Bendigo to Portland via Airey's Inlet
Day 9 - Thursday, 08 April 2010
After our lunch with David yesterday, we drove on to Bendigo and finally got there at approx. 6pm - very tired! The motel we had decided to stay in turned out to be booked out, but the Manager very obligingly phoned 6 other motels before finding us a vacancy at the City Centre Motel, a lovely 4 star motel, only $112 per night with everything we needed. Because Bendigo appeared to be such an interesting town, we decided to stay for a couple of days so we could see more of the things that interested us.
- J
Day 10 - Friday, 09 April 2010
After a really good night's sleep, we first off drove down to the really lovely Visitor Information Centre in the middle of town, where they were very helpful and advised us on everything. We were also taken with the great pottery they had on display, and ended up buying a terrific pottery plate made by Sue James, with hand painted native birds on it.
We then drove to the old Tram Depot, where we were able to go on a vintage "Talking Tram" trip from the southern end of the town, right up to the northern end of town, with all the interesting old historical sights being pointed out to us by the "Talking Tram". We could have got off the tram at any of the points of interest along the way, and onto another tram if we had wanted to. Apparently, in the 1970s, Bendigo decided to close down their tramway, in the same way that Brisbane did, but the townsfolk protested and presented a petition to keep the trams running, so they turned it into a tourist attraction - a very popular idea. The trams are like Brisbane's old trams with the drop-centre, except that they now have electrically operating doors on them.
After our tram trip, we decided to go to the Bendigo Art Gallery, which Geoff had recommended to us. We had a lovely meal at the Gallery Cafe, then Bernard went to the Gallery reception and got a free wheelchair for me which made it nice and easy to get around and be able to take our time. Geoff was right - the Gallery is really terrific. Funnily enough, one of the old paintings was a picture of a 1920s lady, who, except for the cigarette she was smoking, could have been my Mum back in the 1920s. Another painting, a portrait of the man who started the Bendigo Pottery, amazingly, really reminded us of Geoff! So, after a really exhausting day, we arrived back at our beaut motel room to a lovely quiet cup of coffee.
At the Art Gallery shop, we found more of Sue James' work, and bought a bowl which matches the plate we bought earlier.
Tomorrow, we want to go to the Bendigo Pottery, then Bernard wants to go to the local Rivers outlet and get a pair of shoes.
- J
Day 11 - Saturday, 10 April 2010
Well, we went to the Bendigo Pottery,which was filled with really beautiful work. The really interesting thing tho' was watching a mum & her about 12 year old daughter have a pot throwing lesson from one of the potters. The daughter was just so much better at it than the mum. Both beginners. Bernard bought a beer mug from the shop. After the pottery, we went on to Rivers where B. bought 2 pairs of shoes. Then we headed south to Airey's Inlet, which we had been told by a lady was a very pretty place near the beginning of the Great Ocean Road. She was right. It took us a bit longer than expected - the weather has not been good since we hit the Vic border. In fact, I think we broke their drought for them.
On the way to Airey's Inlet, Bernard suddenly slammed on the brakes, did a U-turn, and set off down a side street. He had seen a sign pointing to Garden of St Erth. As one side of his family comes from St Erth in Cornwall, he had to investigate. It turns out, that In 1854 Matthew Rogers, a Cornish stonemason, left Sydney in pursuit of gold discovered near Mount Blackwood in Victoria. In the 1860s he built a sandstone cottage, naming it ‘St Erth' after his birthplace in Cornwall. The cottage is now the home of a nursery and gardening club with a beautiful garden in the grounds, hence the name (http://www.diggers.com.au/gardenStErth.shtml).
- J
Day 12 - Sunday, 11 April 2010
The motel where we stayed at Airey's Inlet has two monuments near the entrance. The first is to the builder of the Split Point Lighthouse:
and the second is to honour the memory of those immigrants who have lost their lives at sea, while coming to settle in Australia. This monument was erected in 1991. How attitudes have changed for the meaner in such a short time!
Part of the latter is a list of the ships which have wrecked off the Victorian west coast, where more large ships have been wrecked than on any comparable stretch of the Australian coastline. You cannot read it, but look at the size of the list!
The Great Ocean Road is certainly deserving of its great reputation as a tourist drawcard. The weather as we drove oscillated continuously between sunny and rainy, but one thing was constant - the wind. I have only experienced wind like that once before, at Whitley Bay on the north-east coast of England, heading into a North Sea gale. We had intended to visit the Twelve Apostles, of which there are now only eleven, thanks to the erosion which formed them, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_twelve_apostles_Victoria_Australia_2010.jpg), but the wind was so fierce that we were advised against taking a wheel chair (which Joce would have needed) out to the viewing platform.
The road to Portland is for the greater part of the time along the coast, and we were able to pull into a number of scenic lookout spots along the way.
Towards the end of the road, we drove past the Pacific Hydro Wind Farm, dozens of wind turbines generating power for the local towns:
We found ourselves a motel for the night, and decided to stay for two nights, and have a lazy day tomorrow, to recharge our batteries before setting off for South Australia.
- J
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