Summer Outings – Ballarat

Summer holidays would not be complete without a few day trips – right? Well I thought so. My first offering for this year is a Day trip we did to Ballarat (approx 2 hours from Melbourne). We were dropping Daughter No.2 off at the airport and we figured we were halfway there already…….so we decided to meet up with a few other photographers at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens.

Gorgeous spot, with beautiful manicured lawns, formal hedging, avenues of sequoia and and other trees and an interesting avenue of Australian Prime Minister Busts in bronze (I think). There is also a greenhouse and a rottunda of sorts containing lovely statues. We spent a few hours wandering the grounds, and visiting Lake Wendouree over the road. Then we made our good byes to the group and headed off on our own.

looking up

Ballarat is a lovely old gold mining town, with historic buildings and loads of quirky, buildings, adornments and it even has a seedy underbelly (well sort of). We drove and walked around town looking at various old buildings and spots were police made their way to the Eureka Stockade. There is a trail you can follow from Lydiard Street to the Stockade itself.

There is lots to see in Ballarat if you have the time, there is the Historic Sovereign Hill Village, Kryal Castle, of course the Eureka Stockade, the Gardens and Lake Wendouree. We have been to many of them before, so we did not do them this trip.

On the way home we found a wonderful derelect house, which we sneakily took some shots, and then via Anthony’s Cutting to an old stone bridge. A fabulous day out.