It's a girl, three kinds of fish, sunset

 Funny little car on Puckle Street, Moonee Ponds

I'm still playing blog catch-up, but at least I'm only a few days behind now. Luke's sister had her third baby on Friday - a little girl after two boys. Yay! We visited on Saturday afternoon. So tiny and cute and not at all happy about being woken up to have a bath. Luke has an adorably funny picture of her reaction, which he will no doubt bring out for her 21st birthday.

Luke wore his Planet Terror t-shirt on Saturday, which was April 6.  When we were in the lift going up to the maternity ward I noticed the date at the bottom of the print. 

After we left the hospital, we visited Middle Brighton Beach. It was a warm, sunny day. Our Indian summer isn't quite over yet. 

 Brighton's famous bathing boxes

 They're a popular backdrop for wedding photos

Look at all these little fish!

There were thousands - probably tens of thousands - of them swimming in the shallows  around the Middle Brighton Pier, flashing silver in the sun. They were mesmerising. 

Jellyfish!

Starfish! 

This starfish is far more laid back than Sassy Starfish. 

 

The hazy city

The clouds rolled in, but it didn't rain where we were

After Brighton, we stopped in St Kilda, just before the sun set. It was a pearler. 

 

Puffy cloud on the horizon opposite the sun

We had dinner on Acland Street, and then gelato...well, had gelato; Luke didn't because his belly was full with the giant chicken parmagiana he had for dinner. I had the coconut meringue and the caramel popcorn flavoured gelato from 7 Apples (yes, it actually had bits of popccorn in it). The popcorn was OK and the coconut was pleasant. My heart/stomach still belongs to Fritz Gelato.  

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.

A grand day out (in full)

Luke and I headed north for a day trip to the central Victorian town of Maldon yesterday. Neither of us had been before, but I'd heard it still retained many original buildings from its glory days during the gold rush of the mid-1800s. Since we liked Clunes and I was quite taken with Castlemaine, chances were good that we'd like Maldon too.

And we did. Very much so. Like Clunes and Castlemaine, Maldon is a picture of rustic charm. It sounds like a real estate agent cliche, but that really does describe it perfectly. There's old buildings, flaking paint, rusting iron roofs, lovely old verandahs, and many beautifully restored old cottages and grander homes.  The National Trust has described Maldon as having "the most intact historic streetscape in Victoria". (Incidentally, Maldon is almost exactly the centre of the state of Victoria.)  

Main Street with old Studebaker. I think there was a vintage

 car show on because we saw a lot of cool old cars about town

Also Main Street

 Main Street again

 A closer view of the Phoenix Buildings facade 

 Templeton Street. Maldon is old sign heaven. Everywhere

 I looked...Ooh! Old sign! Ooh, another old sign! 

I'm going to do a separate post with the old signs because there's too many to squeeze into this post (and it's nearly 11.00pm and I'm tired)

This was the first one I saw, on an old produce store. 

The sign just above the red door says 'corn crushing'

Scotch Pie House! We had lunch at the nearby bakery which 
has a Scottish wood-fired oven. There must be a connection

This is the back of the croquet clubhouse

Stupid cars. If I had to choose a superpower, it would be to 
render vehicles, powerlines and rubbish bins invisible

Flying saucer clouds!

We visited the town's small, but quite impressive museum, where we were attended to by an older gentleman who was endearingly passionate about the history of his town.  The book above - Mrs Beeton's Cookery Book and Household Guide - caught my eye for two reasons: one, because I find these old housekeeping books hilariously archaic; and two, because it was published by the eccentric E W Cole, of Cole's Book Arcade fame.   Unfortunately, it was locked in a glass cabinet so I couldn't leaf through it. 

  

This pine tree in Maldon's compact, but enticingly shady, public garden was propagated from a seed from the Lone Pine at Gallipoli. It was presented to the Maldon RSL in 1983 in memory of Major Alexander Steele, who served in World War 1, so I think the seed was taken from Lone Pine well after WWI.  

Maldon has one of the most - if not the most - impressive

 public schools I have ever seen 

Before heading home we drove to the top of nearby Mt Tarrengower and climbed the poppet-head lookout. Yes, that's what it's called. Poppet-head! Here's what it looks like. 

It was sunny and quite hot when we got to Maldon, but the clouds moved in while we were there, which made the view more picturesque. 

 Overlooking Maldon

You can just see Cairn Curran Reservoir in the middle,

and the Grampians on the horizon

We saw this dilapidated cottage and sheds on the way in to Maldon and stopped to take photos on the way home. I was half-expecting someone to come out and tell us to go away, especially as the faded sign near the front gate said Private property. Keep out, but no one did.  Phew.

 

Give me an old shed among the gumtrees...

With lots of rusty things... 

 

After we got back to Melbourne, we headed off to my friend Bertie's place for a scrumptious roast dinner and a glass or two of bubbly. Bertie has a new job and Lauren, another friend from my old work, recently got engaged, so champagne was definitely in order. It was a fun night to end a long day. Luke and I were very happy to crawl into bed when we got home.

Speaking of sleep, it's nearly midnight now so I'd better post this and go to bed. Apologies for typos and poor formatting. I'll fix that later.