Monday, September 3, 2018

Bendigo - VIC, Australia

If the time machine has stopped and never started yet, it is here in Bendigo.

We planned our visit in the 1st ever White Night - Bendigo celebration there. Bendigo is a town 165 kms from Melbourne CBD. it is a beautiful 3 hours drive with 2 stops in small villages that give you great pies and amazing coffee. In the 1800's, the gold rush in the mines of Bendigo built the town and its population and currently there are 30000 residents in Bendigo.
On the evening of the White Night, Bendigo geared up to accommodate more than 60000 people from the surrounding towns and Melbourne.

We were thrilled to be a part of this big crowd. We planned a day  trip to Bendigo in a sunny winter day whose evening temperature  forecast was -1 degrees in Bendigo. It is going to be a cold night after all. As per our plan, we had decided to book a place to stay on the go, so we packed the hot coffee for and jackets and left for our trip.

We exited out through M1 into the Midland Highway and went all the way to Kyneton cruising at a good 100 km/hour. We pit stopped there for coffee and pies at Country Cob Bakery.

We reached Bendigo in 2 hours and 30 mins covering 150 kms. Bendigo is beautiful for its boom-time during the gold rush. The tram network was the first one here to be built in Australia and dates back to the 1890's. The colonial buildings and the beautiful lake paints a beautiful picture of time travel to the last century. The white night would start only in the evening and we had enough time to roam around in the town centre. We did what we do first at any new place, visit the tourist information centre and  collect the map. 



We walked by the 19th century town-hall along with many ornate buildings built in a late Victorian colonial style, Colonial Bank building, Masonic Hall, Joss House, the historical Tram Shed, power station and definitely the Bendigo Tramway museum. We also visited the gigantic Sacred Heart Cathedral which is  a sandstone church, is the third largest cathedral in Australia and one of the largest cathedrals in the Southern Hemisphere. The Bendigo Art gallery is a state of art that we visited is one of Australia's oldest and largest regional art galleries.
Every building in this town has a character to it be it a private house or the butcher house turned pub and the public buildings. One has to visit Bendigo to feel and see the beauty of this place.

Towards evening, the temperature started going colder to a good -3 degrees Celsius and the white night started with the lights, animation, tram cars, song dance and food across the city.
We hung around till 9PM and called it a day to head back to Melbourne. 



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