What a great couple of weeks we have had. Moving quietly through the central goldfields of Victoria after the Portarlington mussel fest, we settled in Maryborough. Had a pleasant stay overnight en-route at Clunes, the booktown.. We have always liked Clunes. Our first venture there was on Anzac day about 1990 and it was a whole lot different then. A piper and tinrattler for the local RSL went from pub to pub ,piping and collecting and you could park anywhere in the main street on THAT Anzac day. Plenty of vacant shops in all states of disrepair and a couple of bric-a-brac shops and not a lot of anything else. Clunes has had a re-vitalisation. Lovely bakery, book shops galore, news, hairdressers a few gift shops have given a re birth to this old goldfields town. Well worth the journey from anywhere to Clunes.
Maryborough seems to be dominated by some lovely elevated architecture. Try and find anything higher than the old schoolhouse, the site of a new retirement village now, or spend some time browsing the antiques at the magnificent railway station before having a snack or perhaps even lunch at the lovely cafe there. A little further on from the railway station is the old mill, now turned into a sewing machine museum, yes ,thats right. This corrugated clad 4 storey mill once crushed local grain and now houses a great collection of sewing machines and an impressive array of bric-a-brac.
The local highland society have a great club on the main street and serves a mean lunch. The town is also the gold seeker centre for victoria so any tips, or equipment to find that elusive nugget may be found at Coiltek out along the Bendigo road.Quite hot while we stayed in the Maryborough caravan park. We met a few locals and a few visiting fossickers out to find that elusive nugget.
Moving on we went to Inglewood, another old gold town with an amazing history. The great fire of 1862 destroyed most of the main street of Inglewood, so most of the buildings date from then.
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