Holiday - 2006/10/22

• Travelling to Bendigo today.
• After brealkfast we visited Warrnambool's fabulous park one more time. Stephen was not happy when it was time to leave.
• Stephen fell asleep half an hour outside of Ballarat so we decided to press on to Bendigo. We did stop by a dam just outside of Ballarat for a cuppa and a sandwhich.



• We arrived in Bendigo just before 3pm. Just driving through town we felt like Bendigo is a lovely historic town with plenty of original buildings from the past.
• We did a “talking tram” tour of Bendigo which was fantastic. It went for an hour and took us on an historic trip around Bendigo of both the town and the history of the tram service. As we thought there are many buildings that date back to the 1800’s that have been superbly maintained or restored. We were also very interested to learn about the Gold Rush and the wealth of Bendigo in it’s prime. Would you believe that Bendigo has it’s own Charing Cross & Pall Mall. Also, at one time there was a population of 5,000 Chinese making up a quarter of the total Bendigo population.



• Bendigo had trams before Melbourne – the first tram service began in 1894 and was run on batteries, but these proved inadequate as a power source and were scrapped 13 weeks after beginning service. They were replaced with steam trams but these were found to be too noisy, scared the horses, and used too much water. Finally in 1903 electric trams began in Bendigo and remained in service until 1972. Eventually with the popularity of cars the cost of running the trams was no longer viable, but after a popular uprising the state government reinstated the tram service as a tourist attraction and the “talking tram” has been running since late 1972.
• We had a play in the park at the caravan park and then Tae cooked a lovely pasta and sauce for dinner.
• Drove 310km.
• Google Map