Somewhere in Europe?

Yesterday being a Saturday we got twitchy to be out and about.
Instead of following our usual path and driving out into the countryside we headed into the heart of Melbourne City. We drove into the city because as one of the few perks of working for a charity I have free access to a car parking space near the centre.

I am afraid I am putting my “Uncle Harry” tour guide hat on for the rest of the post.
Melbourne is by European (and even by American East Coast) standards a young city.
The first European settlement occurred here in 1835.
Initially the town grew slowly, but by 1847 Melbourne was declared a city by Queen Victoria.

Then the Victorian gold rushes of the 1850’s began. Immense wealth flooded into the city and the population exploded. By the 1880s Melbourne was the second largest city in the British Empire (after London) and the richest city in the world.

The wealth of the time is reflected in many grand (and also some grandiose) buildings that still survive in the CBD. Anyway we were in the city for about two hours and I took photos of sections of three streets.

A few blocks from where we parked is the “Old Treasury Building”. The building, on Spring Street, was completed in 1862. Its main function was to house the vaults that contained literally tonnes of precious metal that were flooding in from the goldfields. I like it what do you think?
Behind this statue of Adam Lindsay Gordon (a 19th Century bush poet of local renown) is the modern treasury building. Not a patch on the original in terms of style.
Across the road is the Windsor Hotel. The Windsor is the only surviving “Grand Hotel” of the 19th Century left in Oz. Again I think the Windsor is a quite tasteful piece of architecture. Some pretensions, but not too over the top.
I should say something about the tram. Melbourne unlike the rest of Australia’s major cities left its tram system intact in the 1960’s. This tram is of a 1950’s or 60’s vintage. A few of these old style trams are kept running in sections of the city where there are significant numbers of tourists.

Still on Spring Street, is the Victorian Parliament. Overall the building is, I think a bit grandiose. When you look at some of the decorative details it goes over the top. The lamps (originally gas) are simply gaudy.
While the friezes go the whole hog on the “Empire” theme. You’d think we were in Ancient Rome or something. Also what is really galling for me is that while the craftsmen who did this work were very technically competent, the art is simply a poor imitation of the classical period.
Across the road from Parliament is The Princess’ Theatre:
Which is so gaudy it is almost attractive:

In terms of feel, Melbourne is the most European city in Oz. Although the older sections of most Oz cities were trying to remind their inhabitants of what they still saw as home.

These few streetscapes complete with the next couple of generations of trams (1980s and 2000s) and deciduous trees complete the European look.
Then walking up through Parliament Gardens I got this shot of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral through a window of foliage.
Up on Albert Street is a what appears to be a Roman temple. VECCI is the Victorian Employers' Chamber of Commerce and Industry. I think the building is quite attractive but the architecture says “Rome” and “Empire” not “Australia”. Am I being too parochial?

Still on Albert is Saint Peter’s East Hill Anglican church. St Peter's is the oldest Anglican Church in Victoria. It has the interesting distinction that the letters patent of Queen Victoria declaring the city status of Melbourne were read here in 1848.

Finally St Patrick’s Catholic Cathedral. This building was clearly deigned to dominate the Melbourne Skyline and this perspective gives the impression that it still does. In reality the skyscrapers behind it tower over it and the rest of the 19th Century buildings of the city.

Sunday

Deb having arrived back from her conference on Saturday, we went out for a Sunday Drive. The Upper Yarra Valley beckoned again, because it is gorgeous and only an hour away from our front door.

After miserable weather all week, we had glorious spring weather on the weekend. Saturday it was sunny and 27°C (81°F) while on Sunday it was still sunny and still a respectable 22°C (72°F). 22° is warm enough for this Aussie to leave his coat in the car (although not leave his sweater behind).

We shot out to the park at the Upper Yarra Reservoir.
We sat at this funny little table in the park to eat.
I've included a picture showing the detail of one of the tree trunks. Unlike the deciduous trees of the northern hemisphere most of ours are evergreen Eucalyptus species. Instead of shedding their leaves in autumn many of our trees shed bark as they grow in the warmer months.
For those of you who live in the US you can see trees similar to this in California. California has millions of Sydney Blue Gums that have run wild. They are beautiful trees but they are a weed in California and they are part of the reason for the extreme wildfires they get there. Eucalyptus oil is highly flammable!

As a by the bye the fires in Portugal a while ago were also burning in Blue Gum forest. My brother who is a UK resident and holidays in Portugal says Blue Gums are so widespread there that a lot of the locals don't even realise they are not native to Portugal.

Near the picnic area is an old waterwheel.
The wheel is an original one from the 1870's. The frame and flume are mock-ups from when the wheel was moved here. Originally the wheel was used to run a lighting generator and stamper battery for a gold mine near here. When the mine closed down the wheel and lighting plant were bought by an enterprising local publican to light his hotel.
Finally in the 1950s the pub was due to be flooded when the dam was built so the wheel was salvaged to act as a sort of memorial to earlier times.

After lunch we meandered back along the valley towards Warburton. On the way we stopped to see another relic of gold mining in the area. The "Big Peninsula Tunnel", I posted about this tunnel's little sibling a while ago.
The "big" tunnel was cut for the same reason, to allow a section of the Yarra's bed to be mined for alluvial gold.

To get to the tunnel you climb down the side of a ridge and come to the river where the Parks Authority has installed an unusual means of getting across: Then you come to the tunnel which is a lot larger than its downstream mate:
Just for a change I got out from behind the camera to have a closer look:
Back in the car we headed towards Melbourne, stopping a couple of times to take advantage of the afternoon light to snap a couple (of hundred) photos.Warburton lies about 20 km (12 miles) behind the low ridge in the middle distance.
And just because I love this piece of countryside so much a final photo.
Mount Donna Buang is the third mountain (at the back) on the left-hand side. To give some sense of scale the black dots near the right hand side are cows.

As an interesting (and probably useless) piece of trivia the blue tinge the mountains show here is a result of a fine out-gassing of Eucalyptus oil from the leaves in the warm weather. Not surprising they're so flammable!

There’s Gold in Them Thar Hills

Or at least there was in the 1850’s and ‘60s.
Last weekend on our way back from the Yarra Reservoir, we stopped off to have a short walk. Just a short way from the road is a tight bend in the river that swings around a spur of rock.

At least the river used to go around. In the 1860s a group of miners got together and blasted this tunnel through what was known as “The Little Peninsula” to divert the river. This is the outfall.
As you can see with the river low (partly due to the drought and largely because of the reservoir upstream) it easily fits through the tunnel. Even before the building of the dam upstream I suspect the river would have easily rushed through here.

From the 1850s to the 1860’s there were a series of gold rushes in the then fledgling Colony of Victoria. These had a profound impact on Australia and Victoria. The Australian population tripled in a decade while that of Victoria grew by seven fold.
Badly managed growth, revolutionary ideas brought by those fleeing the 1848 European revolts and a colonial government bent on extracting as much as it could lead to discontent. From this discontent stemmed the most significant armed uprising in Australian History: The 1854 Eureka Rebellion.
At a meeting on Bakery Hill at Ballarat the miners raised the Southern Cross Flag and an oath of allegiance was sworn: "We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties."The miners then built the Eureka Stockade to defend the road from Melbourne.

The rebellion was quickly crushed by the Police and the Army, an action that caused 42 casualties. The public outcry at the inept handling of the affair led to the adoption of virtually all of the miner’s demands over the next few months.

Interestingly, the Southern Cross flag that flew over the stockade is taken as a symbol of liberty by most sectors of the Australian community today. While the Southern Cross still features on Australia’s flag.
Anyway I am straying from my point, which was the “Little Peninsula Tunnel”. During the gold rushes a number of discoveries were made in the Yarra Valley near Warburton and Hoddles Creek. Much of the gold found in the area was alluvial, so here the miners hit on diverting the Yarra from this bend so they could explore its bed for gold.

How much gold they found here is unknown.
This piccie shows the upstream inlet crossed by a bridge that leads to a nearby picnic area. The tunnel is about 30 metres long and from here with the river so low you can see through to the other end.So there it is, the light at the other end of the tunnel!