Eureka!

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A gloomy start saw us on our way to Ballarat (it actually almost rained at one stage!) - we took a ‘side road’, which is always a bit chancy here as you might end up on an ‘unsealed’ road - which means its little more than a dirt track and you’re in for some bone shaking. As luck would have it, not only did the road stay with tarmac, but we saw two kookaburras.

We stopped at a town called Buninyong on the way, which was established before Ballarat. The town wasn’t all that, but we spent a fascinating hour or so with the volunteers at Tourist Information discussing the area and family history. The lady, Mrs Eason, was a descendant of the Austin family that brought rabbits into Australia - apparently, she just can’t live it down - every day someone makes reference to them as they are now a blight across the whole country! I suppose we in Britain could blame the Normans for bringing us rabbits ... but who’d listen?!

Turning up in Ballarat, we were in awe of what was essentially a city built on gold. In the 1850s it had tens of thousands people with gold fever from 20 countries around the world. It was one of the richest gold fields in the world, yielding over $10 billion worth of gold (although true estimates are at least double that). The buildings are fantastic, from lowly miners’ cottages (I’d kill for one), through the university campus (lots of red brick!), a selection of churches and one of the oldest Fire Stations in Australia. For all its grandeur, it still has a hometown feel to it.

But Ballarat is most famous for the “Eureka rebellion.” You would think that we (the British) had learned our lesson after those pesky Yankees objected to a little tax on tea, but no ... we decide it’s a jolly good idea to enforce the purchase of mining licenses on the flood of humanity hoping for a quick win on the goldfields (whether they found gold or not.) And then, we trebled it! Unsurprisingly, there was insurrection and, to cut a long story short, a bloody battle ensued between the miners and soldiers - the soldiers won. However, soon after, many of the injustices they had been fighting against were rectified and many feel that this is where the Aussie identity - of giving everyone a fair go - was born. The miners fought under the Eureka flag that had been sewn by one of the women in the stockade and depicts the Southern Cross.

After a time in the Eureka Centre studying the history, we decided to have lunch beside Lake Wendouree, a lovely lake approx 2.5 x 2kms. Well, it would be lovely if it had some water. It is when you are looking at desolate grassland that should be a lake that you realise how bad the drought has been - there are beautiful houses built to overlook sparkling blue water, that are facing a few puddles a little larger than a boating pond. We were amused by the boathouses and boats looking at nothing, but I think my absolute favourite was the paddle steamer stuck on grass. I was told later that it hadn’t worked for 12 years. There are plans afoot to refill the lake ... at a cost of $5M - not something that is acceptable to some!

With the promise of free WiFi, we booked in to a proper site, and took full advantage of its facilities, starting with a lovely swim. When we arrived, we were asked what time we wanted to book for the spa, ‘how much?’ we asked, ‘it’s free’ they answered, ‘7.30 ok with you?’ we replied!

I also wanted to attack our growing pile of laundry - what we hadn’t been told when we booked in was that there was a National polo-cross tournament underway and that a lot of the competitors were staying on our site ... and they wear white jodphurs that need washing daily. So I spent a considerable amount of time in the laundry staking claim to the dryer and folding clothes, and ended up missing chatting on Skype to mum & dad!

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