After our big day yesterday, we didn't venture too far on the scenic drive plus we had tickets for the Soweto Gospel Choir so we needed to be back in time for the performance.
The "spa" centre of Victoria, Daylesford, is the first place we stop. It is a lovely drive through rolling hills with the paddocks of golden canola that is such a vivid contrast colour. We pass protestors being interviewed on the side of the road and we think it is in protest of the wind farms, but we are not certain. There are certainly a lot of the giant turbines in this area but I fail to see why anyone would object to them as they take up minimal ground space, unlike the solar farms that we have seen.......
Daylesford is a lovely town and there are many people strolling along the streets. We wander down to the information centre to pick up a map of the local area and it is full of people. After we have found what we need we quickly escape for a wander along the main street of Daylesford.
Back in the car, and we enter Ballan into the car GPS as that will be our next stop. Along the way we stop at Sailor Falls where we intend to do the circuit walk but there is a sign saying that the track is closed due to the October 2022 storms. I don't recall hearing about them but we were travelling at that time last year so it would be unlikely that we would have heard. The falls are quite pretty but not the best I've seen in our travels. I guess there has not been enough rain to make them spectacular.....
Ballan is a delightful highlands town that is just 80km from Melbourne and is on the Werribee River. The streets are tree lined and would look beautiful in the autumn. I uploaded the photo below from the Moorabool Shire Council website to show you what they would look like. But for our visit they are just starting to spring to life now after the long winter.
Next stop is Buninyong although we only drive through the small historic gold mining town, as we have decided to visit the Eureka Centre on our way home to Ballarat.
The Eureka Centre is not to be missed. It is a magnificent tribute to the miners who died when they made a stand at the Eureka Stockade. It will go down in history as a horrific abuse of power by the soldiers who attacked the miners on a Sunday morning in December 1854 killing so many. I am saddened when I read about it and I wonder why, after more than 170 years, mankind is still intent on killing each other. Inside the centre, and under glass, is the original flag (or parts of it), that has been lovingly restored. It is thought that the pieces that are missing were taken as souvenirs. We wander outside through the beautiful gardens with huge cypress pines. We reach the place where the original flag was flown and it is a lovely tribute.
We arrive home with plenty of time to shower and dress for the Soweto Choir. As we are quite close to the town centre we also order an Uber to take us to the show. It saves us trying to find parking that can be problematic sometimes. The show was fantastic and takes us through songs from Nelson Mandela's Freedom movement to the protests of the USA lead by Martin Luther King. After the interval we are entertained with songs by Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, James Brown and Stevie Wonder. The final song, Hallelujah, has people rising from their seats for a standing ovation.
I think we have covered the best parts of Ballarat in our stay but there is one more thing to do and that is the Lake Wendouree public art walk. It is around six kilometres and promises to be a very interesting walk.
Today we walked around Lake Wendouree. It would have to be one of the loveliest walks we have taken on this journey. It was a 6km walk but with all our detours it turned into a 7km walk. There are many people out walking, and we can certainly see why it is a locals favourite. There is so much diversity of bird life on our walk and it is just what I needed. The last couple of weeks we have been to many museums and we are "museumed out". It has been great to get back to nature.
PS I make no apologies for the number of photos 😄
Our next stop on this journey is Halls Gap in the Grampians. The weather does not look promising and that is a shame because we have quite a few walks we would like to do. We will just have to wait and see if the BOM is correct.......
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