102 Dingoes

Manda writes:

Eric took us to a small town called Castlemaine today. Like many of the towns in this area, Castlemaine grew up around the gold rush era and as a result, many of the shop facias have preserved their Victorian style. But today we weren't here just to see nice buildings, we had some dingoes to visit, all 102 of them!

Dingo Farm is a fascinating place, especially to us first-timers. As soon as we pulled into the car park, we could see many of them by the fence, looking at us curiously. The dingoes followed us around and as we walked deeper into the enclosure, we gradually discovered where the majority of them were. Everywhere we turned we could see dingoes! They seemed timid and shied away as soon as their personal space was invaded. A handful of curious ones came over and let us pat them; an even more adventurous one came over and started chewing on a side zipper toggle on Ian's trousers.

Apparently, all the dingoes have names - there's one without an ear called 'Chopper' (named after the mangle-eared Australian criminal of the same [nick]name)! How the owner can distinguish between all of these animals is amazing - to the untrained eye, those of the same colouring looked pretty much the same to me. One thing's for sure, I wouldn't want to be in that enclosure if a scrap broke out, and there were a few warning growls while we were there.

Can you spot the dog? The odd-one-out is the one running, with the dreadlock effect tail!

Next stop was a place called Bendigo. Another gold rush town, Bendigo was one of the richest towns in Australia in its hey day, thanks to the rich diggings. We took a 'talking tram' and were given a guided tour through the centre. We stopped off at the tram museum, had a gander and hopped back on the tram. It was a good way to see the place with its predominant 1850's architecture.

There are some lovely Chinese gardens, temple and museum near the centre of Bendigo. The Golden Dragon Museum contains exhibits from the Chinese community during the gold rush. Many Chinese from the Canton Province had left their homeland in search of fortune. Apparently, over 1800 million ounces of gold were shipped back to Canton at the end of the gold rush, which helped poverty-stricken families and paid for a new railway in the province. Those who decided to stay, established markets, stores, eateries and laundries around the town. We could see a fair few Chinese takeaways around Bendigo - possibly handed down the generations.

Chinese Garden, Bendigo.

Back at the ranch, we spent the evening in front of the TV watching the finale of American Idol and a load of Fawlty Towers videos. Watching these old classics again, it begged the question what's worse: being mauled by a pack of dingoes or getting an ear-bashing by Sybil Fawlty?!