Do Not Read This Title

I think there are two problems with trying to cover a city in a blog/LJ post. One is the size, even of a small city, means there's too much material to include, whereas for a small town, you can put in all the significant buildings and the place's background, and still have a shortish post. Two, if it's a place you've just visited, you can't get a true feel for or understanding of the place so it hard to write anything "meaningful" (and if it's a place you visit a lot/live in, there's too much to sort through so you never get around to it.)

Best solution might be to overlook them, but I have to "document" every place I visit, so that's not going to work. Other possible solutions are:

• do a series of posts (which I never get around to finishing)
  
  
• to focus on just one bit like I did in the previous post on Bendigo
  
  
• just put up some a few photos that show some apsects city, like I do with Melbourne
  
  
• just post random things as it suits me and ignore that there's no context like I do with some other place
  
  

Today I want to go back to Bendigo for a while, because then I'll feel it's done (and I might feel more inclined to find out something the town in 1854) and I can go on to write something with some sort of structure about some other place.

So the plan of attack, is to return to the fountain, go up the other street (View St, I think, but I've lost my map) and then add in a some random photos to finish off.

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When we went to the Melbourne Museum (to see the Titanic exhibition), we had time to kill beforehand so I headed off for the permanent exhibitions, muttering something about finding the computer. I seemed to remember it being in a side room over there when we visited the museum in 2005, but they've since rearranged everything. It's not exactly something that they'll stick in a back room either. But I knew it wasn't over there or up there because that's where I went last year. We looked above over there, and found some other interesting stuff, (of course, this museum is very full of interesting stuff) and I took photos of some of it.

Then we went and looked at wrecked ship artefacts.

Afterwards, I headed for some seats so I could sit down and address my postcard. (They had no Titanic postcards. I have Titanic postcards. They're not that hard to get. Maybe visitors would buy them instead of the other overpriced stuff in the exhibition gift shop, but postcards can be easily posted or stuck on walls to look, and you can't do that with anything else. The actual museum gift shop though, they have lots of interesting postcards.) Anyway, I dumped by bag on the seat and went off for a toilet break, and when I came back, mother said, "You were looking for the computer?" "Yes." "It's downstairs.

So I went downstairs, and there it was.

( Photos )

A sequel to my Maldon post earlier today :)


Founded in the late 1850s, all the early work was carried out in an open cutting, between where the main shaft and the engine house stood. Miners were granted claims 30 feet square, and out of these claims much gold must have been taken, but the amount will never be known. ... The method of hauling dirt and stone was by means of a windlass. This was slow and hard work so it was decided to call a meeting of the claim holders to pool resources.

The outcome of the meeting was to form a company and to purchase a winding machine. A new shaft was sunk while the engine, engine house and poppet legs were being erected. With installation of the machinery, the ground was worked, with varying returns for about 3 years. Then at the 300 feet level a heavy flow of water was met. The plant was not capable of dealing with it so another meeting was held to form a more powerful company. This was called the "New Beehive Company" and comprised 30,000 shares. New engines, boilers, large pumping plant and quartz crushing battery were purchased.

Extract from "The New Beehive Mine, based on a brief history of the Beehive Mine by Garnet Pearce of Maldon", a leaflet I picked up. The mine closed in 1918.

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I has train.

That is, the Victorian Goldfields Railway train. It runs from Castlemaine to Maldon, but only on Wednesdays and Saturdays, so I had to structure my trip around the it.

The plan was... Wednesday morning take a Metlink train into Melbourne City/Southern Cross station, change to a Vline train for the 1.5 hour trip to Castlemaine, get off here for the stream train to Maldon, spend just under 2 hours then, catch steam train back, and another Vline train to Bendigo for the night.

Up until the day, I worried it might not be worth the hassle.



( Photos. Really. )