Apollo Bay to Bendigo: Monday 16 April.

Dave and I left our cosy cabin and rode on more of the grand Great Ocean Road. Not many cars and only one group of young Asian men on motorcycles. Beautiful misty ocean scenery viewed from sweeping bends flanked by huge rocky cliff faces. We stopped for a coffee at Anglesea, and then rode up away from the ocean on boring flat country roads. Bacchus Marsh looked an interesting town to explore another time one day. It got better as we neared the Daylesford area, with twisty forest roads. We had a nice lunch in the main street of pretty little Daylesford, then headed off to our campsite at Bendigo.

I was quite gobsmacked to see how much busier with traffic Bendigo was from when I was last there in 2004 on a trip round Australia on motorbike. We were going to stay at the Central caravan park in Bendigo but decided not to when we saw how it is located on the busy main highway. This is where our helmet speaker communication system is so handy; we can talk and make decisions while still riding. Dave led the way to a Big 4 caravan park further on. This is a lovely place to stay, with an excellent camp kitchen, lovely shower amenities with heated underfloor, and is away from all the horrible loud traffic.

Bendigo: 17th, 18th April 2012. The beautiful Victorian buildings of the early Bendigo days are almost swamped by modern traffic flowing by continuously, and you have to watch out that you don't get skittled by cars if you want to cross roads to see monuments and special sights. I whacked with my hiking pole one damn car driven by a dumb young woman when she drove through a pedestrian green light crossing….she stopped her car in shock but other cars tooted her to make her keep going….just as well, as I was one cranky nana and I could've given her body a proper whacking with my "hoiking stick" if she had got out and complained. Grrrr! And then Dave would've had to bail me out of jail on assault charges!

Locals have told us that Bendigo population has doubled in the last 10 years, (is now around 100,000 people) and I do not enjoy Bendigo like I did in 2004 because of this. The local sights seemed to be drowned out by noise and action. We went on a talking tram tour…even this I had trouble hearing because of all the traffic noise around. We did enjoy a cooling drink in the magnificent ornately Victorian Shamrock Hotel. And I found my Grandpa Tom O'Loughlin's name on the World War 1 memorial, as he was born and raised in Bendigo/Sandhurst.

Later we went riding around the old Sandhurst region (outer Bendigo) where one of my great grandfathers, Martin Hawkins and his brother John were farming in the 1860s. Martin ended up going back home to Ennis in County Clare to spend his last days, while one of his sons, Thomas who is my great grandpa went on to Melbourne to become a senior detective in the police. It is interesting seeing the country that my early relatives lived in after they emigrated from Ireland because of the potato famine of the 1800s. The lure of gold didn't attract my mother's relatives, as they went on to become either farmers or publicans.

But on my Dad's side there is a great grandfather Alexander Shea who left a good job in Melbourne to chase the gold and he came back home penniless. I felt a pang of sadness looking at a statue monument in Bendigo; the goddess Fortuna dropping a gold nugget into the prospecting pan of a miner digger. My great grandad Shea wasn't so lucky, and I'm sure there were many others like him. The streets of Bendigo are honeycombed underneath with deep mining shafts from the 1850s gold mining days when the big mining companies moved in after the alluvial gold ran out. From these days enormous money was made and so Bendigo was built to last with buildings and streets named after London's names.

Dave and I enjoyed visiting the Golden Dragon Chinese Museum in the middle of Bendigo city. Apparently at one stage one quarter of Bendigo's citizens were Chinese. Their carvings and embroideries are intricate and ornately beautiful. Of course, we both were drooling over the exquisite jade carvings.

We managed to do some good shopping in Bendigo city, finding at last some Explorer wool socks for me, in pretty bright colours, to replace my "bamboo" socks. I had made the mistake of buying these thick bamboo socks for my motorcycle boots…a mistake! They look great, feel comfy, but take Forever! to dry, even coming out wet from clothes dryers, and our tent was always festooned with these silly socks after our washing day. So they got posted back home today in disgrace, wrapping around various rocks we have collected/bought on our travels. We don't like to leave our camping clothing hanging on caravan park clothes lines unless we are watching them, and we've got better things to do than watch ruddy bamboo socks dry!

Tomorrow we plan to ride to Castlemaine, which is a smaller town nearby. The tourist brochures say there are plenty of heritage sites to see.