoration works the workers there have been doing. The workers there actually restore trams from across the world and sell them after restoring them. For example many of the trams in Melbourne were done by the workers here in Bendigo.

The results of the restoration work is really incredible:

The inside of the trams looks just as good as the outside:

The tram’s driver gives commentary throughout the journey and it a good way to see the city while learning a bit about Bendigo’s history and many buildings. A ride on the tram should really be included as part of any visit to Bendigo.

Next Posting: Sacred Heart Cathedral

A must see attraction for anyone visiting Bendigo has to be the Central Deborah Gold Mine:

A little known fact about Bendigo is that there are many gold mines still operating within and around the city. The land below the city is literally honeycombed with mine shafts that keep penetrating deeper and deeper within the earth to continue to mine the famous gold reef running beneath Bendigo. One of these mines the Central Deborah gold mine is no longer mining for gold, but for tourists instead. The mine is located just south of downtown Bendigo surrounded by commercial and residential buildings. Yet in the midst of all these buildings is a fully functional gold mine.

The gold mine offers a couple of tour options. The offer one hour guided tour through a mine shaft 60 meters down or a two and half hour tour where they take you 85 meters down to go and mine gold yourself using real mining equipment. You can read details and prices here.

My wife and I decided to take the one hour tour and it ended up being well worth it. Before we took the elevator down the shaft our guide made sure everyone in our group had a hard hat and battery pack to power our head lamps. Once this was complete we headed down the elevator. As you can imagine the mine shaft was quite dark and damp:

To make a point of how dark these mines were back in the early days here our guide had us turn off our lights and then he lit a candle. It is amazing how little light the candle created in the blackness down there and that was all the early miners had to use to mine the shafts with. The took us around and showed us some of the rooms down there. They actually have a common area down there that was used for miners to rest in that is now being used to rent out for functions including even holding weddings.

From there the guide took us to see and operate some of the equipment used in the mine:

The equipment is really loud and early miners had little appreciation for hearing protection. What we found to be really cool was when we got to see what the actual gold reef looks like. You could actually see the quartz rock in the wall of the shaft. The mine left an actual nugget of gold in the reef for everyone to see. This reef has different spurs that extend in different directions and it is these spurs that the different shafts try to find to mine.

Overall, the tour was quite good and the guide very knowledgeable. If you have the time definitely take the tour, it is only an hour long and provides some good memories. There is more to the mine above ground as well. They have a mining museum that has interesting displays about the history and process of gold mining. If you like you can even take a pan and go panning for gold yourself in the creek running through the mine:

I was told the mine actually will sprinkle some gold flakes into the creek for people to find. We didn’t try it, because the creek was filled with Scouts the day we went who were having a blast it looked like panning for gold.

A nice thing about the mine tour is that you can buy a ticket that combines it with the talking tram tour around the city of Bendigo. It is this tram that I will describe in my next posting.

Next Posting: Bendigo’s Talking Trams

One of my favorite cities in all of Australia has to be the central Victorian city of Bendigo. The unusual name for this city of 105,000 people comes from the name of a famous Irish boxer. However, it was not boxing that would make this city famous, but gold and lots of it. Gold was first found in Bendigo in the 1850’s by miners panning the creek running through the area. Prospectors soon flooded the area and set up tents around the creek to pan for gold. Before long buildings and then an entire town was built to support the gold rush. Eventually the surface gold ran out and actual mines were dug which garnered more riches from what had become known as the Victorian Gold Fields.

The wealth from these mines is what built the Victorian capitol city of Melbourne into the great city that it is today. Additionally much of the wealth from the gold rush period can still be seen in Bendigo today as well. Bendigo is absolutely filled with some amazing architecture that was built during this period with most of the buildings clustered along the main street area running through downtown.

The most striking building would be the old Post Office:

From most areas in Bendigo the Post Office’s clock tower can easily be seen and is quite a sight. The old Post Office is now used as a visitor center and a city museum. The visitor center is quite good and the people working there are very helpful. I highly recommend a visit there along with dropping in and checking out the museum to learn more about the city’s long and important history to Australia.

Sitting adjacent to the old Post Office you can see in the background, is the Soldier Memorial:

Just about every Australian town, big and small has some kind of war memorial and Bendigo is no different. It is always amazing to see how many names from the various towns in Australia have died overseas fighting for the country and Bendigo has given plenty of those names.

Just across the street from the Soldier Memorial you can see from left to right, the original Bendigo Bank and the Beehive building which originally housed gold buyers, a stock exchange, and merchants:

Today both buildings are used for stores and restaurants. Just down the road from the Post Office you can find the old Bendigo Mechanics Institute:

The institute also served as the city’s public library. The building today is no longer a library but still an institute, but one now called the Bendigo Regional Institute of Technology.

The most famous hotel architecture in town is without a doubt the Shamrock Hotel:

The Shamrock was at one time the most elegant hotel in all of Australia. The hotel had its own in-house orchestra and theatre that was a must visit locale for all the famous European celebrities of the gold rush period. The Shamrock today is owned by the Comfort Inn hotel chain and is a nice place to drink some coffee and have a bite to eat while sitting on the deck with a sweeping view of downtown.

That sweeping view includes Charing Cross section of town that served as the city’s main commercial district:

Sprinkled throughout downtown are also a variety of pubs and hotels that are well over a hundred years old:

The town is absolutely filled with historical architecture everywhere you go, but this just serves as a taste of the many fabulous buildings you can see. Bendigo is a whole lot more than just old buildings, which everyone will see over the coming days in my next few postings.

Next Posting: Central Deborah Gold Mine

The bushfires caused by lightning a couple of days ago continues to rage across Victoria:

Today was actually a very nice and mild day here in Victoria but there was a decent wind today which are even more pronounced the closer to the ocean you get which is driving the bushfires.  The Reuters report called these fires the first major ones in four years here in Victoria.  I don’t know where they get their information from but last year Victoria was swamped with bushfires.  I even went to see the aftermath of the fires around Mt. Buller, the Bluff, and the Grampians afterwards. 

This is what my house looked like last year:

Yes that is the sun in the picture and my house was like this for about a month last summer.  It was horrible.  So I know exactly what the communities dealing with the bushfires now are going through and I wish them the best.

Here are three short video clips I took while visiting the Grampians National Park in Victoria.  Enjoy!

View from the Jaws of Death Lookout:

View from the Central Grampians:

View from Mt. Zero: