Bendigo Welcome Stranger Motel

Can't believe it is already day 10 of our vacation! Three days until we leave Bendigo for our camping trip, and there is still a lot of work to do on Paddy's house. Today I painted more of the new baseboards, and Paul and Paddy worked on repairing the furnace, installing baseboards and building a new linen closet. All of the baseboards and door trims have been installed in ...

... volunteers dressed in Chinese costumes, and the snaking appearance of the oldest parade Dragon in Australia, and perhaps the longest. Tourists come from all over Australia to take part in or watch the festivities.

Bendigo is home to a small, but wonderful Chinese Garden and Golden Dragon Museum, and that is where we learned about, and saw this dragon, and its newer, younger replacements.

In the evening, we attended the ...

Bendigo is well known for its interesting and well-preserved architecture, especially the cast iron ornamentation found on so many of its commercial buildings and private residences.
Today we spent the afternoon exploring Bendigo on foot and delighting in its historical buildings and whimsical Christmas decorations.

The Sacred Heart Cathedral was a typical discovery. The cathedral was beautiful and of sufficient size to rival some ...

Well ok .. we drove here today but i didn't actually do anything in Bendigo until tomorrow ... but i will put it all in the blog anyway ...

So ... we drove into Bendigo and visited a Gold Mine ... cool ... there was gold in the walls .. and it wasn't ...

... and kilns. Bought an olive oil jug, but it looks like it should hold moonshine!

This evening Paddy hosted a BBQ with friends of his, Greg, Kevin and Liam (who we met in London last year. Yummy burgers and sausages served on home made bread rolls. And noone even mentioned throwing a shrimp on the barby.

... not really a pillow, more an OTTOMAN! - of puff pastry filled with steak, eggs, cheese and bacon. One of the reasons we came to Australia at this time is to help Paul's son Paddy with renovations on their 1940 bungalow. The house has definite possibilities, but at the moment it is a brick shell, with unfinished floors and walls, electrical wires protruding from the oddest places and half-finished projects awaiting completion. I decided my ...

... to get through customs, before we were through it and being greeted by Paddy, Paul's son.

We headed down to the Coburg district for Turkish kebabs, then drove northwest to Bendigo where we will be staying for the next couple of weeks.

Did a quick tour of the town, then a drive into the Bendigo National Park where we climbed an old gold mine tower to get a good view of the ...

... learnings and recognise in yourself how those moments changed you for ever. Allow yourself to smile and perhaps even laugh at the wondrous memories....it only takes one special memory...you will recognise it for what it was a moment of instantaneous learning. I also ran a couple of introductory sessions to my Improdance course and got some truly staggeringly good feedback. Afterwards my system kind of went into shock. I felt so humbled. Positive feedback can be ...

... to be "Camperdown College" or what we in the states would of referred to as a high school. Everyday we were taken there and I couldn't help but laugh at the schools importance. For example, the school took in and was raising two calves. Cute enough, I even pet one. The strange thing was that when gemma and I were at the super market we picked up the Camperdown newspaper and on the front page the headline read "Camperdown College takes in calves." We had a good laugh. The next ...

... dipstick to my car. Get just a little past St. Anards around the Donnald and my car blows the muffler. I have a look at the engine only to find out my dipstick was gone! I was soo ****** off. Lucky a tracker dude from Nimbin pulls up and has some cork in the car and we sit down and have a beer and a smoke. Refashion a plug to seal the engine and keep going. I finally get to mum's with a car which you can hear a mile away. Close to 16 hours after I left ...