Best Western Homestead Motor Inn Bendigo

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 ...

Because Bendigo was a gold rush destination in the 1800's, there was a large influx of Cantonese Chinese Immigrants into the area. They had no civil rights, were allowed to search for gold only where Europeans had already worked the fields and taken the easy pickings, and they were taxed every time they turned around. But they came, they made their livings and sent word home to other Chinese men who eventually turned up in Bendigo. Some of ...

... in and were invited to come in and look around, even though the hall was not open to the public. The room is very ornately (and freshly) decorated with gold leaf, which was applied inch by inch by a little old lady who climbed up scaffolding every day for months to complete the task. I wish I could meet this lady and tell her how much her skills have added to the splendor of this historic building.

We did some grocery shopping while ...

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 ...

Up with the birds again today, weather is cool and cloudy with sunbreaks.
Painted the walls for a couple of hours, then Paul and I visited Bendigo Pottery. This pottery uses a white clay found a couple of hours drive from Bendgo. We watched a Potter create a quiche pan and poked around the original ...

We awoke to birdsong at 5:30 this morning; beautiful and exotic. I'm told that if I keep my eyes open I will spot cockatoos, lorakeets and rosellas, as well as parrots, in the trees in this small town and in the bush. I'm not sure how I can keep my eyes on the trees when I am busy scanning the land for kangaroos! (not to mention crocodiles). A special treat this morning was breakfast at Beechworth Bakery, where we tried the Ned Kelly Pie, a savory ...

... journeying..in his own words he was a workshop junkey. His approach has been to pull what he believes has worked best together to create his own unique approach. That was marvellous to see because I have a very similar dream for THE FUSION PROJECT. Anyhow yes the THETA workshop was so inspiring I am going to do a weekend course. I feel that it very much builds on the work I did through the help of Kyle with Mikkel therapy/Reverse therapy. To sum that work up it was ...

... hekken te plaatsen. Ondanks een grijze lucht boven ons, een prima wijze om je neus te verbranden, zo bleek. Gelukkig hielden we er die middag op tijd mee op, om op een naburige boerderij bij het schaapscheren te gaan kijken. Met zijn allen doken we na een snelle kop koffie de auto in. Lynn en ik hadden enkel dagen terug met lichte afschuw staan kijken bij het inladen van een groep schapen die verkocht gingen worden. De vrachtwagenchauffeur trapte de dieren en trok ze aan hun ...

... pub meal (yummy fish yet again!). Also saw my first Kmart, ate this yummy cherry coconut chocolate bar that's popular here, and had my first bag of twisties. (This is a weird version of cheetos only with different flavorings. Apparently, kids are brought up on the stuff here). OH, and yes- I finally tried Vegemite! Shane made lovely toast with just enough to make it tasty.. so, my suggestion- if any of you want to try ...

... girls, Lizzy and Aine who I got on with really well. Not all of the pickers got rooms though, and a small tent city was quickley set up outside of the communal area under a huge tree. After a few days waiting I was anxious to start earning some money. I had no idea what was in store for me, but just wanted to start building up the bank balance rather than sitting around all day in the sun, drawing, or attempting to play cricket with the Brits. Our ...