Snapshot Castlemaine

Waiting on Castlemaine PLatform 2 for the afternoon train to Melbourne, catching some sunshine after a cold few days in Daylesford.

Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland

Sorting through photos and these are some of my favourites because the weather was just glorious. Although my real focus on this trip has been English gardens I have a bit of a thing for proper fortified castles that tower above the landscape. I stopped at this one during a drive up the east coast in Northumberland after visiting the recent garden at Alnwick Castle. It is quite close to Lindisfarne. The coast line is very beautiful and has what I think of (in my prejudiced way) as proper beaches, with golden sand and very little development, unlike the southern rocky beaches and the built up seaside towns in places like Brighton. There has been a castle here since about the 7th century AD I think, and i was the seat of the kings of Northumnbria at the time when England was split into several kingdoms.There is more history on the websit if you are interested. http://www.bamburghcastle.com/history.php

Photos. I didn't go in as I had to drive on to Scotland but I circled around the outside. Do you like the dramatic contrasts between blue sky and clouds in a period of only about 40 minutes!? Typical English summer weather.

Snapshots, Melbourne Uni

I was waiting for someone outside the 1888 building at Melbourne Uni the other day. I have been there so much over the past decade as a student and as staff but because I work there I tend not to take many photos. I had some time on my hands, and a camera and the sun was shining so here a few snaps.

 The 188 building itself. I like all it crowded ornament set against the red brick. There is always something about brick as a material on a façade that helps to tone down crazy ornament in a way a stucco or rendered façade wouldn't. There is something almost mannerist about the ornament, the crowded banded columns and the strange spiky pyramids. Though it lacks the elegance of more sophisticated mannerist architecture, everything is a bit crowded, a bit squeezed, but I still like it. 

I have to admit to never taking much notice of this pub, I don't really like it as a place to go (the interior is pretty awful, blonde tiles etc). But in the afternoon autumn sun the outside looks pretty good. I am guessing it was built in 1926 as the date above the door suggests, it has been designed to look older unlike a few of the other deco style pubs around this area.

Snapshot, Collingwood

Somewhere in Collingwood, not sure, somewhere near Rokeby St, maybe even on Rokeby St?

Snapshots, Adelaide

A photo I took last October. I didn't have much else to do in Adelaide than walk around the city for hours on end, which suited me just fine. I wandered down lots of small streets and found some lovely little buildings. This small shop is on Compton St, just near the Central Markets.

I was struck by this shop and it had a reassuring small blue plaque. The plaque reads

This small building was originally built as a house by Edward Moore in 1817. A shopfront was added by the next owner, baker Matthew Madge, in 1898-99. Bert Edwards, one of Adelaide's most colourful and notable citizens, opened a tea room here in 1913. It was immensely popular, particularly on Friday nights when the rear of the shop was used for playing the then illegal game of two-up.

I think I like that last use the best. And I am guessing that at some point it had something to do with the Metropolitan Saw Works, though that sounds like a very big thing for such a small shop.

Snapshots, Ballarat

View of the Mining Exchange and Post Office, Lydiard St Nth.

Begonias at the Begonia Festival, Ballarat Botanic Gardens.

Lavandula, Hepburn Springs

I went to Lavandula, a Lavender farm and garden in Hepburn Springs the Friday before last. It had rained heavily all morning so the sky was grey and the ground was damp and the light wasn't the best for photos. After a month of heavy rain the gardens were very lush and green. The old buildings date back to the 1860s when it was a dairy farm set up by a Swiss-Italian migrant, the property was more-or-less abandoned and then bought by Carol White about twenty years ago. It has a lavender farm (as you would expect) around the property, as well as vegetable gardens, fruit trees, geese, even a donkey. The new owner aimed to create a farm and gardens inspired by Italian, or Swiss Italian, farms. It definitely has an Italian feel to it with grape vines and lines of pointy trees. 

Some of the old buildings almost completely covered in grape vines.

Simple slate paving forms a path through the green grass.

Freshly pruned lavender, the farm had both these 'balls' of lavender, that you often see in photos of French and Italian lavender farms, as well as less controlled plants.

Trees in a row.

View back across one of the lavender beds toward the old milking shed (now the shop). All the plantings were laid out in a visually interesting way, often bordered by other plants. You can see here how they have created visual variety by pruning the central lavender plants but leaving the ones around the edges to grow in a more wild manner.

View across the field towards the gentle rolling hills. These low hills are typical of the Hepburn/ Daylesford area, so many farms are set in these shallow valleys.

The dam, or pond, or lake, not sure what they called it. A range of European trees and eucalypts, a very 'Victorian' view.

Lavender! The whole garden was infused with the smell of lavender, not quite overpowering but very present.

The 'wild' lavender sea.

A green quince, this got me excited about the arrival of quince season.

I guess some kind of old dairy farm thing being used as a tub for waterlilies, very effective.

I can never remember the name of these flowers, I have asked about 100 times and i never retain it. Anyway here they are after the petals have fallen off. Suggestive and sculptural!

More views of the plantings, I like all the different heights from the tall pines, to the medium height fruit trees to the low growing lavender.

Fields and fields of lavender.

The vegie patch.

A very large zucchini.

Blackberries. They were tasty. I hope they didn't mind me eating a few.

More fruit trees, and non fruit trees and an old cart.

I liked all the vines growing over the various frameworks and the closely planted trees, it gave the area around the old house and dairy a lovely intimate feeling.

Another field of lavender, you get the idea.

Lavender drying under the verandah of the old farmhouse.

The verandah on the old house.

Jewel spider, isn't it magnificent? Look at it's spikes!

 The donkey.

Daylesford Snapshots

Some photos I took while down the road the other day. Don't know much about any of the buildings I'm afraid!

 The local post office, always nice to see a post office still in its original building. I found an early photo of it in the SLV collection from the late 1890s but I am guessing the post office was probably built a decade o two earlier, but I'm not really sure.

Daylesford, ca. 1897-ca. 1899, b/w ; 5.5 x 7.5 cm. approx.
Image No: b27334, State Library of Victoria

Breakfast and Beer

Cnr of Vincent St and Central Springs Rd

Snapshot, Ballarat

I was waiting for the bus to Daylesford on Wednesday and it was a beautiful sunny day so I took some photos. This is the station. The full temple portico is pretty impressive, I guess it speaks to the wealth of Ballarat during the nineteenth century.