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…
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.
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.
We left the caravan park at 9.45am for the return trip home.
Marong en-suite site
It was the Thursday before Easter, so we were expecting the meet the usual exodus of traffic from Melbourne.
Only a couple of hundred metres from the park, a loud alarm sounded. After the usual “what’s that” panic, worked out that it was the tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) we’d installed a few years back. I had wanted it so we could monitor the tyres on the Terios when it was being towed behind Bus. John had put sensors on the Bus too, but they’d caused all sorts of problems and had been abandoned, with John telling me it was all a waste of money. Today, he conceded that the system had proved its worth! Without it, we would probably have ruined an almost new tyre on the Terios, and had it blown out, may have damaged the car as well.
A rear tyre on the Terios – that he had suspected a while ago of having a slow leak – was registering 15 instead of the required 26.
We found a place to safely park beside the road and John got set up to re-inflate the tyre: new air compressor out and attached to Terios battery, assorted hoses and gauges all came into play.
Unfortunately, the label on the part that attached to the tyre was in French. John belongs to the operating style that resorts to instructions only after all else has failed. In this case, he couldn’t even read the instructions!
The air compressor ran noisily. Eventually he realized that the tyre was deflating further, not going up. More fiddling about ensued, while compressor ran on. John tried applying different end bits to the hose – most of which didn’t seem to fir anything we could see. Maybe there are different standard sizes in France? The bargain portable compressor was not looking such a bargain, right about now.
Eventually he gave up and we proceeded to change the now very flat tyre for the spare. We’d never had reason to use the Terios jack before and discovered that it was a tedious little piece of gear that took forever to wind up, half a turn at a time. Ditto to wind down again, after the wheel change.
It was 11.30 when we got going again. Nearly two hours taken….some frayed tempers….
Driving towards home, we discussed keeping a bottle style jack in Terios – much faster to use. John promised to sort out the operation of the air compressor – before it was needed again! I thought back to the built in air compressor that we’d fitted to the old Defender, with its reserve air tank, and wondered if there was room somewhere in the Terios to get one of those? Over the years, we’d had ample practice at using the Defender one.
After Heathcote, we began passing lots of oncoming traffic, as holiday makers headed north for Easter. The effects of slower caravans on the traffic was obvious, especially when there were several in line. At times, there would be a tail back of vehicles for more than a km. This was particularly bad in the stretch between Seymour and Yea, where there are mots of bends and few places to overtake. We were pleased to be going the other way.
By the time we were going over the Divide and down towards Yarra Glen, it was mid afternoon and the oncoming traffic was quite constant.
Stopped as usual at Glenburn to refuel, where there was easy access. $1.347cpl.
In our street, we went through the usual routine of stopping by our drive to unhitch the car on the flat, before taking Bus up into the sloping parking bay.
When I went to start the car to put it away…nothing! Dead lights and a slight groan from the starter. I cursed the bloody air compressor – and John for running it off the car battery for so long while he fiddled about with hoses and fittings. Clearly, it had pretty well flattened the battery, and whatever juice had been left had probably expired while being towed, with the Accessories function having to be on so the steering is unlocked. However, this alone should not have been a problem – we have towed the car like that all day, at times, and the battery has been fine.
So – call to the RACV. By the time they arrived we had Bus unpacked and most stuff put away in the house. The service man got the engine running, but his checks showed the battery was now on its last legs, so we bought a new one from him. The old one had been in the car when it was bought in 2012, and I didn’t know how old it was then, so couldn’t really complain.
Quite a few lessons learned today!
Dog oblivious to the dramas…
Just to cap it all off, when I first opened the house, there was a dove flying around inside! It was rather frantic to get out and eventually flew out one of the doors I opened – but not before leaving assorted feathers and other mementoes behind. Judging from those leavings, it had been inside for days and perching mostly on the top rail of the vertical blinds in the family room. Luckily for it, there had been a bowl of dog water in that room. I remembered that I’d arranged for friend M to come last weekend to fill the bird baths, water the pot plants plants and pick herself a good quantity of the figs ripening on our tree. Turned out she;d forgotten to bring a bag for the figs, and used her house key to come in and get one, leaving the house open while she picked fruit. The bird must have decided to explore then and become shut in – four days ago.
We spent our week here exploring the Bendigo region, getting a feel for the areas we might like to live.
Bendigo began as the scene of gold rushes, in the 1850’s. Mining followed the creeks and gullies. Other facilities, such as police encampments, early shops, grew up around the mining areas, in an ad-hoc way. As the nature of the mining changed from the alluvial, easily found shallow gold to the deeper reef embedded gold, so the growing settlement became aligned to the NW-SE trend of the gold bearing reefs. Little “suburbs” emerged, separated by big tracts of mines and huge mullock heaps, amongst them Sailors Gully, California Gully, Long Gully, Ironbark, Golden Square, Kangaroo Flat, Deborah Triangle. Even today, most of the older suburbs of Bendigo have vacant ground between them, occupied by mining heaps and regenerated bushland around old mines.
The suburbs of Bendigo
The central business area of Bendigo grew apiece, north and east of the main mining areas, and with a more orderly layout. The massive wealth generated by gold mining is evidenced by the beautiful, ornate old buildings dating from the later 1800’s, that make the present day city centre so interesting.
In more recent times, there have been some housing estates built on infill sites in some of the older mining suburbs, like Golden Square, but mostly development has simply occurred on the outer fringes and moved progressively outwards, leapfrogging the old waste ground and pockets of State Forest. The effect of this is strangely attractive.
The newer, leafier outer suburbs appealed most. We wanted a modern house, for starters. Although there were housing developments close in, like in Golden Square, our preference was to avoid the areas that might sit on top of old mining tunnels. That was something we both agreed on, along with John’s need for a large shed, and a place to park the Bus. Beyond that, we differed. John had visions of acreage, fruit trees, chooks, big vegie gardens, no neighbours within cooee. Suburban and manageable featured in my dreams.
That’s MY bed!
During the week we cruised in all directions around Bendigo, drove past some of the properties advertised in the local paper. We were debating whether to buy land and build, or purchase a pre-loved home, so visited a couple of estates and sets of display homes.
We even attended one Open for Inspection in the Maiden Gully suburb. We were the only attendees. I loved the modern, large, light-filled home, but there was only a small shed and no place to park Bus. However, the experience was instructional in that the lady owner was present through the whole time and clearly hampered the presentation of the place by the real estate agent, and made us feel quite self-conscious. After, we resolved that, when our place was being inspected, we would make ourselves totally scarce.
Despite that, we both liked Maiden Gully, which still had a “bushy” feel and where there were frequent sightings of pairs of Eastern Rosellas flying about.
Had a very pleasant meal one evening, with daughter and family, at the nearby Marong Hotel, which did really interesting food. Their Fishermans Basket was very generous – fish, a couple of prawns cooked in charcoal infused panko crumbs, scallops, the tenderest calamari, chips and salad. Delicious and more than I could eat. The pork belly pizza that another member of the group had was innovative, and, apparently, good eating.
One morning there was a really unusual and threatening cloud formation across the sky, not like anything I’d seen before.
Threatening sky over Marong
Eventually, there was a little rain.
Will it rain?
From the park location by the Calder Highway, what really stood out was the sheer volume of truck traffic. The park itself was set far enough back from the road for the traffic noise to be there in the background but not intrusive. At night, from Bus, we had an outlook across a paddock to the highway and the constant procession of lit-up semi trailer trucks. Yet, there was a railway line through Marong to parts north and west. In the week, we neither saw nor heard any rail traffic. This State so needs to re-examine its infrastructure priorities which seem to be almost exclusively focussed on Melbourne and building yet more freeways and tunnels for road traffic.
Overall, the week was useful in firming up some ideas and helping John realize the variety of localities of the city.
The journey followed our usual route from the eastern suburbs: through Yarra Glen, Yea to Seymour. For once, John negotiated the Yarra Glen roundabouts without taking a wrong exit.
We needed a brief stop at Yea in order to tape shut the fridge door which had yet again opened of its own volition. Really do need to sort out some sort of better fastener for it.
Just after Yea came up behind a Victorian registered Galaxy caravan. One of those drivers who travelled slowly where there were double white lines, then speeded up as soon as there was any possible passing area. He didn’t have decent side mirrors either, so maybe simply drove without taking any notice of what might be behind him.
Lions Park Seymour
A late lunch stop at the Seymour Lions park saw dog disgrace herself, yet again. She has the ability to unerringly find pools of muddy, stagnant water, from a great distance. John’s faith that she will come back when called was again unfounded. Actually, she did come back – eventually. He had let her off the lead to have a ball chase and use up some energy. She took the opportunity to wallow in the only puddle in the otherwise dry creek. Wet, muddy, totally happy, very smelly dog resulted.
Dog in disgrace
The country was very dry. We saw almost no livestock. It had been a long time since there had been useful rain in central Victoria. We would perhaps not be seeing the Bendigo area at its best, but that could be a good thing as dry conditions are more the norm than the rule in those parts.
Dry country
Leaving so late meant that we caught the tail end of the school traffic as we followed the GPS dictated route through Bendigo, which basically just skirted the edge of the CBD. If this was what passed for heavy traffic up here, I’d take it any day. Around Bayswater and Lilydale it would be considered light!
We set up at the Marong Caravan Park where we had stayed before. Marong is kind of an outer suburb of Bendigo these days, with some new housing estates being built.
I had not been able to secure an en-suite site for the whole week, so our first three nights were spent on a very pleasant powered site, actually two sites being treated as one large drive-through site. It was close to the amenity block and the excellent camp kitchen and there was plenty of room for dog on her tether rope. It was relatively easy, after that, to relocate to an en-suite site for the next four nights. Our week cost $264.60, after discount.
On site at Marong
The park was increasingly busy in the lead-up to the Easter break. This provided us with some interesting spectating.
There were several caravans of brands I’d not seen before, including one new-looking off-road style van, predominantly bright orange in colour. It would certainly be hard to discreetly camp in the bush in that one – no blending in with the surroundings. On the other hand, it would be hard to get lost, coming back from the loo in a caravan park…
We watched one caravanner who had to go negotiate a change in site, because he didn’t feel able to back his 24 foot van onto the site he’d been allocated. I thought it was a perfectly adequate site. His next one was not much different and he had to enlist the help of one of the park staff to get onto that.
Another new arrival, onto a drive-through site, cut the corner too finely and his van had a too-close encounter with some tree branches.
Then there was the very new-looking large caravan, with a slide-out extension at the side. The owner obviously wanted to maximize their outside living space, so parked right at the side of his site, before extending his slide-out. It was just bad luck for other park patrons that this then blocked the adjacent path to the central amenities area. Actually, in the dark, there was a real risk of someone walking into it.
Another new arrival got set up, then insisted that park staff prune some branches from a willow tree that was hanging beside his site – immediately!
The travelling public can really be an ugly beast, some of the time.
Watching these various antics over our time here, had me wondering how many would-be travellers visit the caravan shows and select their new treasure, with lots of interior space, all the bling, and no thought to practicalities like towing the damn thing – and fitting it onto park sites?
After the usual cold night it was hard to get up early, so it was 10.15 by the time we were packed up and leaving the park.
The day was pleasant – getting warmer, with blue sky, but rather hazy. That might be due to the inversion and smoke previously mentioned.
Looking down at our Maryborough camp from the lake walking track
I thought that it would be best to go home the long way, via Bendigo, rather than down the Calder Highway and through the city, which might be quite busy with traffic related to football and other special events happening today. We could tootle up some previously untravelled back roads through Eddington and Lockwood. John agreed with that thinking, so he programmed Marong into the GPS.
The ”lady” instructed us to turn right out of the caravan park. That wasn’t logical, according to the basic town map I had in a tourist pamphlet, so I made John turn left. Then, I worked out that the machine had been going to take us around the town centre – very smart. Oops! I had to apologize to John as he negotiated the surprisingly busy centre of town.
It seemed we had hardly left Maryborough before we were into Carisbrook – almost a suburb. Saw an interesting home there, built from shipping containers. There should probably be more use of these, for all sorts of things as there seem to be a lot sitting around in various places mot be utilized for much. One of our former employers in the NT made quite a reasonable dwelling using a couple of containers. The one at Carisbrook looked like it had been architect designed.
By the time I finished admiring that house, it was evident that the GPS had decreed we were continuing on towards Castlemaine, not the way I’d intended. Perhaps I should regard that gadget as adding extra spice to a trip, as in wondering: where is it taking us now?
The country was different on the eastern side of Maryborough. I could see the occasional volcanic cone in the distance and some paddocks had volcanic rock in. I hadn’t known that the western Victorian volcanic district extended this far to the north.
Saw an old, two-storied substantial bluestone house that would have dated from well over a hundred years ago. Still occupied and cared for – good to see.
This stretch was really interesting to travel. It was quite rich looking land, possibly volcanic soils. There was a lot of cropping evident, but I think it was still grain of some kind, We crossed an arm of Cairn Curran Reservoir – which dams the Loddon River for irrigation and town supply – and could see the cone of Mt Tarrengower in the distance.
Crossed a rail line – defunct, of course, once part of quite a dense rail network serving these agricultural areas. Around the 1970’s the State government shut down so much of Victoria’s country railways, citing cost of upkeep and greater convenience of road trucking. I suspect that, if an honest study was done, the cost of road upgrading and upkeep now far outweighs what rail upkeep would have.
Suddenly, we were in Newstead, where the GPS directed us onto the Maldon road. Ah – now I see its logic! That put us on a road we’d explored last year. I would have preferred a virgin route.
Maldon was busy – maybe there were Sunday markets? We didn’t stop and proceeded out of town and past the old dredge we’d visited last year.
Could clearly smell wood smoke and even see smoke lightly lying in hollows. Such a smoky time of the year. I love wood fires, but have to admit that, in these times, they are not really environmentally friendly.
Stopped at Marong to top up the fuel, at an automatic Express diesel place – where it seemed easier than waiting until we were in Bendigo. But John had immense trouble getting his card to work, knowing which buttons to press, and just how to make it all happen. I didn’t have a clue. Maybe it says something about our world today, when two people who hold post-graduate university qualifications, can’t make a bloody fuel bowser go? John became very cross. He did not want to just up and leave, in case he ended up being charged for $50 worth of fuel he didn’t obtain! Eventually it all happened, though neither of us was quite sure how. Then he was worried that we might be charged twice for one lot of fuel! This is not a fuel stop we will repeat when we are up this way – ever! There are a few servos on the road from Bendigo to Heathcote that offer adequate access for a rig our size. The diesel there was $1.299 cpl.
Negotiating our way on the usual route through Bendigo was not too bad, though I think we struck some Mothers’ Day lunch traffic. It was just after midday as we cleared the central part of that city.
I noticed that, between Derrimal and Heathcote, there were kilometres of dying eucalypts on the roadside verges, and wondered what was causing this.
We stopped for lunch at Heathcote, parking as usual on the side street by the entrance to the oval. This place, too, was quite busy. John took Couey for a walk while I went to the bakery, to spend $28 on coffees, pastie and pie for John, egg and lettuce sandwich for me. The bakery always has a large range of pie types and I chose a chunky steak and pepper pie. John decided it was a bot too chunky! Plain ordinary meat pie for him next time! My sandwich was on grain bread and was stuffed full – yummy.
While we sat at one of the roadside tables, near Bus, we saw a caravanner demonstrating why so many people think badly of the species. This clown – a 4WD towing a big Concept van – drove down the side street, did a U-turn, then drove back towards the main street, passing a couple of long empty spaces where he could have parked. He then pulled in, right at the corner with the highway, almost touching the Give Way sign. He was actually protruding a little way into the intersection, and blocking the crossing from the footpath, so proceeded to reverse, forcing a small car that was parked – legally – behind him, to quickly reverse too, so as not to be hit, That car had been there before the clown arrived. Luckily, there was still a driver in it. All for the sake of saving less than fifty metres of walking distance. Arrogant morons like him give caravanners a very bad image. Unfortunately, we have encountered far too many of them on our travels.
By the time we’d finished our leisurely lunch, mister idiot had departed.
Place where idiot driver parked his rig, right across footpath and poking into highway!
Continued on the usual route home. By now, the day had clouded over. Or maybe it was the smoke polluted air around Melbourne? Near Yea, some of the hill tops just poked out through the haze – looked like they were floating.
Thin line of floating hilltops between the trees
Did not need to stop in Yea, which was its usual Sunday busy.
John decided to top up the fuel at the usual servo at Glenburn, so we would have an almost full tank when we head off on the next trip. Here fuel was 3 cents a litre cheaper than at the best-forgotten Marong place. $1.269 cpl.
We came down the range into the autumn colours of the trees and grapevines around Dixons Creek and Yarra Glen, Very pretty. More smoke haze hanging about.
It will be good when (if?) the Yarra Glen bypass actually gets extended across the Yarra River towards Coldstream. The section of road that currently winds across the river flats and takes both the Coldstream and Lilydale back road traffic, is so slow and tedious. It always seems to have more than its share of impatient and idiot drivers, too.
Reached home at 3.30pm.
The usual fairly quick unpack and sorting things out followed – and a bout of clothes washing.
Trip done, I needed to focus on this week’s appointment with a thyroid surgeon and working out what might be going on with the half gland that remains. Back in 1996, a benign enlargement of half the thyroid – a butterfly-shaped gland that lies across the front of the neck – saw its somewhat difficult removal. The resultant scar drew speculative looks for years after – had things really been so dire that I’d tried to cut my throat? When we’d been travelling in Tasmania, John had been known to tell people that the scar showed my Tasmanian ancestry – it was where the second head had been removed!
Once we know what needs to happen, and get it sorted, can start planning the next trip. Maybe somewhere warmer and drier?
It was certainly a frosty night. The sheets covering the windscreens were quite stiff when removed.
Left the park at 10.10am, having slept later than intended. So easy on these cold mornings to snuggle under the doona and think “just a few more minutes.”
Today was the shared birthday of son and his wife, turning 43 today. I texted them birthday wishes as we drove along. We’d given them their present last Sunday – a two-person dining table they’d wanted John to make for them.
Travelled north west along the Calder Highway. Another advantage of the lovely Marong park was that, for north-west travellers, it was already beyond the Bendigo city traffic and maze of roads.
The day was sunny, with blue sky. Quite pleasant inside Bus.
A lot of the little towns in this region date from the gold rush days of over a century ago and usually have some remaining buildings typical of the consolidation era that followed the immediate rushes. Some towns are doing better than others, these days, though. Clearly, some are capitalizing on tourism through the region.
The Loddon River at Bridgewater on Loddon was very full.
On that town’s outskirts was the array of curved mirrored parabolas of the solar farm. These collected and concentrated solar energy for feed in to the power grid. That, at least was the theory, when this experimental array opened in 2012. It was closed down in 2015, not because the technology was faulty, but because of politicking around issues like feed-in tariffs and renewable energy subsidies. Presumably, it would not take much to get the array working again, if governments and the power businesses could get their acts together. Not for the first time, I reflected that democracies are not the most efficient systems of government.
The array looked like something from outer space. Alien.
The main street of Inglewood had some of the old, two-storeyed buildings that date from the nineteenth century. A claim to fame of this town is being the birthplace of Sir Reginald Ansett, founder of Ansett Airlines, for a long time one of the two main domestic airlines in Australia.
Inglewood
The distilling of eucalyptus oil, from local blue mallee gums, began at Inglewood about a century ago and the area is still a major source of this product, with a museum about it in the town.
There were far too many trucks on the Calder Highway. We really should have a serious campaign to get goods moved by train again. So many roads are deteriorating so quickly. Temporary fixes do little to improve road quality or, indeed, safety. Surely, overall, the costs of our reliance on road transport are so much greater, when one factors in ongoing rates and taxes spent on roads, plus related road deaths and casualties?
On the subject of railways, I decided that I do not like the angled railway crossings of these parts. It is very hard for the driver of a car – let alone a vehicle like our Bus – to check the rail line when it comes in at an acute angle from behind, to the left. There are bells and lights on the crossings along this highway, but even so…
I was on a mission today. My family history research had finally unearthed some information about a rather mysterious great grandfather. He was the only ancestor of that generation about whom I’d been able to find nothing, for several years. He clearly existed, having fathered several children, amongst them my grandfather, but how and when he appeared in Tasmania, whether it was of his free will or otherwise, and ditto disappeared again, had no documentary trail at all, that I could find.
In recent months, I seemed to have found him, with a different surname, as a newly married assisted immigrant to SA, in 1848. The trail next revealed him in gold rush Melbourne, having apparently left wife and children behind in the new settlement of Adelaide, and marrying my grandmother in 1852. Apparently, he was rather flexible with his vital details of name and birthdate, using a couple of variants. Who knows to what extent this was deliberate, or the result of the literacy deficiencies common in those times. I suspect he was well endowed with cunning, though, if not principles.
This second family, now using his middle name as surname, relocated to Tasmania – the young Deloraine area – in the mid 1850’s. But then he disappeared from records there, seemingly in the late 1860’s. My imagination had him amongst the numbers of men who simply disappeared in the often harsh conditions of backwoods Tasmania of those times.
But now I had discovered him, dabbling with gold seeking, bigamy and marrying yet again – back under his original birth name – at Inglewood in the late 1870’s. He died near Wedderburn in 1896.
Mt Korong – mentioned in found recordsof ancestor
I wondered how many of his numerous descendants from the offspring of his three marriages, are aware of the existence of three family lines? I had never heard any talk that suggested the Tasmanian branch knew of same. In fact, no-one ever seemed to know anything much about him, at all.
Today, I wanted to visit the Wedderburn Cemetery, where he and his third “wife” are, according to death records, interred in Plot 160 of the Church of England section. I was hoping for a grave marker, and information, and to photograph the grave.
Wonder if my ancestor walked – or farmed – around here?
We drove straight to the cemetery, out on the Boort road. There was an area where John could park Bus, at the front, so we did that and walked in. In my naivety, assumed I had enough information to find the grave. Located the Church of England section, and we searched every headstone and grave marker in it. Couey free ranged and had a lovely time. There were signs that lots of rabbits roamed here, so she had lots of fascinating smells to follow.
Church of England section
The Wedderburn Cemetery was a lot bigger than I had anticipated!
Only part of Wedderburn Cemetery
I was put out to discover there are no plot numbers on the headstones and grave markers. Nor was there any apparent chronological sequence to sites. Not sure what the cemetery equivalent is of needle in a haystack.
A lot of headstones to read!
Spent about an hour, searching. No mention of Daniel or Annie anywhere that I could see. It got quite hot, and my back began to really hurt. So we did what I should have been smart enough to do, in the first place, and drove back into town, to the Information Centre. The two ladies there seemed a bit disconcerted when I asked if they had a map of the cemetery, but very helpfully phoned the Secretary of the Cemetery Trust, and reported that he would meet us out there. Wonderful service!
Drove back out, and the man arrived soon after. He had the same information as I’d found online, but in original copy format. He explained that Daniel was buried in the “public” section of that area – i.e. for poorer people. That figured! He also explained that his neat map of the layout bore no resemblance the reality on the ground. Really?
Back in 1896, such public section graves were allowed a three foot width and there were not to be any headstones, fences, markers or the like. However, in the intervening hundred plus years, the grave standard moved to a four foot width, and some people began to fence or edge their ancestors’ graves, and put in headstones, encroaching on the neighbouring graves as they did so. The multiplier effects of this account for present confusions.
Our helper knew there was no marker for the grave we sought, but by locating the “neighbours” was able to lead us to a mound of earth that was – probably and approximately – Plot 160.
Great grandad in that central mound? Approximately?
A local historian also arrived, and came to talk to us, giving more information about the general burial practices of the time. There seemed to be a degree of competition between the two men. The Secretary checked his copies of the records and said that Plot 173 had originally been recorded as Daniel’s grave, but that had been crossed out and 160 put in. Who knows what really went on?
So we went to another mound of earth that was approximately 173, nearby. I took photos of both.
Or under this one?
It seemed there was no more information to be gained here – and no helpful headstones.
John arranged to meet the historian at his place, after we’d had some lunch. The man was going to check his files at home to see if he had any further information.
Back in town I walked to a bakery and bought a pie for John and a toasted Mediterranean focaccia for me, and coffees. $23. Very nice lunch, I thought.
The historian was waiting outside his place for us. He had nothing on Daniel, but had found an original death notice for Annie, and a local newspaper write-up of her funeral in 1912. He had records of the graves in the nearby Woosang cemetery, showing a number of people descended from the only child of that third marriage, a daughter.
So, it seemed that I had a number of distant part-cousins living around the Woosang and Charlton areas. With what I now knew about our ancestor-in-common, I doubt they would be interested in meeting me! Given that Daniel’s daughter from his first wife – the one abandoned in SA – had about ten children, there must also be any number of others in SA! All very interesting, but frustrating. Wish I could go back in time and talk with some of these people.
I was really grateful to the two Wedderburn men who gave up their time and tried so hard to help.
Wedderburn
2pm when we left Wedderburn to continue on to Boort. It was a pleasant drive, through sheep and grain growing country, some of it irrigated, which surprised me.
Booked into the Boort Lakes Caravan Park. $35 a night. Our site was excellent – on thick grass, backing on to the Little Boort Lake, and in the centre of a group of about ten such sites. It was not far to a small amenity block – older demountable style one. The main one was a bit further away. We had a shade tree next to us.
The park reminded me, for some reason, of the one at Copi Hollow, near Menindee, in that it mostly consisted of permanent holiday cabins and structures built around caravans, with just a couple of fairly small sections for travellers like ourselves. With a boat launching ramp next door, and a water ski club, the lake was obviously a summer holiday playground for the region. Like Copi Hollow, it was very pleasant in this “off” season, but I would not want to be here in the summer holidays, or at Easter.
Boort Lake
This was a great park for the dog! As the nearby cabins were not occupied, there were plenty of grassy places where we could throw the ball for her. There was a walking path from the park, through adjacent parkland and on around the lake. This was a 3.7km circuit, so the lake was bigger than our local Lilydale Lake. And, of course, there was the water for a splosh about in, whenever sneaky dog could manage it. I got out my supply of dog drying towels!
After set up, drove to the shopping centre, for milk and bananas. Can’t be without the latter, because dog expects at least half a one, each morning. John went of to the hardware store and bought a hair dryer – for use on said dog.
Boort seemed a pleasant little town. IGA supermarket. Newsagent. Hardware store. A couple of hotels, and so on. Their civic provisions were certainly excellent, with tennis courts and a bowls club part of the extensive parkland area.
We sat outside, enjoying the sunshine. Dog “persuaded” John to throw a stick in the water for her to retrieve. Then we had to tie her up in the sun to start to dry. There proved to be no way that hair dryer was going to get anywhere near her. Given her dislike of being air dried at the dog groomers’ I was not surprised. Looked like grand daughter would be receiving an unexpected gift – one hair dryer, surplus to requirements.
This will do very nicely…
A local teenager came past, walking a dog that proved to be a kelpie/koolie cross – beautiful creature and incredibly well trained. Her obedience put our girl to shame. The lass stayed and talked with us for a while – didn’t seem to want to go. When a van pulled on to the next site, she stayed talking with them, too.
After the late lunch, we only wanted soup for tea, so I heated up a tin of pea and ham variety.
The night was chilly, but not as cold as Marong had been.
Inside Bus was really cold, this morning. I turned on the fan heater before getting dressed and taking Couey out for her morning walk around the park. At least, one of us would be emerging into a warm room.
There was ice on the front window of the Terios!
Ice on the car!
After breakfast, texted daughter to say we would not go, as invited, to tea with them tonight, because it was going to be too cold. I said we preferred to stay in and keep Bus warm. Also, there had been preliminary warnings about possible black ice on the roads tonight. She replied that she’d bring the boys out for a while, after school, and that she would also bring us two serves of her spag bol. Nice of her.
John slept late and then spent the day messing about with the laptop, tablet and hot spot stuff. He had a long call with a support person at Telstra. I read, in Bus. It was too chilly to sit outside. Occasionally took Couey for a walk around the park.
Cold day at the caravan park, despite the sunshine
Daughter and boys arrived about 4pm. She came equipped with the boys’ afternoon tea, too, because I don’t have crisps and biscuits stocked in my travelling pantry. We sat outside and chatted while they snacked. Then John took dog and young J up the back for doggy ball games. I chatted with A about his hopes to go on a school trip to Indonesia next year – an incentive for him to keep up the language study.
I mentioned that we were considering going to Boort next, a place we had never visited. Daughter had friends who were the new owners of the caravan park there. She phoned them and booked us in for a good site, for two nights, onto what she said was the best site. The family has one or two weekends there every year, so we were happy to have her arrange our booking.
Pretty callistemon by our site
By 6pm it was really cold again, and time for the family to leave. We walked them up to the car park at the front of the park.
I draped one of the dog bed sheets across the Teriod windscreen, to prevent an ice build up again tonight. John covered up the Bus front windscreen, too.
Tea was the last of the cucumber soup from home, and daughter’s spag bol, which was really nice. She had even brought a little bag of grated parmesan with it!
Watched some TV. It was another freezing night and I was really glad we were in the warm Bus.
Although it was first night back on the Bus beds for a while, we slept well – and until 8.45am, in my case.
There was some sunshine about, although it was still cold.
Marong site
I did the usual morning routine with dog – a walk around the park, on the lead. There were lots of lovely, fresh overnight, rabbit smells to explore. She was meandering along on the lead, nose down and sniffing, when she was rushed at by two madly barking Pom type dogs who came racing out from one of the cabins. They were not on leads. A woman raced out after them, still in her nightie. She was apologetic, but as far as I was concerned, she should not have let them out unchecked, in the first place.
Couey only ever wants to run away from aggressive little dogs, so she was happy to retreat back to Bus, and her breakfast.
Obviously, this park has a cabin available for dog owners. I noticed later, there was a little kennel and a water bowl outside, even after the lady with the little yappers had left. It is really great to see caravan parks begin to cater for dog owners in this way.
It was too chilly to eat breakfast outside. After eating, I read for a while, then started crocheting my newest project – a rug, in autumn tones.
John slept in till about 11am. After his breakfast, he walked Couey up to the back section of the park for an off lead ball chase.
Outlook from our site
My phone had gone flat, again, as it was doing with increasing frequency. Clearly, it needed a new battery. As we were to go meet daughter at her place about 2pm, there was not really time to go chasing all over Bendigo looking for same.
Daughter was having a week of leave – well timed for us. When we arrived, she had just returned from collecting an ailing son from school, apparently with a migraine headache. He was sick and then started to feel better.
The household had a whippet dog, quite a timid little girl. We brought Couey into the back yard to see how the two might get on. After the mandatory sniffing of nether regions, Couey just wanted to explore the yard, with whippet following her around, seeming a bit mystified by this large black creature that had appeared. There was a very secure dog pen in their yard, built because whippet and her now-dead brother were great escape artists in storms. Once we’d gone into the house, Couey wanted in, too, and added her scratches to those already on the sliding door. So it was into the pen for them both. Couey barked and howled.
Left dog in the pen and went with daughter to collect the five year old from school. Daughter had not told either boy we were in town, so us being at the school pick up was meant to be a surprise for young J. However, he spied us through a window and, as soon as he saw his mum, announced to her: “Grandma and Grandad John are here!” As if she didn’t know. Then, he was adamant that we be introduced to his Principal, who was seeing students off, and the boy’s teacher.
We were most impressed that said Principal already knew the boy by name, obviously for good reasons. The school – a different one from where the older lad went – was new, modern and very nice.
Daughter took us to a Telstra shop, which could not help with a new phone battery for me, but suggested a place in the town centre. While we were talking to the Telstra man, little Mr Confident carted John off to look at a games shop. Bought some wine for tonight, then were taken into town to the phone shop, where I was able to get a battery for my Samsung.
Back at daughter’s place, Couey was still barking in protest, but was still in the pen. I hadn’t quite trusted her not to try to climb out.
We had a good look over the caravan the family had bought, before Xmas. We’d had a hand in the purchase because the van, an older Jayco, had been for sale near our home. My son had inspected it, as we had, and pronounced it a fair buy within their limited budget. Every summer, the family spends a month camping at Narrawong, and they do other smaller more local trips through the year. Their tent camping gear had seemed to radically increase each year, especially after the arrival of young J. They’d bought an enclosed trailer to transport it all, but packing, setting up and the like was increasingly onerous. The caravan had been intended to make all that so much easier and had been a success on the most recent summer holiday. They had done a lot of small things to improve the van, and it was these we had to inspect.
Had a very nice meal with the family. A had just about recovered from his migraine. Daughter’s partner came home from work, and her mother came to see us as well. Young J was not going to let his new captive audience of Grandad John get away, without being much read to, and talked to – non-stop. The boy’s reading was most impressive, after only a few months at school, and apparently his understanding of numbers was “freaky”.
Daughter cooked chicken Kiev’s, corn, squashed potatoes, and a very nice tomato, zucchini and cheese bake. There was apple pie for afters, too.
Couey eventually stopped the barking. I think she ran out of voice. I felt a bit mean after the whippet was brought inside and Couey had to stay in the pen. . But the whippet was very quiet and well behaved and just curled up on her bed and stayed there. Couey would have been exploring everywhere and annoyed us – and shed fur too, over their always immaculate house.
We left about 8.30pm – bedtime for school children. It was really cold.
Back at the Bus, the fan heater did not make much headway against the chill that had built up. I went to bed early, to get warm!
That had been a really pleasant afternoon and evening.
This Adventurous Age 