Senior Morton's World Tour

Kids are done, work is done, Grand Kids…Eh… they'll be here when we get back!

The goldfields tour

Posted by laurie and jill in Adventures on 11 6th, 2014

Tuesday 4th November 2014
We decided to have a few days holiday away and to do a tour of the central goldfields area of Victoria. After a late start we headed off and made good progress, eventually coming to Macedon, where we decided to detour and go up to the top of the mountain. The drive up the mountain is very scenic, with magnificent old gardens filled with azaleas and Rhodadendrums, providing a blaze of colours. At the top we stopped and had an early lunch in the restaurant, then walked to the huge WW1 Memorial which has been significantly developed and landscaped since we last saw it 20 years ago.

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After taking in the views we drove to Woodend which we were quite taken with, especially as it was so green. Maybe we will have to revisit this town again one day. Kyneton was next on the route and Malmesbury, where we detoured and went across to Daylesford, well known for its natural mineral springs. However we didn’t partake and headed on to Hepburn Springs and then onto Shepherd’s Flat where we stopped off at the Lavender Farm. This was started by an Italian family some 120 years ago. We decided to sample the lavender scones, but were not overly impressed with the taste! They also put lavender in Jill’s English Breakfast tea and she thought it was yuk!! As it was getting a bit late and we still had a distance to cover, we headed for Newstead and then on to Maldon which was our destination for the night. There we were booked into a quaint 1950’s style motel which even had a Home Beautiful magazine dated March 1961 which cost 2 shillings and six pence in the room. The decor was as in the 50/60’s era.

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The real reason we were in Maldon however was because Laurie was given a 70th birthday present from the children of an overnight stay in Maldon and a ride on a real steam engine!
So next day we were up bright and early and off to the nearby Maldon Station where we booked our first class tickets to Castlemaine, with Laurie riding in the engine with the driver and firemen!! What an experience!! It was dirty, hot, noisy and absolutely beautiful!!

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On the return journey we travelled in the first class saloon, enjoying our complimentary cheese platter and a glass of champagne!

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In the afternoon we went back to Castlemaine again to have a good look around and then over to Maryborough exploring the countryside. Here the terrain was already very dry and Laurie really felt it was familiar country ( like on the farm).
Maldon is now a small town of 1800 people that originated in the 1860’s when gold was discovered and for a short period of time more gold was found here than anywhere else in Victoria and it would have developed into a major centre but for a lack of water. There were 30,000 diggers living there at one time when the average wage was 2 Pounds 10 Shillings per week which wasn’t much considering 2.1 million ounces of gold was retrieved from the Maldon area.