Round-About Australia 2023

We celebrated our last full day in Melbourne with a boat ride on the Yarra River.  As you can see from the pictures, the Yarra River runs right through the city. Madeleine lives in the South Yarra neighborhood - or south of the river. Close up (from above) of a section of a pedestrian bridge designed in the shape of an indigenous eel trap.

This morning we went to an antique and flea market.  There was quite a collection of goods to look at! Afterwards we had a snack at a coffee house nearby and then went to another gold fields town. We walked around a lake where gold was discovered in this area.  Then we had a late lunch in the town center after a soak in the Hepburn hot springs. The Hepburn hot springs are the oldest in the region and date back to 1895. Then it was back to Melbourne where we are staying with Madeleine at her apartment in South Yarra.

Today we rented a car and began a two-day visit to the historic gold fields region not far from Melbourne.  A gold rush took place here in the 1850s similar to the one in California.  On the way to the town of Bendigo, where gold is still being mined, we stopped off for a walk at Hanging Rock.  This area was made famous by the movie "Picnic at Hanging Rock."                                  Hanging Rock. In Bendigo we took a get-on, get-off tour of the town by trolley car.  One of the trolley cars came in a "flat pack" from California in 1913 and was locally re-assembled. We listened to a recorded history of the town and gold mining there on the trolley.                     Trolley car from California.           ...

This morning we visited the Rippon Lea Estate. The site is owned by the National Trust of Australia.  Miss Fisher fans will recognize the house and grounds as the setting for a murder mystery episode.  The building and grounds are considered one of the best remaining examples of a Victorian era mansion and gardens in Australia. The house was redecorated in the 1930s by the last owner of the estate before it was donated to the National Trust.    Dining room with a secret trap door in the floor.      Windows depicting morning, noon and night.                  Victorian era kitchen stove.             One of the first showers in Australia. After visiting the estate, Melissa and Madeleine went to Luna Park for some fun.

We had an evening flight to Melbourne and enjoyed a few last stops along a drive through the highlands to the airport.  These included a roadside rest stop walk to look at pencil pines (an ancient tree related to sequoias) and colonial era buildings in two towns. One of the towns, Outlands, has a church by the same architect who designed the British Houses of Parliament. This town is also the location of a colonial era windmill.  Still in use to grind flour, it is the only working windmill in the Southern Hemisphere.  There is a contemporary scotch whiskey distillery and restaurant on the grounds around the windmill.  Ray tried some of the single malts at lunchtime.               Convict era Commissary House.