Nerrina or Little Bendigo

 
160 or so years ago, Nerrina was the site of a return gold rush from Bendigo back to the hills above Ballarat.  The miners named the place,with total lack of imagination but lots of hope, Little Bendigo. This hilly little settlement is now a suburb of Ballarat and called Nerrina - no doubt to prevent letters going astray to Big Bendigo.

 Nerrina's two old churches aren't in use now.

but the primary school is flourishing.

In the nineteenth century the Victorian government put up this beautiful brick primary school in Little Bendigo.
In the 1960s it was down to a handful of students, but now lots of kids go to school here because the area has been filling up with new houses.

 Look at the roof -  those finials are exquisite and just the colour of new gum leaves.

Despite all thye new houses that have gone up in the last twenty years the place is still full of trees, 

dead-end roads,

 and cottages and farmlets folded into the hills. 

A few old remnants from the past hang on next to the modern developments.

You can walk here from the city centre of Ballarat, but it's a long, hot walk, so today Yin drove me about.

Buns and bao for Easter Monday

Easter Monday. 

Hot cross bun bakers in Little Bourke Street, Melbourne

with the father of one of the bakers..

 

In the  yum cha restaurant ready to eat bao (steamed, sweet, red pork buns) and other goodies.

I took the bakers' hot cross buns home to have for brekky tomorrow, but had to try one for supper.

The buns contain chocolate as well as fruit and spices .

Yum.

Sunflower Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday. 

Bunches of sunflowers opening up all around the house.
Glorious!

 

Good Friday in Sebastopol

For nearly 100 years the Victorian country and city fire brigades have raised money  for the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. Here is the Sebastopol brigade, CFA volunteers, out collecting on Good Friday.

This is the original station building, with additions, which was moved over the road from its first site sometime in the early twentieth century.

The brigade began in 1868, about 6 years after the Ballarat brigades began, and within 4 years of the establishment of the Borough of Sebastopol. Like  most of the CFA brigades that have been fighting the fires around here the last few months, it remains a largely volunteer organisation. 

The Sebastopol brigade didn't have horses, so until motorised engines came in, the firemen ran and pulled their equipment along the streets of Sebastopol to put out fires.

For more pics of Sebastopol, have a look here

Cockatoo lace

This morning  I stopped by this old house in Sturt Street which I love for it's unusual iron trim around the front verandah.

Here is the central pillar.

Left

Right

If this were my house I'd be tempted to paint the cockies' crests yellow - they have to be sulphur-crested cockies, which hang around here over summer.
There's a lovely 1920s letter from  an old man who came to Ballarat as a boy in the 1850s, saying that flocks of cockatoos filled Sturt Street in the early days of the town. Lovely birds!

Although some people hate their noise they have a lot of fans - why else were these patterns made and then chosen to go up on the verandah?
If you haven't seen the house yet, it's beside Rosenhart's bakery.

Street stories

Summer evening, Sturt Street Ballarat

Last Tuesday evening the Ballarat Historical Society and the Ballarat branch of the National Trust had a little walk and quiz, up and down Sturt Street. We had to find the details that would reveal the stories of the buildings along three blocks of Sturt Street. It was fun and tricky and  I still haven't located the Sennitt's icecream advertisement.

Looking closely, up, down and around, revealed some other stories built into the street. 

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This building was once home to the Australian Native's Association. These particular natives were not indigenous people, they were locally-born British-Australians. The people who worked for Federation and built the unions that fought for safe and fair working conditions and wages.

And here is the spot where the Australian Workers Union began.

 Unions are deeply unfashionable at the moment. Does anyone remember the musical Reedy River, full of union songs and bush ballads, which I was brought up on? I can still sing every one of those songs! The music for the Ballad of Ninety-One (1891 Queensland shearer's strike) is here if you want a rousing song.

Of course Federation also marked the legal establishment of the White Australia Policy, enthusiastically sought by the unions, and  which caused Yin's family, among many others, a lot of pain and difficulty.

Then at the end of the walk I had a good look again at this.

This recent acknowledgement of the original owners of country is opposite the Ballarat Town Hall. Nowadays the Ballarat Town Hall flies the Australian flag, the Eureka flag and the red, black and gold flag of the first people of this country.
When I look at the list of land of the local Wada Wurrung clans I see the Wada Wurrung bulag of the Barrabool Hills. That's where the farm my family took up in the 1850s was. Along with many other families from the cramped towns of England, they came over to farm in the new colony of Victoria.
It's been five years since the nation apologised to it's first people. We've still got to follow up 'Sorry' with a constitutional acknowledgement, and last week Parliament  began the legal process.

Lunar New Year

It's Chinese or  Lunar New Year this weekend.

Last night Yin cooked  traditional vegetarian New Year's Eve dishes, including my favourite, the monks' vegetarian dish (Lo han jai is one English transliteration).
 It has fermented red bean curd sauce, sweet dry beancurd, dry bean curd sticks, black hair seaweed, gingko niuts, thread-fine rice vermicelli that is transparent when cooked, ear fungus, fat chinese mushrooms, and (not vegetarian because he can't help himself) chicken stock - but it doesn't need this).
 

Some things are soaked, some are marinated, some are fried until bubbly crisp.

Then all is stirred in together with the red bean curd sauce and simmered.

Then we eat it. 

It takes ages to make and Yin thinks it's a bit messy to look at, but this is the best dish ever!

Today we went in to Melbourne for New Year with the family. We saw the lions dancing through Footscray as we stopped for some red packets (we always forget something!), and a coffee and canoli at the last pasticceria left at the Footscray market.

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This picture was taken before all the food brought by the rest of the family was put on the table.

Now the year can begin (again - see the previous post).