Exploring Maryborough & Surrounds

 After leaving (freezing cold) Yea, we made our way to Maryborough along a lot of fascinating C-roads.  Apart from some foolish kangaroos that insisted on leaping in front of the van, it was an uneventful trip and we reached Maryborough in good time to set up camp on the banks of Lake Victoria.  My! It was cold!  And soon to get even colder!

The railway station, this morning, on my early morning walk.

We set out on Sunday to explore the town ... well the bits that were open.  The railway station was beautiful, as were many of the well-preserved houses.  It's a charming place.  We also walked out in the State forest to the aboriginal rock wells.  The landscape is deformed and formed by the extensive gold mining that took place in this region, and there were remnants of batteries and boilers at Battery Dam.  Soup for lunch, soup for dinner, it was definitely soup weather.  Luckily the caravan park has a large camp kitchen that has a split system heater - and we have decided that this is where we are staying ... and so staying warm!

The rock pools - some were 130 cm deep.  A valuable resource in such an arid region.

The box ironbark forest

Part of the 'rubbish' at Battery Dam

Today was a car trip, looping through Timor, Dunolly, Bealiba, Moliagul, Tarnagulla and Dunolly again.  I could have called this post "Visiting Places with Shut Pubs" since sadly, some of the most historic beautiful old pubs that I've seen were all non-commissioned or closed.  

The ruin of Grand Duke Mine, Timor

The Timor cemetery had its first recorded burial in 1870.  There were some tragic tombstones detailing mining tragedies and many deaths of infants and children.  But I was most fascinated by this wooden grave - unfortunately, I couldn't read anything on the headstone.

Dunolly (apart from having a plethora of large historic buildings) seemed to have a fixation on awarding "Best Kept Street".  This street confused me a bit since there wasn't actually anything there!  I guess it's very easy to keep nothing tidy and neat.

A colourful garden in Bealiba - I love the bedhead front fence.

We need help identifying this

Outside Tarnagulla, we visited another cemetery where I found a headstone for a Holt family.  I wonder if they were relatives.

Back to Maryborough where we are nervously looking at the oncoming weather reports ... snow in the Grampians and 55km/hr winds!  Maybe we'll stay here for another night.  Afterall, I have A LOT of books and Van Morrison has a very comfy bed!

By the way, if you comment on this post, it would help if you added your name ... somehow a lot of comments are appearing as 'unknown'.  Mind you, you might want to be anonymous!