Bendigo

My sister and brother-in-law who live in Melbourne are taking a trip to Europe for almost a month and we are staying in their unit for 12 days. Victoria has some good train services to cities outside Melbourne so we decided to go to Bendigo.

The trip takes about 2 hours and most of the seats were taken so get on the train at least 15 minutes before departure. As we headed north, we passed this old steam engine. It's a pretty trip and the train is fast by Australian standards since the land is mostly flat.

Bendigo station.

We wanted to see a tram museum and the nearby Bendigo Woollen mills so we decided to walk there, a distance of a bit over a kilometre. Marianne loves to sniff some lavender.

The style of old house in Victoria is quite different from the wooden houses in Queensland. Victorian winter temperatures can be close to freezing and these old houses can be very cold holes.

Bendigo has lots of interesting old buildings.

It was a warm winter's day by Victorian standards so it was a pleasure walking past these beautiful houses.

Wide footpaths.

We arrived at the Tram Museum and decided to have lunch at the tram cafe.

Bendigo used to have trams and the museum runs a tram through town on the old tracks.

The entrance to the tram yard. The museum itself was just a single room with a few exhibits so disappointing. I believe a new museum will open shortly.

In the background is the Woollen Mill.

According to Robin, this is the best knitting wool in Australia.  My mother was an excellent knitter and the gene has been passed on (not to me).

Many of the houses are quite small and extensions have been added to the back.

Gold was discovered here in 1851 and Bendigo became a major inland city.

A couple of nights ago, we decided to go to a concert in the old Town Hall. We had a pre-concert dinner at a nearby Nepalese restaurant and we both had these 'momos'. The sauce was spicy and it was quite delicious and filling.

Inside the hall before the concert started. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra usually plays in a more modern hall but occasionally returns to play here. The hall was packed and the feature was Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony. Oddly enough, fifty years ago I attended a concert in this hall where the orchestra played the same symphony.

Let me state that this was the best performance by an Australian orchestra I have ever heard, by far! It was superb, even by Philadelphia Orchestra standards.  The conductor was a South Korean woman named Han-na Chang and she is the real deal.