Comfort Inn Bendigo Central Deb

... gold fields quickly became Australia's richest goldfield, and the 7th richest in the world. Bendigo had 5,600 gold mines, and the Deborah mine was one of the last two remaining mines to shut down in 1954. In just 15 years, she produced 29,865 oz of gold. Now you can take tours ranging from 75 minutes to 2 1/2 hours. Even one minute underground is too long for me, so ...

... 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 ...

... we have seen in Europe. The feeling was slightly less ornate than most cathedrals we have visited and had beautiful cofffered ceilings. The double pipe organ was being played by a young man during our visit and we enjoyed the thundering hymns he played. The Australian twist was the altar cloth which had embroydered on it the admonishment "STAY AWAKE!"

Another surprise was when we saw the door to the Town Hall open and poked our ...

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.

... interior wall paint, runs $72.00 AU per gallon, which with the exchange rate right now, that makes it $67.00 per gallon). I got everything primed today, and tomorrow will paint the color coats. I'll also paint the new baseboards so the guys can get them cut and installed on Tuesday. We were told to expect 100+ degrees heat this time of year, but so far it has been cool and showery both days. We should see some warmer weather in a couple of days.

... nowhere. We reached the Grampians later in the afternoon and like everybody else, we were listening to the terrible bush fires on the radio. It was hard to believe that we left Bendigo in the morning, and that afternoon on the outskirts of town houses were up in flames. Many of the towns affected by the fires, we have visited in the last few weeks before. It's time to blog off now, from The Grampians. Bye for now.

... Hoe anders dan in Melbourne... In mijn eentje heb ik het dorpje een beetje verder doorkruist en daarna nog even meegeholpen met wat nieuwe papieren maken voor de speelzaal. 's Middags moesten we wat meer hekken repareren die door een enorme hoosbui met windstoten gisteren weggespoeld waren. Door de weilanden loopt een beek, die alleen bij hevige regen onder water staat. Om te voorkomen dat de dieren kunnen ontsnappen moet ook door deze beek heen een hek staan, maar de enorme ...

... on a wallaby. Don't get to say that sentence too many times in your life do you? In case you don't know, a wallaby is basically like a kangaroo but smaller. Kangaroos are enormous and can even be six feet tall. Chances are what you pictured a Kangaroo to be, is more like a wallaby. Well, yes we saw one today and I wanted to take a picture so I crept up on it and it let me get pretty close. Eventually it hopped away and I didn't get a very good photo. After it lept ...

... here, I stayed with Merle, a local servas hosts who showed me around the area, took my to play group at her daughters kindergarten and introduced me to meat pies; my first meat pie since arriving in NZ 8 months ago (meat pies are a specialty in NZ and Oz). Friday, I am off to my next farm stay about 3 hours eats of Melbourne. Here,at Siroka Park Quarter Horsesi will visit with Colleen and Mark and hopefully learn as much about Quarter horses as I can handle.