Old things

Much of the old industrial and engineering Ballarat has vanished, very quickly, and it's hard now to see that the city used to make trains.

 I took a camera out shopping and wandered off while Yin bought the fruit & vegies this arvo, so I could get some pictures before this signal box is burned down or the crossing is modernised.

I'm fond of this corner of the city .

Looking across to Black Hill from the old boom-gate crossing and signal box.

Engines waiting for Steamrail volunteers to get them back on the tracks

Petrol pump -  discard or salvage?

Misty, moisty morning with cloudy weather

(click on this)

Beautiful winter - water, mist and rain. 

I walk along here, on my way  to work. When I walk, that is!

French bread!

For the last three months this beautiful little French bakery-cafe in Creswick has been baking REAL bread. Ballarat is bereft of good bread - it comes in from Geelong (La Madre) or Trentham (Red Beard) or Castlemaine (Himalaya) or Melbourne (Babka) ......
I can bake sourdough and wholemeal and flat breads, but I can't manage the perfection of a traditional French baguette.  It seems that you have to have a French baker to get traditional French bread.

Sorry about the fuzzy photos but I got a bit excited, having brekky in such style this morning.

It was so delicious to be inside in the warmth of an open fire, the scent of baking bread and coffee brewing around us, gazing at the rainy street outside.

We took a baguette and brioche home but Yin ate most of it while I was still fiddling around on the computer.

This is what's left, just before I make up a tomato roll for lunch.

I love good bread and good coffee.You'll find both at the Peche Gourmande.

On the buses


These last few weeks, apart from writing (and working and cleaning the house and walking the dog...), I've been travelling about on the buses from Creswick to Sebastopol.
The landscape and streetscapes change radically over such short distances.Twenty minutes on the bus going north and I'm in Creswick.

 

Fifteen minutes on another bus going south and I'm in Sebastopol

Both were goldfields in the 1850s, both grew into little townships in the 1860s and were mining, farming and producing the machinery, clothing and essentials for their region.

No, it's not the weather - on a cloudy day Sebas looks just like this and a clear day Creswick still looks quite different.