Our favourite example of this so far is the old Sandhurst gaol, which is now a theatre complex. We were lucky enough to be able to wander inside, courtesy of a GRDC conference, and see the clever way the old has been conserved and the history acknowledged with interpretive signs while the building was being used for a completely different purpose. I guess there are only so many museums a town needs.
We spent the first day wandering the city centre admiring the architecture and the street names - Pall Mall and Chancery lane were my favourites - while also going on a bookshop crawl to keep Ben in reading material. He has been reading the 39 clues and was delighted by Cahill Chambers and Cahill Street (the plot of 39 clues revolves around an extensive Cahill family).
There are a couple of lovely second hand bookstores in Bendigo, one of which featured at number one in a recent best regional bookshop newspaper article. It was a charming shop with 2 storeys of books. The other one was just as large and both had a great range of children's books.
The botanic gardens were smaller than expected, but are undergoing an expansion at the moment. They have several significant trees and some fascinating history. Not to mention a lovely play area.
Moving on to Bendigo Pottery, we enjoyed exploring the history of the working pottery, and Ben enjoyed a lesson on the pottery wheel. We are having his vase and bowl glazed and posted home.
I did also make it to Bendigo Woollen Mills, where sock yarn was bought :-) . I'm looking forward to knitting it.
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