On the road again

Our enforced stop at Robinvale was not an idle one, as we had to take everything out of the car, including all my woodwork, it was a great opportunity to clean up the back. It had not been done in all the time we had been travelling, some 20 months now. And it was rather dirty, the red dust gets everywhere, but I managed to borrow a vacuum cleaner from the camp owner and it made short work of it.
Also, and I didn't find out until after the car had been fixed, the camp owner's wife had been in Mildura on the Saturday and had picked up a new petrol pump for us. So after the car had been picked up by the garage early on Monday it was fixed by lunchtime!



But we still had the job of putting everything back into the car, so that took the afternoon, and we set off again on the Tuesday morning, to Bendigo. Just for the one night, so that we could prepare Barbara and Dave for us dropping in on them!
Bendigo is another lovely city, (here they call any small town over 20,000 population a city!), established in the late 1800s gold rush, and I think they still mine a little gold here. Again very rich in architecture, the civic building, the banks and the pubs are superb.
This fountain is the hub of the city, in the centre of  the main street, with a lovely park behind.

Everywhere we go we see war memorials, all built after the great war, 1914-18. All were built by public subscription,  all contain the names of those who gave their lives, and most have been updated regularly as further wars have been fought.
Some are very simply, just a stone perhaps, but richer towns build quite elaborate mausoleums, as has happened here in Bendigo.

Just across the road is a hotel, built in the French style with mansard roof. Not only is it impressive from the outside, but the interior is really beautiful with wide staircases and large reception lounges. On the first floor balcony that surrounds the front and side of the building there is a very classy restaurant.







Then across the road again is a large orangery, full of exotic flowers and other plants, set again in yet another park.

Being a bit short on time, as we needed to get down to Melbourne to sell Betty, we had no time to take in the other attractions of Bendigo unfortunately. Maybe we'll get back here someday.