Ghost signs from all over the place

Ghost sign time! Here are the photos from our Good Friday day trip as well as my jaunt  through Melbourne's inner north west on Easter Monday. I walked all the way from Maribyrnong to Victoria Market on the edge of the CBD, which is about 10kms, and that was after I'd wandered around Highpoint Shopping centre for a few hours. 

As I neared Flemington racecourse I thought, 'OK, my legs can't take me any further; I've gotta catch the tram now." But my ghost sign obsession kept me going, and I'm glad it did because my best finds of the day were between Flemington and the city. 

Anyway, enough chat. 

TRENTHAM

 Yeah, I know, I showed you this already

***

DAYLESFORD

 I'm glad the day spa kept the old sign

 Something stables. I like the lettering

The Daylesford & District Historical Museum 

and Culture Centre formerly known as...

 Hotel...something. The end of the bottom word

 looks like LAGER. I think I chopped off the start 

of the word because it was hard to see. Anyone know?

***

BENDIGO

 There's a few signs going on here, and it looks like they 

painted over the lot

The Beehive Store for Better Value

The Beehive Building on Pall Mall was built in 1872 and is heritage listed. It got a facelift last year, but I don't think the side of the building was included in the works. I'm perplexed as to why most of 'The Beehive' is chopped off at the top. Why bother if it wouldn't all fit?

There were signs on both sides and the  rear of 

this building, but they are mostly indecipherable

 The other side

 And the back. When Luke and I were there, 

we thought the word at the top left was 'Jones' 

but now I'm not sure

  

And now for the Easter Monday signs. These are the best ones.

 Sunday Best. This was Maribyrnong Road, Maribyrnong 

 Foster's Lager, Union Road, Ascot Vale

 Union Road, Ascot Vale again. Not sure what it says.  

Something about sport?

I think the sign on the side says Carters Self Storage

 Union Road again. Something tea?

 I reckon that's the R at the end of Robur (the tea). 

Another Union Road sign. What a waste of a good sign

 

 A. Pearse Manufacturers of All Kinds off Harness and Saddlery Goods

I saw this just after deciding not to catch the tram near Flemington Racecourse. It's just off Flemington Road. Of course I love that they retained the sign when turning it into a dwelling and removed the foliage so it's easier to see.

 Flemington road, Newmarket. I think it says something 

about a newsagent and a weekly publication

  Canning Street in North Melbourne

My favourite find the day, which I could so easily have missed. Canning Street runs down either side of a long rectangle park with well established trees. I was walking along the other side of the park and only just caught a glimpse of the sign partly hidden by foliage when I looked to the left.

 

 The top of the building

 Abbotsford Street, North Melbourne. Astor Quality Radio

 Victoria Street, North Melbourne. I think I've posted photos

 of these signs before, but they're good enough for a re-run

 Victoria Street again. Wattyl is a brand of paint, 

which makes this fading sign mildly ironic

 Just off Victoria Street. My guess is the bottom 

two words are Lumber Carter

 

This is on the rear of the McDonald's on Elizabeth Street

near Victoria Market. I've posted photos of the bricked-in 

window/door (below) before but I wasn't in the

 right spot to see the sign at the top

Finally, two signs from yesterday, both in Moonee Ponds. 

 There's a couple of signs here, both hard to read. Puckle Street

 W Rayner, Tobacconist and Dainty Maid Custard Powder. 
Opposite the train station

Good Friday - Part II (better late than never)

Yes, I know it's now been more than a week since Good Friday. I'd better crack on with Part II of my Easter blog post before I forget what we did. Lucky I have photos.

After Daylesford, we continued on to Bendigo to visit my friend and my two 'nephews' who moved there late last year. I hadn't seen the boys for aaaages. The eldest started school this year and the youngest is three. They're gorgeous, funny little boys. Luke kept them entertained kicking and throwing balls around their big back yard while Deliea and I sat and had a natter. 

We headed off around 4.00pm for a wander around the centre of town before the light started to fade (so I could take photos of ghost signs, of course). I hadn't been to Bendigo in more than 10 years, and I didn't see much of the place then, so I was essentially visiting for the first time. I liked it a lot. 

Bendigo is the fourth largest city in Victoria (with a population of 82,000 to 100,000...make up your mind, internet) and is yet another city that boomed during the gold rush of the 1850s. It has glorious Victorian architecture - its civic buildings are as beautiful as Melbourne's - and Rosalind Park on the edge of the CBD is lovely. 

 The view from the Poppet Head lookout in Rosalind Park 

 
There was a very large petting zoo in the gardens which had a funny little brown piglet trotting about hapharzardly with his snout to the ground. It barely stood still long enough for me to take a photo.

 The imposing Sacred Heart Cathedral

A closer look

Even closer

 Part of the impressive Alexander Fountain

 Shamrock Hotel

 Detail of a lamp post in front of the court house

 On the facade of the court house. I think
 they liked their buildings to have fierce 
creatures on them

Look at this evil little fella!

 

Here be dragons! Chinese dragons, actually. A lot of Chinese 

came to Victoria to strike it rich in the gold rush of the 1850s

The Easter bunny came early to Hargreaves Mall...

or maybe the goose laid these

 

 The golden hour

  One of the very handsome park benches in Rosalind Park

Buzzzzz

Raaaark

Camp Hill Primary School

Camp Hill Primary School, as the name suggests, is high the hill overlooking and adjoining Rosalind Park, and Bendigo Secondary College is right beside it.  What a lovely setting for a school. 

 Lake Weeroona

Aaargh! My head!

Good Friday - Part I

 A rare sight for me

I got up on Friday  - a public holiday  - about the same time as the sun. Granted, the sun doesn't rise very early this close to the end of daylight savings (about 7.30), but that's still early for me, especially on a non-work day.

We set off on our day trip to Bendigo in central Victoria. Our first stop was Trentham, a little township about half way between Melbourne and Bendigo. We parked on the main street and went for a wander in the chilly morning air. Yes, chilly! It was quite nice after our recent hot weather and kind of...well, just plain cold. Brrrr. No pleasing some people, eh?

I spotted this sign, which was just visible over the top of shrubbery, straight after getting out of the car.

I hesitate to call it a ghost sign because it looks as if it's been restored. It's great that people value their old signs, but restoring them robs them of some of their character, I think.  If it hasn't been restored, it's either lasted very well or it isn't that old. Indian Root Pills  - essentially a herbal laxative - went on the market in the early 1800s in America but the Wikipedia entry for the pills is a little ambiguous -  they are either still sold in Australia or they were sold here until 1992. I'd never heard of them until recently, and that was only because I saw photos of other old Indian Root Pills signs (like this one).

Some other Trentham sights. 

Trentham is at the edge of the Wombat State Forest and they work those furry (not-so) little fellas hard. There's a statue of a wombat in the little garden on the main street and quite a few business in the area with quaint wombat-centric names. And why not?

 Gotta love a town that cares about its feathered friends

 Trentham obviously loves a bit of whimsy

Large ginger cat is not amused

One of the town's two pubs. Yep, tiny town, two pubs.  

How very Australian.

We stopped at Trentham Falls on the way to Daylesford, but because rain has been scarce, it wasn't a very impressive display. The landscape was interesting though and the smell of the cool, damp native forest was AH-MAZING. Eucalyptus fresh. That alone made the stop worthwhile. 

 

Basalt columns

Then we were off to Daylesford, a larger town and popular destination for day trippers from Melbourne, particularly because of its natural mineral spring spa resorts. According to Wikipedia, Daylesford has 65 mineral springs, which is 80 per cent of the known minerals springs in Australia. (Some of this water ends up bottled and sold as Mount Franklin mineral water.)

We didn't have time for luxuriating in a spa though. We had a gourmet hotdog for lunch and a wander about the centre of town. Daylesford is another place that sprang up with the discovery of gold in the 1850s. Like its neighbours, the riches of its gold mining days are still evident in the town's grand buildings (which I haven't captured very well with my photos).

 The old mail box is still used!

This fountain at the start of the main street is reminiscent of the Hochgurtel Fountain in Melbourne's Carlton Gardens. Perhaps this design was the height of fountain fashion way-back-when. 

We saw a few old signs (which I will share in a separate post), and this old car which looked as if it hadn't been moved from its parking spot just off the main street in at least 50 years. Closer inspection revealed that the registration had only lapsed late last year. 

 

It even had lichen growing on it

 Cat on a bookshop roof

It's not a real cat, just a silhouette, but I like that someone went to the trouble of putting it up there. We successfully resisted the pull of the the bookshop, which doesn't happen often. 

We stopped for a little while at Lake Daylesford. There was a gang of ducks hassling picnickers for food. The picnickers left and then the ducks spotted me and started heading my way. I thought, "Ha! You think I have food for you, but I'm just going to take photos of you!" I seriously underestimated their ability to distinguish between bread and a camera because they didn't even get to me before losing interest and heading off in another direction!  I made a little video of them deserting me.  

 

Look at them eyeing me suspiciously

You might recognise these as the breed of duck recently revealed to be wearing dog masks. They SO are! Look at them!

We then hit the road for our final destination - Bendigo - to visit my friend and her two boys, but I'm going to finish here for tonight.