A Beginner's Guide to Bendigo - Chapter 1 View St. and Rosalind Park

It occurred to me as I looked over my blog entries from months past that I haven’t really written anything about Bendigo.  This is an oversight that I really need to remedy.  Also, as my family and I did not travel afar during the last term break I was able to spend a few days driving, walking and generally cavorting throughout this central Victorian city.

Bendigo has a much different feel as you wander through its city centre on a workday compared to the weekends.   For starters you have to pay for parking and all the free parking in the neighbouring blocks is occupied by just after nine, which is not that much different than Calgary (although at a few dollars an hour for leaving your car unoccupied on the street here in Bendigo is much cheaper than Calgary’s exorbitant prices.)

Once you find a place to leave your car, Bendigo has a few interesting sites to ambulate to in town.  The arts district along View St. runs perpendicular, down a hill, and into the city centre.  This takes you along numerous galleries, cafes and shops.  I haven’t spent as much time as I would like exploring some of these galleries and cafes, but from the feedback from locals it is something I should do before leaving.

Situated behind the arts district is Rosalind Park.  Ambling through the park will reveal to you views of the city centre.  If you choose to climb the old mining platform that is in the park you will be rewarded with some terrific  360 degree views of the area and Bendigo cathedral.

Also located in the confines of the park is Bendigo Senior Secondary School, the major public senior high school in the city.  It is a breath-taking building that harkens to days past when the majesty of school buildings reflected their importance in society.  It is hard to walk by the building, even today, and not feel a sense of pride well up for the students who attend the school.  I imagine there are not enough public schools today whose mere appearance evokes the same level of awe in its viewers.

 

Finally, situated at the end of the arts district is the Queen Elizabeth Oval, Bendigo’s home to VFL football and A grade cricket.  Built in 1897 the building harkens back to Bendigo’s English heritage and is usually occupied during the winter weekends by the football teams that call it home.

Death from above in Victoria's Mountains

            Last weekend I spent Mother’s day away with Penni in the Victorian alpine towns of Beechworth and Bright.  This was a nice weekend away where, thanks to Penni’s parents looking after Ambriya, we were afforded the luxury of sleeping in; which we both did until 9 am, I time I don’t remember being in bed since possibly last decade.

            When awake we spent two pleasant days wandering through the towns and driving along the Great Alpine Road.  The towns themselves are reminiscent of Banff and Jasper back in Alberta but much smaller and less alpine.  The non-native leaves were in full autumn glory and provided a lovely backdrop for our trip.  More than anything I have experienced on my trip so far, this reminded me of Canada.

            Most interestingly, in the town of Bright, we were confronted with a sign that warned of the danger of massive falling pinecones.  Upon seeing the sign I thought to myself, “How foreign can these fir trees be that the Australian’s need signs warning them of pine cones?”  Not readily seeing any cones on the ground I was then of the belief that these cones were so massive as to disintegrate upon landing.  You can imagine my surprise when I was confronted by 60 cm + cones that had seeds like jagged shark teeth.  To be honest, if these things were falling from trees back home I would be angry that there weren’t signs warning me of impending death raining on me from the forests above.

            After returning to the safer confines of Bendigo I cannot begin to say how surprised I was to find that I was not the only celebrity wandering the streets of this central Victorian town.  Turns out that another one of Rosedale’s teachers is doing his part to make this city, and country a better place.  In fact, he is so important here he has been canonized.  However, if you want to find out whom you will have to read the article attached. 

 

While we walked on beaches of (the) Gold (Coast)

                  It is hard to argue with someone who laments on the beauty of this stretch of Australian Coast line.  It is also hard to argue with someone about how the lack of a centralized plan, or controlled building regulations hasn’t spoiled some of it.

                  I must admit that I spent an enjoyable week staying on Broadbeach, which is one of numerous beaches along the Gold Coast.  The most famous (and busy) of these beaches is Surfer’s Paradise where the aforementioned building explosion took place, leading to the skyscrapers casting a shadow over the beach during some seasons by mid-afternoon.  Broadbeach was delightfully slower and much more family-friendly which has become the tone of many of our holidays these days.

                  It is also very easy, when coming to a place like this, to recognize how the climate of a city can so easily dictate, well, the climate of a city.  In that, I mean that the geographical location, weather patterns and temperature experienced by a city can influence the lifestyle enjoyed (or despised) by the people who inhabit said city.

                  Hanging out for a week in the Gold Coast it was really easy to fall into the lifestyle of morning walks on the beach, afternoons in the pool or ocean and evenings strolling along the café and restaurant lined streets to indulge in something tasty on an outdoor dining area.  You can imagine how different this would be from huddling around an indoor fireplace to escape the frigid winters of some of the Canadian cities (or Melbourne) back home.

                  Interestingly, the Gold Coast is also hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2018 (see website here: http://www.gc2018.com/) and the city was abuzz with infrastructure projects.  New hotels, roads and even a light rail system are in the midst of being constructed and disrupting traffic and annoying residents.  It reminded me of Calgary (and every city I have been to that has hosted the Olympics, Pan Am games, Expo, World Fair, etc…) and the legacy, both positive and negative), that world events like that leave on a city’s blueprint.

Holiday - Week 1

The school year here in Victoria runs a little differently than it does back in Canada.  Instead of having a long summer break along with a two week break at Christmas and one week in March like we do in Calgary, here in Victoria (and throughout Australia although different states run their school breaks at different times) you go to school for between 6-8 weeks before getting a two week break.  Hence, this inevitably leads to four semesters separated by three two-week breaks and a month long summer/Christmas vacation in December.

This means that at the moment I am on holiday and that I have just returned from the first week of my two-week break.  I spent it driving from Bendigo to Adelaide inland and then back to Bendigo along the Great Ocean Road.  This not only is a beautiful drive, but it now allows me to claim that I have visited all of Australia’s capital cities.

            Adelaide, the capital of South Australia is a quaint city, if that word can be used to describe a city that has a population of over 1 000 000.  It has the feeling of a country city but on a grand scale.  The downtown core, which is a square mile (think area), is surrounded by parkland, running and hiking trails and

a slow running river.  The zoo, while not massive, already houses two pandas (eat your heart out Calgary).  Adelaide is also situated right on the Pacific Ocean, which means it has beach access from the southern suburbs and that occasionally a great white shark nips an unknowing swimmer.  Not bad for a city designed by someone by the name of Colonel Light way back in 1836.

            We spent three days in Adelaide, strolling, eating, shopping and generally relaxing.  Those three days were also interspersed with long, lazy drives getting lost in the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa Valley, which if I may say so, are some of the loveliest places on the continent to get lost in.  From the dozens of wineries that line the laneways, to the rolling hills reminiscent of northern Europe, to the small villages and hamlets inhabited by South Australia’s wealthy or the ancestors of the Germans who first populated this area so many moons ago, it is hard to take a wrong turn in this part of the world.

A Local on the Great Ocean Road

            The drive back hugs the southern coastline of Australia and rivals the Pacific Coast highway from Oregon to California for dramatic vistas.  The tourist hot spot is the “12 Apostles”, which today should probably be called the “9, oops I mean 8, I mean 7 Apostles…”.  It turns out the very thing that has shaped the dramatic coast line and its rocky inhabitants has not stopped working and as such is now destroying the very things it created in the first place.  Although if this makes you feel bad, I understand that some millennia from now it will have recreated something very similar.  I guess that is nature’s answer to Ozymandias, if you wait long enough something even greater, or newer, or more amazing, or just plain different will take its place.

Some of the Apostles

            

 Next stop…the Gold Coast.

Is it still a Birthday Party if no one shows up?

Well this past long weekend saw me arrive in the nation’s capital (Canberra for those of you feverishly googling Australia’s capital city) just in time for its 100th birthday.  Australia was having a celebration to commemorate the anniversary of Canberra being named the capital of Australia, unfortunately, after spending the weekend there; no one else seems to have shown up.

Now for those of you unfamiliar with their Australian history here is an (very) abridged version.  When Australia became a country in 1901 the capital was temporarily located in Melbourne, much to the disgust of New South Wales and its primary city Sydney.  Both cities wanted to be the capital, and probably more importantly, did not want the other to be named capital.  So in a crafty political move the parliament decided to build a new capital city in bush-land between the two major cities.  They commissioned a design from American (possibly Canadian?) Walter Burley Griffin who designed the blueprint for the new capital.

16 years later in 1927 the first Parliament in the bush capital opened.  Today Prime Ministers still don’t want to live there, John Howard relocated and moved to Sydney while Prime Minister (imagine Barrack Obama choosing to live in New York), they are yet to build an international airport capable of handling heavy flights and the city becomes a ghost town every weekend as parliamentarians and their staff escape back to wherever every Friday morning. 

All that being said, I did once call Canberra home for nine very enjoyable months.  It is also home to the Australian Institute of Sport (the model that Canada’s Own the Podium used before the Vancouver Olympics), the top Rugby Union side in the country, a Rugby League side as well as some truly world-class museums.  It is also the only city in the country where Kangaroos wander the street and you can enjoy beautiful bush walks between suburbs.

In the end I enjoyed watching the Brumbies defeat their cross state rivals the NSW Waratahs quite handily before heading back to Bendigo for a week of work.

Last weekend we made the trip as a family to the town of Echuca with a pit stop in the town of Kyabram to visit an Australian Fauna Park.  It was here we finally got to wander amongst the wildlife that down under is so famous for.

See if you can guess what the following animals are:  (I will give you the answers at the bottom of the post).

The second stop on our trip was the once mighty port city of Echuca.   The city name comes from an Aboriginal word meaning “meeting of the waters”; the city is located on one of the major Australian waterways: the Murray River.  The city, being the closest city on the Murray to Melbourne, became a thriving port for shipping goods to Adelaide and the Indian Ocean and in time became Australia’s biggest inland port-city.  Furthermore, in true Aussie fashion it was founded by an ex-convict name Henry Hopwood, proving once again that given the opportunity people, regardless of their status in society, can do great things.

Unfortunately for Henry and the people who lived there, an economic depression, better roads and the ever-looming droughts led to the slow decline of the city.  Today all that remains are the old port and the paddlewheel steamers.  Part of me wonders if there isn’t a lesson in there for all places that were once rich and important.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

a) Tasmanian Devil; b) Grey Kangaroo c) Emu d) Flying Fox

My my my it's a Beautiful World

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This past week in Bendigo has seen +30 degree days all week.  It is beginning to feel a bit like an oven that won’t shut off.  Worst the nights are also getting hotter and without the reprieve of a cool breeze finding a good night’s sleep has been a bit more of a challenge.

Luckily we spent last weekend down on the Mornington Peninsula southeast of Melbourne.  We went down to watch one: Mr. Colin Hay in concert at the Frankston Art Centre.  To my Canadian readers you may know him better as the lead singer to the Australian band Men at Work. 

Colin sang both hits from his days with Men at Work (Who Can it Be Now?, Overkill) as well as songs from his single career (highlighted by some cameo appearances on Scrubs).  The apex of the evening was Colin singing a solo version of “Land Down Under”.  Ironically, Colin is actually from Scotland, not Australia, but I guess “I come from a land north of England” would not have been as catchy (nor would have “He just smiled and gave me a marmite sandwich”).

During their lives I hope that everyone is lucky enough to hear music performed where a song, and a place, and a time and an atmosphere all align to create a truly unique moment.  For me I can say that Colin singing “Land Down Under” in Australia rivals hearing Stan Rogers' “Barrett’s Privateers” sung live at the Lower Deck on Halifax Pier and The Hip belting out “50 Mission Cap” at the opening of the Air Canada Centre in Toronto.

The other big news this week is that I have almost caught up to Vince in popular sightings around Bendigo.  As I discovered whilst attending a barbecue this week there is another Canadian who is living down in Bendigo (he also does some teaching and coaches the local American Football team).  He was telling me that last week when he went to the Gloria Jeans in city centre (i.e. Second Cup) the barista heard his accent  and she asked if he knew the other Canadian in town…one Chad Edmonds from Spring Gully.  He politely said he explained that Canada is a big country and that we don't all know each other.  

Turns out more people in this community read page 14 of the Advertiser than I suspected.  Score after 2 months Vince: 3 – Chad: 1.

[For the record I did not know that barista, nor have I ever visited that store.  I prefer the Good Loaf Bakery closer to home]