Thursday, Friday 19th, 20th April 2012: Castlemaine and Maldon towns.

On Thursday Dave and I rode to Castlemaine, which is an old gold mining town about 44km from Bendigo. We always head straight for the Information Centre in a town when we are sightseeing, as the people in them are always so welcoming and helpful, quickly helping us with our plans for exploring their district. The "I" Centre in Castlemaine was especially informative, and I read up about how its lovely old building was about to be demolished in the 1960s as it had fallen into ruin. Thank goodness a lot of lobbying and common sense saved this gorgeous heritage listed old Hall and it is now attracting tourists like us. Such ugly stupid things happened in the 1960s, it was "out with the old, and build horrid looking ugly square new buildings". Nowadays a lot of old country towns have heritage listings to stop greedy dumb people from wrecking the history. `Now tourists can come and help the districts with their income. We spent money in Castlemaine, enjoying a cuppa and later having a delicious lunch. I bought a lovely little iolite ring set in sterling silver in an antique shop; this was for a very good price. Iolite is a pretty dark blue stone, and the old man running the shop didn't know how it is rather rare, and with the ring being a bit worn looking, he thought it was silver plated. But "Bargain Bensley" was very happy with her buy!

We also enjoyed browsing through the old Castlemaine museum and art gallery, housed in another gorgeous old building. Very informative, about the old gold mining history and how the district prospered. I notice that people were a lot smaller in stature in the old days, going by displays of their clothing.

The Castlemaine Art Gallery has some famous artists on show, even a Norman Lindsay, Hans Heyson, Clifton Pugh, ST Gill, Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts and others. Dave was impressed with a modern art display where a chap had a skeleton in an old school case. We are using Dave's old brown school case for our cutlery and crockery, so this made us giggle. (See photo)

We rode home to our Shangri-La tent under the oak tree in Bendigo, through woodland forest on good winding roads, trying to dodge the sun in our eyes for a while.

On Friday we headed off on our bikes again, this time to the little village of Maldon, which is also an old mining town established in the 1850s and it is not far from Castlemaine. Once again the Info Centre was very helpful. This village has been largely heritage listed, though the main street shops look a bit run down. Not much employment there, other than serving café meals to tourists, and a few "women's' bling" shops, which I find deadly boring! I prefer to look at genuine antiques or handmade crafts, not plastic stuff made overseas. The main street looked pretty with autumn leaves falling to the gutters, though we had to be careful how we parked out bikes…no toppling over please!We had a good long chat with a large group of Seniors push cyclists who were on a day ride through the district. One lady had an artificial leg and she looked so capable with it, no problems riding her bike or getting around. I was intrigued and impressed with her cheerful style.

The man at the Info Centre had recommended we go see a big tower that is a fire lookout; the Tarrangower tower. What great views and plaques point out directions. Hard to believe the country was crawling with desperate diggers mining for alluvial gold in the 1850s. Now the woodland forests are growing and covering the old diggings. Of course Dave and I climbed the big lookout tower to see stunning views. It often intrigues me that a lot of people roll up to special sites in their fancy cars, get out, say something and then drive off! Why they bother wasting petrol doing this beats me….don't they want to do bit of exploring? One bloke at the tower told us it was a "heart starter" getting to the top but he must have been a wuss, because it was easy for us grey nomads!

Our next jaunt was to see some old workings at "the North British Mine" on the edge of Maldon town. Beautiful old brick kilns to treat the underground mined gold in quartz, and other bits and pieces lying around. There were several gold mines which made Maldon prosperous for a few years, and then the gold ran out. The people in town would have heard the stamp batteries and other mine noises all the time. A continuous siren blast meant there was a tragic accidental death which would have been sad for everyone to hear.

Before we rode back to our camp in Bendigo we explored the old Maldon Cemetery, checking out the pioneer graves. Quite a few children and babies died, and some mine accidents happened, though many got to be a good age.

Tomorrow is pack up day as we will be heading off to Melbourne. The weather has been great so far, though falling autumn leaves are telling us something!