Ballarat

Sunday, 20 September 2015

Poppies

Flight from Pompeii

Cyclamens

Guess who this nose belongs to!

Plenty of room for more prime ministers

Daffodils

The sequoia walk

With the sun shining from a clear, blue sky and the temperature slowly rising, we left Bendigo bound for another famous “gold” city – Ballarat.  Instead of taking the direct route, we followed the Goldfields Trail to Ballarat via Maryborough, travelling through beautiful farm lands and many abandoned gold diggings.  We only had to travel less than 150 kms, so were at Ballarat well before lunch.  We are staying, once again, at the Big4 Ballarat Goldsfields Holiday Park, virtually opposite Sovereign Hill.

This afternoon we visited the Botanical Gardens, after a slow drive around Lake Wendouree.  The daffodils were nearly finished, but there were enough on show to remind us of what our garden at home would have looked like.  The poppies were very pretty and the tulips just starting to flower.  The displays in the conservatory were just beautiful – cyclamens, cinerarias, primulas and orchids mainly.  We also strolled along the Prime Ministers’ Avenue (there is a bust of every prime minister except the most recent) and the Sequoia Avenue with its massive redwoods.  We also stopped at the Memorial to Ex-Prisoners of War, with its honour roll of all Australian servicemen/women who had been held captive during conflicts from the Boar War until the present day.

Unfortunately, today’s 19 degrees is not expected to last.