Ballarat

Last weekend we celebrated the 30th birthday of one of my co-workers, and the party was held near the town of Ballarat. Quite a few of my co-workers are either from Ballarat or went to university there, so Erik and I had been talking about visiting Ballarat, the 3rd largest city in Victoria, for a while. Fortunately, the party hosts were kind enough to let us crash at their place on Saturday night so that we could spend the next day exploring "the 'Rat". As a bonus, we took a morning stroll around their neighborhood for some kangaroo viewing, which never gets old for us non-Australians!

Ballarat is about a 90 minute drive from Melbourne, and its significance as a "boom town" during the gold rush in the 1800's is what made the town famous. Today, many school groups flock to Sovereign Hill, the site of gold discovery. We decided not to enter Sovereign Hill, as it is quite expensive, but we did head to the Sovereign Hill overlook, where you can see the area where gold was first discovered. I did learn that as teacher I can apply for free entry to Sovereign Hill, so it might be worth a trip back just for that!

The town itself is very picturesque, with tree-lined streets and gorgeous older houses dotting the roads. There is also a lake, which happens to be where the rowing events were held during the 1956 Olympic Games.

Lake Wendouree

Lydiard Street is home to historic buildings, including a cinema and an art gallery. The art gallery is free and quite extensive, definitely worth a visit!

Ballarat as it was during the gold rush of the 1850's

Aboriginal artwork. The paintings are done on tree bark!

For lunch we made a stop at The Burger Company. I think burgers are a food that America tends to do well and Australian burgers are sometimes a let-down, but this place was outstanding! In addition to good burgers, they served crinkle cut fries (known as "chips" here), which I don't think I've ever seen in Australia. The owner loved that we were American (and wondered what a few Americans were doing in Ballarat!) and wanted to make sure that we thought the food was up to par. We also split a Tim Tam milkshake that was quite tasty, though Australian milkshakes are just not what we are used to in the States (in Oz they seem to be thin and milky, rather than thick and creamy).

Along Sturt Street, a major road running through Ballarat, we found St Patrick's College, one of Victoria's most prestigious private Catholic schools. Our school competes against them annually in Australian Rules Football.

Love the old school post box!

We also stopped by the Avenue of Honour and the Arch of Victory, both serving as memorials to soldiers (commonly known as "diggers") who served in WWI and WWII.

The is the arch and the "avenue" is the tree-lined street just beyond the arch.

This was just after ANZAC Day, where "diggers" are honored, hence the fresh flower arrangements.

We sort of felt like we could have been in one of our hometowns, either Westminster, MD or Buffalo, MN. The historic buildings, tree-lined streets, and general laid-back feel of a smaller city made us smile, and we felt it was a Sunday well-spent in Ballarat.

Camping Trip...FAIL!

A few weeks ago, Erik and I started discussing what we should do for the Easter holiday weekend. After some deliberation, we decided that it would be a great time to go camping. However, once we started talking about the possibility of camping with friends and co-workers, we learned that Easter is essentially the most popular weekend of the year to go camping in Victoria, and that most campsites were already booked full for the Easter holiday. Not a problem, we thought...we will just delay our trip a few days and go camping for just one night instead of a few, since we were both off work for a couple of days after the holiday weekend.

We spent much of our beautiful Easter Sunday on a long walk near our house.
If only the weather had stayed this nice for Monday...

This past week, I found a book in the library that was helpful in identifying a few more "bush" (the Aussie equivalent to wilderness-based) campsites, though I learned that most sites within an hour or so of the city were larger caravan-type campgrounds. We planned out a few potential hiking and camping areas and packed the car last night. Unfortunately, when we woke up this morning, the weather had taken a turn from pleasant and sunny to cold and rainy! (I did hear on the radio on our drive back home that today was the coldest day in 5 months in Melbourne, which explains why even though the temperature was around 50F, it felt absolutely freezing). While we debated what to do, we caught the exciting end of the Masters, live from Augusta, which was absolutely worth getting a late start for, in my opinion. There seemed to be some patches of blue sky mixed within the clouds, so we decided to head out on some sort of adventure, though we were undecided about our final destination at that point. Sadly, the weather only got worse, and by the time we were in Frankston, a small coastal town on the Mornington Peninsula, it was raining hard and the wind was howling. We nearly turned around to go home, but after looking at the radar, it appeared that the further south we went, the better the weather would get. So we made our way down the peninsula, stopping at a few areas along the way to enjoy the scenery, and we did, in fact, counter some blue skies along the way. The drive reminded me a lot of the Great Ocean Road, though not quite as spectacular, but the road winds along the coast, providing scenic water and beach views.

One of the nice views along the Mornignton Peninsula.

We ended up all the way down at the end of the Mornington Peninsula at Port Nepean National Park. It was free to enter, and from the park you can witness beautiful views of both Port Phillip Bay and the open ocean. The wind was ferocious when we were near the ocean, with gusts so hard at times that I thought I would be knocked over! There are several walking trails within the park, most with access to different forts that were used by Australian soldiers in both World War I and II. In addition to the entrance of Port Phillip Bay being the most heavily fortified port of the Brittish Empire, the area has evidence of some of the earliest European settlement in Victoria, so this would be a great place to visit for history buffs.

In 1967, prime minister Harold Holt disappeared here while swimming.

Evidence of the former military presence.

We ate lunch at the former site of Pearce Barracks, which were torn down in 2007. The land in the distance is the town of Queenscliff, which is on the western side of Port Phillip Bay. A ferry provides transport between the two sides.

We spent a few hours walking around Port Nepean, and then headed over to Sorrento Back Beach to check out some additional ocean waves. Again, the wind was fierce and that made the cold temperatures seem even colder, but the views were worth braving the cold. There were even a few crazy kids in the water (in wetsuits, of course!)

At this point we had pretty much ruled out camping. There are spots to camp along the end of the Mornington Peninsula; however, they are all caravan parks, not the "bush" campsites we were hoping for. The closest bush campsite that I knew of was a two hour drive away, and home was less than a two hour drive away, so that was a pretty easy decision to make. This was sort of similar to our decision to leave the Great Ocean Road a night early to head home due to lack of good camping options. Hopefully we'll be more fortunate on our next camping trip in regards to campsites and weather!