It's a gang, street art, random oddities

It seems I'm slowly building a ghost hunting gang. As well as Jess, the friend who told me about the Robur sign in Fitzroy North, another Twitter pal told me about one in the city which has been revealed by the demolition of the adjoining building. 

Corner of Lonsdale and Russell Streets

Celebrated specialist!

I had seen a photo of this sign (I think on Finding the Radio Book), but I didn't take note of where it was, and I like to see and photograph a sign myself. So thank you, Cherie! 

I think Jess has caught the ghost sign bug. She tweeted me photos of two other signs today, one of which she jumped out of her car in traffic to photograph! She tweeted:

Becoming slightly obsessed with spotting #ghostsigns in Melbourne for @FriskyLibrarian. It's kinda fun.

Heehee.

As well as the ghost sign photos from Anzac Day, I took photos of some other amusing, strange, quirky and cool things I encountered on my expedition. 

 Teeny weeny house!  It's near where Cromwell Street

 turns into McCutcheon Way in Collingwood  

As you can see from the plaque above, it's old and heritage-listed. I can't get over the fact such a small house was designed to house workers and their families - it's smaller than my bedroom! - and that people lived in until 1977. Wow. 

 Oh-kay 

  

This place  - the People's Market on Stanley Street in Collingwood - looked cool. Music, food, art and markets stalls...but unfortunately I came upon it the day before it closed down. Maybe it will pop up again somewhere else.

   Homage to the Beastie Boys

Rarrr!

Giant concrete spray can

Collingwood...Wellington Street, I think 

Same artist. Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Street

The bell at the front gate of a house on Queen's Parade, Clifton Hill

A dude in North Fitzroy 

Pointy building on Brunswick Street, 

completely covered in street art 

This was one of my favourite non-sign discoveries of the day. It was in the window of an old shop - possibly now a residence - on Brunswick Street, just over Alexandra Parade. (Apologies for poor photo quality.)

I had to stretch up to take this shot (yes, that's my forehead) and the last bit is hard to read. It says: The octopus has 3 hearts, yet no skeletal system. They can fit into tiny spaces + love a lot.   Of course I greatly approve of sharing octopus facts, though I'm not sure what they're getting at with the "love a lot" bit.  

The best part of this is that several people have taken up the offer to educate the occupiers. Apart from the octopus facts, there was one about beer and a list of which countries have nuclear weapons.  

Just off Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy

I ended up walking all the way back into the city. I spied a group of workers taking a break in an alley behind a Gertrude Street restaurant, with the dome of the Royal Exhibition Building in the background. 

I arrived at the Carlton Gardens at the perfect time. The Hotchgurtel Fountain and the Exhibition Building were aglow in the late afternoon sun. 

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.

My Saturday in photos

The fog still lingered over the city when Luke and I walked along the river this morning. I took a photo of ducks (surprise!). It's so cute the way they tuck their beaks into their feathers to sleep. 

There was a rainbow in the spray from the Hochgurtel Fountain in the Carlton Gardens.

Here's a close up. 

We went to the Finders Keepers Market at the Royal Exhibition Building, although the opportunity to photograph the building's beautiful interior was the biggest drawcard. The market only took up one end of the building, with the rest of it screened off. But there were gaps  where the screens joined so we squeezed through and snapped away. It's not that often you get  the chance to take photos inside the Royal Exhibition  Building without hordes of people getting in the way. 

Click here for more pics

Luke spotted an old sign on a building opposite the Exhibition Building.

Bantown House? 

We popped into the Botanic Gardens on our way home. The Ornamental Lake is covered in a thick carpet of algae. 

It's a swanvoy

I took more photos of ducks (and the algae).

The ducks were funny.  I saw a gap in the algae where the surface of the water was disturbed. 'Ooh, there's something in the water over there!' I said to Luke, just as a duck popped up in the gap. 

We saw swans making a love heart. Unfortunately they were rather inconsiderate swans and didn't hold the pose for more than a nanosecond, so my photo is fuzzy. 

We took some more photos and then headed for home.