A wet trip to Rutherglen

Ballarat is an unspoiled Victorian city which we enjoyed momentarily as we walked in search of a place for breakfast. We resisted the temptation to eat at the Hotel ‘s buffet breakfast mainly because of the rich food the night before. We admired the beautiful mid to late Victorian architecture which had been lovingly restored, particularly the lace work on the hotel verandahs. It was also a city of churches including 9 varieties of Methodists all now underutilized Uniting Churches.

We chose breakfast at the pub which was not only popular with guests of the hotel but also large numbers of lycra clad cyclists visiting for the Australian Road Racing championships- Victorians love an “event”.

We crossed the road to St Patrick’s Catholic cathedral where the friendly priest was doing a “meet and greet” with locals and visitors in the church before mass; a nice touch. It was a nice mass with a choir and an MC who announced the hymn numbers like a bingo caller but we miss the more relaxed atmosphere of our local parish.

We commenced our journey preferring the longer more scenic route despite Madam GPS wanting us to travel via Melbourne. We passed through some beautiful former mining towns including: Daylesford, Castlemaine and Bendigo admiring the fantastic old pubs in the smaller towns and Bengigo’s amazing civic architecture. Bendigo is worthy of a return visit. For reasons hard to explain, the cameras stayed in the boot. We need another trip and a chance to record some great architecture.

As both of us had visited Bendigo Pottery in former lives, a visit seemed appropriate. We took a leisurely browse through the various collections and purchased a few items for Caz and ourselves. It was far more relaxing shopping than our last memorable experience of shopping for glass in Murano in Venice when we were kidnapped by a mad power boat driver who delivered us to a salesperson who proceeded to stalk us to ensure we purchased something of more value than the cost of the “free” boat road.

After Shepparton the scenery became a little monotonous as one straight road turned into another. The biggest excitement came from a huge thunderstorm which chased us towards Benalla.

We finally arrived at Rutherglen at about 5pm and easily located the B&B- “Bank on Main” which is an old bank that has been beautifully restored into a residence which also includes two luxury bedrooms for guests appropriately named “Sovereign” and “Sterling”. Each room has a huge king sized bed which is about 1 metre off the ground. The bed linen is luxurious as is the spa bath and the room is tastefully decorated.

We went for a walk through the main street which consisted of: pubs, cafes/ bakeries/ restaurants, up market clothing and gift shops and antique shops. We then returned to the B&B for a quiet drink on the verandah watching the storm roll in before heading to the Victoria Hotel for dinner. Dinner was pleasant, our hosts friendly and the local wines provided a taste of what lies ahead tomorrow.

Enjoying listening to the rain on the corrugated iron roof and thoughts of sleep.