Day 2 Eureka – Ballarat.

Day 2 Eureka – Ballarat.

After a good nights sleep I wanted to get up early so I could take a wander around Ballarat before meeting a friend to have coffee at the museum in Eureka. I did have leftover pizza for breaky and I had to wait for daylight as 7am there was none at all. I had to have a look online to see what time sunrise was as at home the sun was usually shining.  Once I seen light through the curtains I knew it was time for me to leave.

One thing I wanted to look for was the Sturt street gardens or park. The Titanic memorial bandstand was something I wanted to take a pic of as it was something to do with the Titanic. The gardens was along Sturt street and I found it would be a long way to walk. I had no idea where I was supposed to be and walked past the Ballarat Hospital a beautiful building before I asked Mr Google who told me I was going in the wrong direction, but I was getting a nice view of some gardens. I have never seen one city with so many monuments of anything in the one small area.  They seem to like dedicating everything including finding Gold, but I was impressed. Time was running out and I was wanting o visit the old cemetery before going back into town.

I had been near the cemetery the day before or so I had thought. What I was thinking was a short walk was actually a little longer than I thought and a friend on Facebook had told me there was a cemetery where the people from the stockade had been buried. It was further out of town, but turns out it was the cemetery I had been looking at visiting. I learnt that when I arrived out the front that we both had been talking about the same location. The cemetery was known as the old cemetery and I learnt why. Both soldiers and diggers from the Eureka Stockade were dedicated with memorials. Many people were from different denominations were buried there including a small area for the Chinese including what I think was where they were cremated. There is an orientation building at the cemetery where it gives you the story about the Eureka Stockade and the cemetery itself. Gold had been found when burying someone and graves were 11 feet deep so other family members can go in the same grave. Could be why some of the headstones have two names on them. I needed to leave, but not before taking a shot of a postie bike where the postie had gone to the loo in the cemetery. I thought it would be funny with the graves nearby and the bike.

I had to head towards the Museum of Australian Democracy where I was going to meet a lady who I knew from Facebook for coffee. I thought I would be on time, but the area was further than I thought and I kept finding things that caught my attention. I was walking quickly and was just a touch later to the museum than I had predicted. The museum did seem smaller than I thought it was from the outside. I did meet Theresa outside and we went to the cafe with her friend and had lunch with coffee. I had a pie and it was a nice pie while we chatted and had coffee. Afterwards I went into the museum and I wanted to see the actual Stockade flag. There are parts that are missing as people had souvenired some over time. The rest of the museum was interactive and all about the different parts of democracy including the psychology of it all like making associations with something like colours going cloud, polar bear and then cow. Cow was the odd one out as we would associate the colour white. Bob Brown was in another talking about how to deal with politicians like learning to discuss with them the problems you have with certain issue and also the media. I learnt the media is not your friend no matter how you push them there are usually different sides to the story that they will chase. Also make your campaign to be different that will get peoples attention. The centre piece was all about the different issues of Australia’s history from the Eureka stockade, Suffragette movement and the White Australia policy. I did find it interesting and there were other parts that included censoring books including Hitler’s book and the feminist movement too. I had heard a few talks about this museum and to actually visit made me happy.

The rest of the afternoon meant I would be taking a wander towards Barkley Street as I had seen a monument near the skate park. One of the postcards with a piece of the flag had a picture of a monument about the Eureka Stockade and was a short walk from the museum. There were canons and a plinth I think it is called. It was part of the list I had seen at the cemetery and I had been to several parts of the Eureka trail. Another was the location of Bentley’s Hotel where someone had been killed and started the uprising or was one of the leading causes to the uprising.  The monument I had seen earlier was about gold being discovered and I wanted to get something to eat at a maccas that had pictures of early Ballarat. I did even see an old bellow in the corner and there was leadlighting in the doors too. The only problem I did have was that it was getting dark. I didn’t want to be anywhere on dark as I would have problems finding my way home. Sovereign Hill signs were what I was following and did stop on the way to look at poverty point and the statue of Sir Henry Bolte outside the gold museum. I was spent and sore from my long day walking around the city. I enjoyed myself so far on this trip. Tomorrow I head towards Bendigo and I somehow end up on the gold train and that town has active mines as well.  Ballarat does too though I think I have learnt my lesson about living so far away from the central part of town as I am far from nearly everything except for Pizza Hut.