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We left Hall's Gap to drive to Castlemaine and while our GPS usually takes us down a lot of back roads this time they weren't so bad so we arrived fairly early in the afternoon. We found the caravan park we had booked into but missed the entrance so we had to drive around another time to drive in. We were given our site by the very friendly manager and we found it very easy to back in and set up, maybe 20 minutes and we were ready for the day. We don't normally do much on the first day so we had lunch and then sat around catching up on our social media and listening to the news. It was very obvious after a while that our neighbour didn't like our listening preference so he blasted us out with his preferred music station. We didn't react and sat there until our program was over before moving inside. It must have been unbearable for him in the van with the volume of his music and after a short time he turned it down before turning it off completely. Anyway this is something you have to put up with while travelling around. Our other neighbour behind us is a gold prospector and and we had a good chat with him about his time and purpose here, unfortunately he has Parkinsons and struggles getting around. We had dinner and a bit of TV before I took myself off to bed.
The next day we decided to have a bit of a look around Castlemaine. There are so many old buildings here that I wanted to photograph. Our first mission was to drive to the Information Centre to pick up some local information to find out what there was to look at. As we found with many centres around the areas we have visited through Covid they had no idea what was open and what wasn't so we chose a couple of destinations to see, we had a few items to pick up at the supermarket so we visited the very excellent Maxi IGA store, we didn't want to leave here as they had so many good and interesting items to look at. We picked up the few things we wanted before moving onto The Mill which is a tourist attraction in Castlemaine, we were looking for a coffee but this turned out more difficult than we first thought in that the coffee shop was not open and we had to return to a coffee van where we had first entered the complex. The Mill is a collection of various market options to check out, we had a look though the very large retro market, op shop with very over priced items, there was a cheese making and chocolate making demonstration area, a very expensive pork butcher where we purchased four sausages for $15.00 and were interested in a rolled pork roast that was priced at $53.00, we didn't buy it because it doesn't matter what you say a few slices of pork is not worth that price.
From here we drove over the road to the Botanical Gardens which is a beautiful gardens area and we had a wander around before sitting and having a quiet moment and just relaxing. From here we drove to The Buda House which is an historical home in the area. Unfortunately the home is not open at the moment because of Covid but we were able to wander around their beautiful gardens which we did. We peeped in the windows of the house as we wandered around which only peeked our curiosity, hopefully we can return here at another better time. We bought a tomato chutney on our way out as the committee is asking for help to keep this enterprise open.
We drove from here to the Bourke and Wills memorial and to take photos of the view over Castlemaine and then drove around the streets back home taking photos of the many beautiful buildings in the town. We have fallen in love with this quaint town and we can see what the attraction is to retired couples to move here. We are looking forward to another look around tomorrow.
The next day we thought we would drive to Maldon to have a look around. I had heard so much about this small historic town and couldn't wait to pay a visit. Just a bit disappointed, maybe because of Covid but I don't think so. We had a coffee in town that was just bordering on ordinary and we were a bit disappointed that a beautiful old town like this had obviously not had any maintenance for a long time. So many empty shops and the house prices in the area didn't match up with the infrastructure. I wouldn't recommend a visit here as I didn't think there was anything special to see.
From here we drove to Maryborough where we found so many beautiful old well maintained buildings but the feature of the day for us was finding the Maryborough Railway Station. Why have we never heard of this beautiful sation before today. Such a huge beautiful building and such a gem of a find for us on our exploration of the area.
Our last day in Castlemaine started with a coffee at Run Rabbit Run a small cafe behind the Maxi IGA. We have been looking for decent sized coffee cups in Castlemaine but so far hadn't found them. I walked into this cafe to order our coffee and on first look I thought they had the large cups so ordered for us but then when they came out they were still in the domestic sized cup, come on Castlemaine catch up. The good news was that the coffee was good. We took this back to the van to have a read before packing up what we could to move on the next day. Our plans were to drive to Daylesford for a bit of a look around, we have stayed here lots of times in the past and that is the reason we chose Castlemaine for our stop off over Daylesford and I can honestly say we are both glad that we did. On our way to Daylesford we stopped off at a lookout that turned out to be a bit blah and the wind was strong and icy cold so we didn't spend much time here. We drove into Daylesford and found a park on the main street where we walked up and down, not a lot has changed here but it is a lovely town with lots of interesting shops that I think most people would find something that interests them. It is difficult times and most of the food outlets are trying to cope with the Covid restrictions and I am sure this is difficult for everyone. After talking to one of the store owners in town we chose to go to the Royal hotel for lunch. When we arrived it was obviously very busy but because there was only the two of us they made an effort to find somewhere for us to eat. I was a bit of a pain asking to see what our options were but finally we settled on the pool room where the table had been covered up so that we could eat off it, I wasn't sure at first but Robb was happy with it so we chose here. In the end I was glad we had chosen it as it was very private. Robb had the steak and I had the Lamb ragu pasta, both meals were excellent and the wine we had was also good. The service was very friendly and one of the staff members had a bit of a chat to us and kept calling past to see how we were going. The only thing I would say is that the prices were a bit high for a pub, our lunch cost $90 dollars with one drink each but the food was really good so that is probably a choice you make. After lunch we walked over to the cheese and wine store where we had a bit of a look around. There was some nice cheeses here but nothing that piqued our interest so we walked back to the car and drove back to our van. The weather is not good so we spent the rest of the day catching up with social media in our van. Tomorrow we are moving onto Yea, not sure how long we will spend here, the announcements from our premier have not been good so we will have to play a waiting game.
