Ballarat Visit Part 1

 Headed down to Melbourne in September and caught the bus out to Ballarat where I caught up with my friend Kerrie Robertson. Kerrie and I have know each over 40 years- we met at Teachers College. We were meeting up in Ballarat- I have been through Ballarat a number of times over the years but cannot remember staying there. It was fun exploring the area- the weather wasn't great- Ballarat is known for being cold- it lived up to it's reputation, fortunately the weather didn't stop us from exploring.

Ballarat has some beautiful houses with lots of wrought iron

We had a morning walk around Lake Wendouree

Ballarat had some lovely old buildings including St Pauls Cathedral

The Mechanics Building was lovely, at one stage when the rain came I retreated to the Mechanics Library to wait out the shower in front of a computer generated fire place

Ballarat was the centre of the Victorian Gold Rush, a number of large gold nuggets were found around Ballarat including the Welcome Stranger weighing nearly 69kgs

What they believe to be the remains of the original Eureka Flag, located in the Eureka Centre Museum, set on the site of the Rebellion in 1854 by the gold miners. Lovely grounds and monuments.

Day 2 took us out to Buninyong, we first went for a walk around Mt Buninyong

Lovely views and lovely and green

We went for a walk through the Union Jack Reserve, we needed to stick to the path to avoid falling into old mine shafts. 

Checked out the Buninyong Botanical Gardens

Of to the Lal Lal Falls

We then did a tour of the Ballarat Town Hall

Afternoon tea was a very delicious Timboon Ice-cream- Turkish Delight and Cardamom and Orange- very hard to choose!