Was celebrating it's 35th anniversary in style, the summer attraction that year was 'Waterloo's Circus'  aka Circus in a Suitcase.   Great attention has been paid to the details and the staff were not only in costume but in character and happy to chat about their 1850's lives.   I did not make note of the cost of entrance, just that it was good value for money and that I wished we had allowed more than an afternoon to enjoy

The end of the working day and time for us to go back to the 21st century.  Where's the Tardis when you need it?

Bendigo 

The wonderfully named city of Bendigo was our 'go to' shopping center for anything not available in town 

The city was named for Bendigo creek, which in turn was named for a local sheep run employee who was handy with his fists

He earned the nickname Bendigo for the English bare-knuckle prize fighter William Abednego  (Bendigo) Thompson 

He was one of triplets and yes you've got it, his siblings were Shadrach and Meshach

With Tonys' increasing mobility it became feasible to consider camping for the second half of our trip.  We wanted to upgrade from the items included in our car rental.  On the assumption that we could get the tent back to Canada, we came here and invested in a tent with a bit of extra room, good quality (dingo proof ?) sleeping bags and a stove.   When it came to cooking pots, crockery, utensils etc we scoured the charity shops.  We knew every Vinnie's (St Vincent De Paul)  Salvo's (Salvation Army and Op (Opportunity) Shop in the Goldfields

In spite of our confidence, I was quite apprehensive about spending 2.5 hours 250' below ground with just the light from our helmet lamps for illumination and was relieved not to be using the old miners cage which goes all the way to the bottom on level 17

A wonderful tour. Bob was a mine, (pun intended), of information and so enthusiastic that we didn't see the light of day for 3.5 hours.  We had a noisy, wet and dusty experience operating the vintage drill, but not of placing any of the ICI explosives, for that they had a mock up of the placement and we turned off our helmets while the sound and light show did the rest.  We met 'Whitie' an old timer who demonstrated the various ways he could smuggle small quantities of gold out of the mine, leaving others to our imagination and had an authentic Cornish pastie and salad in the underground crib.  At least the pastie was authentic I doubt that 'real men' in Australia started eating salad until quite recently, about the same time they discovered it wasn't emasculating to admit to drinking wine

Mining activity re-commenced beneath Central Deborah in 1998 and hopefully they will bring the first gold up to the surface in a month or two.  It has taken 7yrs and cost a fortune to reach it

Update: Mining did recommence in 2006 but the oar was not of the quality expected and the mine closed

The tour no longer goes to the more authentic level 3 tour and a deeper tour introduced to level 9 is no longer being offered.  Nor is lunch in the crib with Whitie.  I am so happy we got to experience it when we did

Bendigo Family Strikes Gold  

Mothers Day 2019, a 12 yr old girl walking their  dog 'Lucky' with her family, kicked a rock and asked her Dad 'is this gold'? They weighed it in the supermarket deli, 23oz and it is indeed gold,  worth $35,000 Australian

The riverboat trade along the Murray Darling River System was of national importance, opening up inland Australia for settlement and the growth of the wool industry.  Along with wool, wheat and other grains, were livestock and red gum timber for pit props.  During the boom years the wharf expanded from it's original 92.4m to 332m and handled a quarter of a million pounds of worth products. It was shortened to it's present length during WWll

It was here I realised that all the tourists in Victoria at this time of year are seniors.  A tribe of grey nomads gadding around the Victorian Gold Fields doing our best for the local economy.  It was like being transported back to the set of the movie 'Cocoon'