Garden watering continued unabated. When would we get some decent rain?
However, the warm and dry summer weather had resulted in a bumper harvest for John’s first Bendigo tomato crop.
From this…
Every couple of days there was another basket full. We ate chilled tomato soup, tomato salads of various descriptions and complexity. I froze containers of tomato soup and bags of chopped tomatoes for later use. And still they came…. John does have a tendency to get carried away in front of nursery plant displays…
Back in October, there had been no obvious places in the kitchen area to put the two freezers that moved here with us: one upright, one chest. My solution then had been by a power point in the garage. By early summer it had become clear that the less insulated garage was going to be too hot a place to keep a working freezer or two. The upright was moved to the laundry.
I’d had hopes that we might dispense with the chest freezer altogether. The scale of the tomato harvest, though, saw it pressed back into use. Although I didn’t like the visual of it residing in the dining part of our big living area, couldn’t see another option. We got used to it.
The apricot tree, that was here when we moved in, presented us with a surprisingly large crop of fruit. Large, plump, totally delicious apricots. Of course, they all ripened at once, so batches of cooked apricots found their way to a freezer.
We looked forward to the crop from the peach tree – a larger tree than the surprisingly abundant apricot. But – much disappointment, and a new encounter… Fruit fly. We had not had these pests in our plum and fig trees in Melbourne. The peaches ripened, but when we started to pick them, we found that, despite a normal outward appearance, inside was rot – and maggots. Not a single untouched peach could be found. We picked the whole lot, put them in black garbage bags and left these sitting in the sun for a week, before consigning the lot to the rubbish collection.
Research was needed on how to prevent fruit fly infestation next season.
We continued regular sampling of local eateries, trying to choose a new place once a month, whilst still returning to those that were fast becoming favourites.
Friend M returned this month for another week long visit.
We decided to try out an hotel not visited before, but which I had read good reviews about. This venue was fairly centrally located in an older, hillier, part of town. Alas, there was no parking area dedicated to the hotel and we found ourselves cruising the nearby streets, which seemed to go at all angles, looking for a place to squeeze in the car, that was also not too far to walk.
Judging by some of the substantial older homes lining the streets here, this had been an area favoured by the more affluent, back in the golden era. In the strange juxtaposition that one finds in Bendigo, less than a block away had been a major gold mine – the Hustlers Reef Mine. Begun in 1865 and operational until 1921, this mine was dug to a kilometre deep, and its workings extended outwards for three kilometres under Bendigo. There are still some twenty kilometres of its tunnels down there – and this is just one of the many mines that was located along the Bendigo reefs.
Bendigo might be known as the City in the Forest, but it is also the city sitting on top of an extensive honeycomb of tunnels and mine workings, for the most part inadequately mapped. This is not a concept that I like to examine too closely
These days, the Hustlers Reef mine site features an interesting heritage walk and is a living memorial to the many miners who died in mining accidents in the Bendigo mines – some 2000.
A few days earlier, I had phoned and made dinner bookings – more as a courtesy thought, at the time, than from expecting the place to be crowded out. How wrong was I? It was absolutely packed. The tables were closely clustered together and the noise level was high. I was amazed. The reviews had been good, but not to warrant these crowds. Then the penny dropped – it was 14 February – bloody St Valentine’s Day! Obviously an occasion strongly celebrated around here.
The food – when it eventually came – was enjoyable enough. It did seem that the kitchen was overwhelmed by the numbers, though, as it took well over an hour from when we ordered to when we got the first of our meals. They didn’t come together. John’s was the last to arrive, by which time I’d finished mine – and I’m a slow eater. I was less than impressed and doubted whether we would return.
In the gold mining period of the last part of the 1800’s, there were over 90 licensed premises in and around Bendigo. Today, about 40 remain operating. If the traveller – or new resident – thinks there are a lot of pubs in Bendigo – there are! It certainly means one is spoiled for choice for great pub counter meals.
What seemed to be an excessively hot summer continued to keep us confined indoors for much of the daytime hours.
I rose early most days, in order to water the recently planted shrubs, plus the pots brought from our old home. With permanent water restrictions in place for the area, watering with sprinklers or fixed systems was confined to the hours between 6pm and 10am the next morning. Quite adequate times, I thought, and justifiable considering the city’s past water history and the fact that central Victoria, north of the Great Dividing Range is drier than the south. Bendigo’s average rainfall is 510mm, or 20 inches on the old scale, whereas in our previous outer eastern area of Melbourne averaged around 800 mm or 33 inches. Quite a marked difference.
From the 1850’s, the issue of supplying water to the goldfields’ growing population had been addressed in various ways, some of them advanced for the times. The Loddon and Campaspe Rivers, to the west and east of the growing town, were obvious water sources and pipeline systems were built. For a while, it could be argued that Bendigo was better supplied than parts of Melbourne.
As with most of the State, the Millennium Drought, from 1997-2009, severely strained the Bendigo water supply system, with the relevant water storages dropping to 4% capacity amid real fears that drinking water would run out altogether, the city had an extended period of Stage 4 water restrictions, meaning that the piped household supply could only be used for cooking, domestic cleaning and hygiene. No watering of gardens or lawns. Clearly, gardens suffered. An earlier photo of our new house, shows a row of Westringia bushes along the front garden, which no longer exist. I assume they were casualties of the big dry.
Front garden before the worst of the drought impact
Another legacy of those drought years has been the decline of grass lawns – on nature strips in the newer suburbs and in domestic gardens – and replacement with, mostly, gravel and stones. Makes much more sense in a semi-arid environment, in terms of water conservation, although it could be argued that grassed areas reduce temperatures. I’m happy to stick with the stone mulched surfaces, and plants lots of shrubbery to counter any heat sink effects.
Gravelled nature strips
John, of course, was very happy with our stone mulched surfaces – no grass to mow! In that respect, he had not really been thinking things through, before our move, and had duly included our two lawn mowers and the whipper snipper in the transferred belongings. Since then, the penny had dropped and this month he advertised and sold these totally redundant machines.
I was pleased to find out that a response to the big drought had been the completion of a water pipe line linking the Goulburn River system to the Bendigo water supply, providing greater water security for the time being.
So, no complaints from me about getting up early to ensure my watering was done.
When we inspected the new house, back in July, the various deciduous trees were, of course, bare. By the time we moved in, spring had well and truly arrived and along with it, a new crop of greenery on said trees. This included what turned out to be five moptop trees planted at the front. These were not a specimen I had encountered before, but seemed quite popular in these parts. Frankly, they are not an ornamental tree I would plant, for preference.
The moptop closest to the street seemed very tardy in putting out its new shoots. At first, not knowing anything about them, we thought this might be normal variation, but it eventually became obvious that it was deceased. We decided it should come out and be replaced – but not with a moptop.
John was confident he could manage the tree removal himself – after all, he had tackled bigger trees at our old home, over the years. He was younger then, though! And had also been able to use the winch on the old Landrover in one lot of tree felling and root system removal. (Complete with very large European wasp nest, but that is another story. )
John’s genius solution to loosening the dead tree was to set up a winch between the brick pillar containing the mailbox and the tree. The winch would be gradually tightened, and the tree would be pulled to one side and eventually pulled out. That was the theory… In practice, the moptop proved the immovable object. The mailbox pillar separated from brick fence beside it and began to move. At that point, tree removal was abandoned for the time being…
The first couple of months of our tree change had seen a steady stream of family and friends coming from afar to inspect our new abode, and reassure themselves that we had not departed from common sense in what we had done. The majority seemed impressed and satisfied that we had, in fact, improved our lifestyle.
There was a house for sale further along our street. Rather smaller than ours, though of a similar vintage, John and I decided it would be ideal for friend M. All we had to do was convince her to follow our exodus from the big smoke. She seemed slightly interested. We would continue with the campaign…
My birthday fell on a Sunday in December. The weekend seemed a great opportunity to have a party and for the family to get together, pre-Xmas. Our outdoor living area was still a great novelty for us, and this would be a chance to put it to the sort of use for which it was intended. My son and his family would come from Melbourne, as would one step daughter, holidaying there from Broken Hill, as well as M. It had been at least a decade since we had all been together at that time of year, family gatherings on Xmas Day having fallen casualty to separations, both familial and geographic. Melbourne grandson completed primary school this month, so that was something else to celebrate, although to me those seven years had passed too quickly.
The house would be full, all bedrooms occupied, with a couple of grandchildren sleeping on temporary beds in my study. I begged M to bring her Troopy, so she could camp out in the sideway.
Eventually we would have a large wooden table on the patio for such occasions, but John had not yet built same, so we trotted out an assortment of camping tables – our own and those of various family members. It was a case of byo chairs too.
M and I worked hard for a couple of days, preparing a feast of seafood, salads, cold meats, fruit salad and trifle, for the Saturday gathering.
The Sunday morning saw the early breakfast and departure of those who had stayed, with the exception of M. Daughter had planned a special event for us, as my birthday present.
She collected us from home and drove us to the Fortuna Villa, for a tour followed by high tea.
High Tea
I had not heard of Fortuna Villa, and only knew the history of Bendigo in very general terms. The history of the gold rushes in Australia, as taught in schools and universities, seemed to focus almost exclusively on Ballarat, ignoring the rich and often complex histories of places like Bendigo. Today’s tour was to be enlightening. It involved so much, and was so engrossing that it warrants a separate blog entry of its own.
Fortuna Villa
Suffice to say that ,after it, we rebooked to do it all again, around the time of Mothers Day, next year, but to bring John along too as there was much about the place that would interest him.
High Tea at Fortuna Villa
It was quite a wonderful birthday.
We had a very festive Xmas Day lunch at daughter’s place. There were eight of us – daughter, partner, the two boys, partner’s parents and us. Partner and mother had spent the previous day preparing an extensive traditional Xmas feast. Unfortunately, somehow, in the midst of their preparations, they had managed to explode a large bottle of soft drink – over ceiling, benches and their contents, walls. The cleanup had apparently taken some hours!
I contributed, at daughter’s request, one of my trifles.
It was a lovely change from our Xmas lunches in recent times, when there was usually only John and me. We pottered off home in the late afternoon, and only felt like a very light evening meal.
An unexpected bonus of the move here was the discovery of a set of friendly neighbours on one side of us. This slightly younger couple had only moved into their home a few weeks before us, so we had that in common for starters. We quickly developed the pattern of going to each others’ places once or twice a week for Happy Hour.
They were caravanners as we had been, owning a rather large and heavy offroad van that they kept at a local storage place. We talked travel and places been.
Another pattern that quickly developed was going out for meals with this couple, almost on a weekly basis. It was definitely new for John to be happy to eat out and within a month or two we’d had more such meals than we’d had in at least two decades in Melbourne!
There was no shortage of wonderful places to dine in Bendigo – and all within less than a twenty minute drive from home. So many pubs doing great counter meals…The one at Marong quickly became a favourite, as did the local Prattys Patch, housed in a wonderful old stone building dating from the gold heyday period. Daughter took us to one of her favourites, the National, on the edge of the CBD.
Historic Prattys Patch
We sampled very good Thai food at a city centre restaurant. The Malayan Orchid also in town, provided excellent meals on special occasions – and between us all, there were going to be plenty of those.
Obviously, with the strong Chinese heritage in Bendigo, dating from the gold rushes, there was no shortage of really good Chinese dining places, so we had some of those we wanted to try.
I soon had a big list of eating venues to trial. Exciting!
John found an online market place site and immediately advertised our lawnmower and whipper snipper, Rather surprisingly, these sold quickly. He was quite gleeful to see them go.
Bus came home from aunty’s place to the new house, where it was driven down the driveway beside the house and parked in front of John’s shed. Some pittosporum hedging had to be heavily trimmed first. There was not a great deal of clearance on either side, and the fact that said driveway was angled around the corner of the garage, made this exercise rather harder than it needed to be.
Had a tradesman come in and measure the area in front of the shed to have a carport extension built onto it. For the first time since we bought it in 2012, Bus would eventually be under shelter. But it would not be built until the new year. The new roof would be gabled, with a central high peak – to accommodate the height of the air-con unit that was so nearly scraped off a few weeks ago.
Only a few days after Bus had been parked in front of the shed, John realized it would have to be moved again, in order to extricate the trailer, which had been parked off to one side of it. Admirable forward planning demonstrated here! The trailer still contained several large and very heavy timber slabs that John had moved from Melbourne on it. These were destined to make large table tops and the like and needed to be stored in the shed. We needed the trailer to collect some mulch for the garden, and take some packing remnants to the tip.
I started the process of reversing Bus back down the driveway, with John directing from outside. This method had worked when our old van had needed reversing, but we’d never quite mastered it with the Bus, as John had usually reversed it in caravan parks. I couldn’t work out which way he wanted me to turn the steering wheel and it didn’t seem he was that sure, either! I did make some progress backwards, very stop and start, but was soon ordered out and John completed the tight reversing through the side gates and around the house corner to the street.
On the cement of the drive at the front of the house, there were now some curvy rubber patterns, which demonstrated how many times Bus had been inched back and forth to get round the angle.
I suggested that we should maybe try reversing Bus back up the drive, when it was time to put it back, after the trailer was unloaded and taken out, which might make it easier to drive out next time. For some totally illogical reason, it did turn out to be easier to do, that way. Couldn’t really work out why – it didn’t change the size of the driveway!
John decided that, to make Bus entry and exit even easier, another task for the new year would be to remove the low brick fence at the front of the block, along with some garden there, and relocate the mailbox, thus creating a straight driveway.
The obstacles to a straight entry to the side driveway…
Had work done by an electrician recommended by family – having these local contacts really helps. John wanted some extra power points and a safety cut out in his shed. We had decided to instal some extra ceiling fans in the house; there were already fans out on the patio, and in the main bedroom. We wanted them in every room. Bought the fans online and had the recommended electrician instal them.
Arranged for another recommended local tradesman to instal blockout blinds on sun exposed windows and doors at the back and western side of the house. These would help keep the place cooler in summer and in winter reduce heat loss through the glass expanses.
Had both the air conditioning and the gas heating checked and serviced by yet another tradie, because we had no way of knowing when these were last done.
We both noticed and commented to each other that the tradesmen up here were different to those we’d encountered over the years in Melbourne – much more friendly, obliging, punctual and generally helpful. It made for a really refreshing change. They seemed cheaper too.
I was itching to start work on the gardens, which had potential to be so much nicer. Started research into what native plants grew best in the conditions of Central Victoria, and which would be most bird attracting.
There was already a raised up rectangular garden bed in the yard, which we assumed had been used for vegie growing. A real estate photo I’d found, dating from 2008, showed this already in existence, but fringed with rosemary bushes which were now gone. That was only about four years after the house was built, and whilst the area was still severely drought affected. From this photo, I suspected that the central gravelled area, shown with a garden seat, had originally been meant to contain lawn, but water shortages and restrictions had changed plans.
John soon had this long bed dug over and filled with tomato seedlings.
Back garden as it was in 2008, with raised bed on right
After less than a month here, we were already feeling oriented. Had undertaken the essential task of finding a new GP doctor. Daughter had put our names down at the clinic she attended, but when John discovered that they did not bulk bill, he took himself off to find one that did. Our brilliant Melbourne dentist had given us a recommendation of a Bendigo one. Family recommendations led me to a good podiatrist. Our little village settlement had a Post Office, bakery, chemist, small supermarket and a very good fish and chip shop. John already knew where Bunnings was, from times he’d visited on our travels. A city the size of Bendigo has quite a choice of major supermarkets – no problems there. It was harder, however, to find specialist food retailers – fresh fruit and vegies, fish, in particular. The place where we bought ourselves a new gas barbeque recommended a butcher, who turned out to stock excellent meats. I eventually found a small fresh seafood shop; it opened only a few days each week, but met my needs beautifully.
We visited the central branch of the Goldfields Library – impressive – and took out memberships. I spent some time browsing their local history collection – Bendigo has a much more complex and fascinating history than I had realized.
Exploring our new home city, and starting the process of settling in, was great fun in itself. Well, mostly… by the end of November John had changed bowls clubs. Another new uniform…
Packed up to make the trip back across the Divide to the eastern suburbs. Left sat 11am.
If one had to pick the most inconvenient time for the agent to call about a house sale detail, it would, of course, be as I was trying to navigate John around the edge of central Bendigo. I had to ask him to give us half an hour and then call back. In the brief moments I was talking, John managed to take a wrong turn!
Help – which one goes to Heathcote?
Stopped at the very accessible Caltex servo on the edge of Heathcote, for fuel. $1.499cpl.
I was quite relieved when we reached home again, uneventfully. John had chosen not to put the Stop Leaks into the radiator ahead of the trip and I’d been a little on edge the whole of the time driving, that the leak might get worse and strand us on the highway somewhere.
Next time Bus makes this trip, it will have a new radiator.
Our new home has a driveway at the side, where Bus would fit – having a place to put it was one of the pre-requisites we had. We also had the option of storing it in a large shed on the Bendigo property of a family member – that might be the easier option. To be decided.
Even more exciting – once we are moved and settled in – areas across the north of the State, and beyond, are going to be more easily accessible for trips with Bus.
We had a goal to explore the length of the Murray, from Corryong to Lake Alexandrina. Whilst we had visited some places along the river, the idea of such a trek really appealed. Hopefully in 2019? Then there is the Barossa Valley of SA, the Fleurieu Peninsula…lots more places to go…
Having come to spend a few days house hunting, the rest of the time was now a bit of an anti-climax.
Come to think of it that also describes the next three months!
We had some paper work to complete. Went and found Bunnings and had a browse. Yes, it was big and diverse enough to suit John well.
The new house had a lovely large, roofed outdoor living area. We would need to buy a BBQ after the move, so had a look at the ones on offer there. John was interested in looking at the range of portable pizza ovens, rather than build another like he had at the old home.
What will we be able to do with this?
Caught up with the family, briefly, after school and work hours. Daughter was, of course, so excited that we had found a house and confessed later to doing some drives past to peer at it, being frustrated that she could not see much from the street.
A lovely part of staying at the Marong park was the sound from frogs in the adjacent paddock, where there was a dam and swampy area. It was a loud amphibian chorus for much of our time there.
Our first house inspection was scheduled for 10am, so we needed to get going at an earlier than usual hour. This meant we were up at 8am, and encountered a first for us. In all our years of camping, caravanning and Coastering, had never before had our hose from the water tap freeze solid! A drip from the attachment at the tap end had frozen into a long, solid icicle. We were lucky that the hose itself had not split.
John phoned the agent for the house we had primarily come to see, to find out what new time had been arranged for our inspection. It seemed the message John had left for him had not been passed on, and the sellers had, over the weekend, accepted an offer. That was possibly a pity for us, and definitely for them, because two potential buyers might well have pushed up the price they got. I was disappointed because the place had certainly seemed interesting.
That left us with two arranged inspections, plus an address of another place found online that John wanted to drive past and look at; this one was being sold by the owner – no agent. All three were properties John had found online – even though they did not match the parameters he had earlier given me for such searching.
The first home – at 10am – was in the Maiden Gully area we both liked. The agent was the same man who had conducted the Open For Inspection we’d attended, earlier in the year – that had shown us what an owner should not do at such events. In this case, the owners were departing as we arrived, so we could look around in the agent’s presence, without them watching us.
I loved the place. The house ticked most of my boxes: modern, light, spacious, the right number of rooms. I’d have preferred wood floors instead of the tiles, but John tended to prefer tiles. It was on a fairly standard block in what had obviously been a housing estate some years before. All the houses along the street looked to be a similar age. This meant that the neighbours on each side were actually closer than those we had at Mt Evelyn – supposedly a real no-no for John. But he really liked it too, perhaps especially because he had found it online, rather than me. Of course, it had a large shed – imperative for him.
We left the agent and went driving to the fringes of Maiden Gully, where John wanted to drive past a place that was on a larger block, with a couple of large sheds and garage detached from the main house. The sheds were the attraction for him. It was more rural here, than suburban, with undeveloped land around and bush nearby. The fencing around the block was only a couple of strands of wire – not great to contain a dog. Fortunately, from my point of view, as soon as we drove past John decided it was not what he had in mind.
Our second agent led inspection was in the northern suburb of White Hills. Again, John had been attracted by the large block – room to build a large shed to supplement smaller ones already in place. Initially, he was quite tempted by this place. There was a large, older house at the front of the large block and he saw the potential to live in this whilst sub-dividing the block and building a new, better house on the back half – which had been part of the ad that caught his eye originally.
The house was quite strange. An original garage had been turned into the main living room, still complete with bare cement floor. The original passage to the bedrooms had been sealed off – why was unclear – so one had to walk through the kitchen and laundry to reach these. The laundry also contained the kitchen’s pantry. It was all a bit ramshackle.
Fortunately, John decided sub-dividing and building would all be too much hassle. I was so grateful that he’d dismissed the possibility, because the house was decidedly unattractive.
After a very quick discussion, we parked at the Bendigo Botanic Gardens in White Hills, phoned the first agent and put in an offer on the Maiden Gully house. It was not much lower than the asking price, because we had really loved the place, but was more the token initial offer one makes, expecting to then haggle a bit.
In our favour was that we would have the purchase money without needing to wait on obtaining finance. Against us was the fact that we would not be able to complete a purchase until mid October.
Took Couey and went for a walk in the very attractive Gardens. The freezing morning had turned into a beautiful sunny day, though it was not as warm as the sun suggested.
Botanic Gardens
Waiting – hoping – to hear from the agent, we couldn’t think of much else to do but to drive back to Maiden Gully, where John had noticed a bakery in the small cluster of shops there. Late lunch A pie and pasty for him, an egg and lettuce roll for me. We sat in the car, in the carpark, eating these – then the phone rang. The agent…
Our offer had been accepted. Just like that, we had a home to move into – three and a half months down the track. Apparently, the long period until settlement really pleased the sellers, who were going to build a new and smaller place, and so would have to rent a temporary home for a shorter time.
This would be ours…
It felt great to have that sorted out, and in just the area of Greater Bendigo that I really wanted to live – and at a price that would not break our budget.
We didn’t even have to go see the agent – all would be dealt with electronically.
We cruised back past “our place”, and then back to the caravan park.
It felt like we should be having some sort of celebratory festive dinner. The reality was that, after the late bakery lunch, all we wanted was a tin of soup and some biscuits and cheese.
Another freezing night was forecast. John disconnected the water hose as a precaution.
We didn’t leave home until 11.30. This unhurried departure was because the weather forecast had predicted fog, so we would give it time to burn off – in theory. In practice, the day was sunny with blue skies and just a little cloud.
As we headed up the Great Dividing Range from Yarra Glen, the driver remarked “Where’s all that fog you were talking about?” Answer – as we topped the Range – “Up ahead.”
There’s the fog…
We descended into thick mist that persisted almost all the way to Bendigo. It actually made the drive, that we had done so many times before, very pretty and different.
Took a lunch break at Yea, where John bought himself a pie and pastie. I only wanted a coffee. I walked Couey around whilst waiting for John to come back from the bakery. It was bloody cold!
Still misty beyond Seymour
Lunch over, it was back on the road for the familiar run through Seymour to Heathcote, where my coffee lunch necessitated a comfort stop.
The drive around the fringe of the Bendigo CBD was easy in the light Sunday traffic. Arrived at Marong just after 3pm.
Back into the Marong Holiday Park – our favourite. After discount, paid $34.20 a night for our powered site – the en-suites had been booked out. The very helpful man who checked us in suggested that – at this time of year – we’d be better off on one of their mulched sites, rather than grass. We took his advice. The site allocated was actually two sites, which meant that we could drive straight through onto it – and that we had plenty of room. It was in the closest row to the camp kitchen and amenities, so we could not really have asked for more.
The night was forecast to be a really cold one. I had an old sheet and mattress protector in the Terios and used those to cover the outside front and rear windows of the car. I didn’t fancy having to scrape off ice in the morning.
Inside Bus, I put up the solar screens onto the front and side front windows, for insulation. This was a fiddly job, even after I detached the GPS and tyre monitor from the front window. The camera that lived up behind the rear vision mirror made it impossible to slide the screen right up to the top there, so it tended to come unstuck again. I needed several attempts, all crouched up like a contortionist, to make it stick,
Dog was not impressed. At night, she liked to sleep curled up on the front passenger seat where she could look out the windows and “guard” Bus from the marauding rabbits. It was not so much fun when she couldn’t see out.
It was nice and warm inside Bus, with the little electric fan heater going. However, it was a shock to the system to venture outside, whenever Couey indicated a call of nature. We are going to have to get used to the colder winter nights of Central Victoria.
This Adventurous Age 