Bendigo, Victoria

The entrance to Bendigo is, as with most towns, something less than exciting. Swooping in off the freeway you pass through Big Hill and then into the outer suburb of Kangaroo Flat, which sits 5km southwest of the main Bendigo CBD.

Kangaroo Flat derived its name from the large mobs of Eastern Grey Kangaroos encountered around gold miners' campsites in the early days and in the vast bush (forest) landscapes around Bendigo. Local residents refer to it simply as "The Flat" and some still see it as a separate town. In 2016 it had a population of 17,000.

These days you pass by clusters of 60s and 70s brick bungalows, optimistic-looking motels, and all the usual ‘commercial clutter’ we surround ourselves with – Hungry Jacks, Pillow Talk, Thrifty Rentals plus a few extras like Rajmahal Embroidery Products, Olde Time Sweets and Dominoes Power Grunt Hobbies – before you actually get to the main city area.

There, rising up through the morning mist, the first of the many church steeples welcoming you into what is one of the prettiest and most architecturally interesting Victorian cities. Like Ballarat, it is riddled with gorgeous buildings, many of them ornate and grand to reflect the early goldmining wealth of the place. And interestingly, despite a downturn in fortunes after the goldmining peak, Bendigo is today, the largest finance centre in Victoria outside Melbourne. 

Since 1851 about 780,000 kilograms (25 million troy ounces) of gold have been extracted from Bendigo's goldmines, making it the highest-producing goldfield in Australia in the 19th century and the largest gold mining economy in eastern Australia. 

Greater Bendigo today has a population of around 111,000 (2015) and as such, is Victoria’s fourth largest and fourth most populous city. It sits around 150km northwest of Melbourne.

History aside – although you can’t really avoid it given the number of huge buildings and proud historic reminders they all wear by way of little brass plaques attached to their sides – this visit was filled with photographic promise. Last time I went to Bendigo was in 2012, in mid-summer. It was nudging 40-degrees and I trudged stubbornly through city streets, swearing and constantly seeking a tiny overhang of shade. I’m not big on Australian heat – which is another whole story for another time. Suffice to say it was an uncomfortable, sweaty introduction to a city that deserved better.

This time, it was a balmy 16-degrees by 1pm, the plane trees were clinging to the last of their golden autumn leaves and locals were busily going about their business, passing by shops with names like Neon Peach, Blue Illusion and the cheekily-named Shop No.12 – which rather oddly I thought, sat next to No. 26). And no matter which way you looked, the streetscape rose up in dreamy layers of architectural interest – old, older and oldest all happily nudging each other and coexisting with the new.

This is how a good city should be. I get cross with people (developers) who want to tear down all the old things to make way for something new and shiny that might make them more money. It’s not that I’m against progress but I am against the willful destruction of a city’s built history for the sake of a buck.

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I started at the Information Centre, which is housed in a rather splendid old hunk of a building.  I have a weakness for Information Centres - it goes back to my travel guide writing days.       

I like to collect brochures about things that interest me, which is why I thought information centres put these things on display. Turns out in Bendigo, that if you collect too many brochures, you arouse the suspicions of the officious lady volunteers. They queried me three times about what I was looking for (I said I was just browsing), saying that I appeared to be “wandering around aimlessly and obviously needed their expertise.”

Call me cantankerous if you will but I object to being hounded when I am “just browsing” and I like to think myself as grown-up enough to ask for help when I need it. Needless to say, I grabbed a swag of extra brochures I didn’t even want just to prove a point, and I marched out of the building with my nose in the air. Clearly one needs to appear helpless in these places.

And so to “wandering aimlessly,” which in my opinion, is far and away the best way to discover any new place. With my haul of brochures safely lodged in my car, I set out on a brisk walk that would take me nearly three hours around the streets -  down alleyways, into parks, around sights already seen, into art galleries and the local bookbinder’s store (Libris - a treat for all handmade book-lovers), into a café or two, around the fountain and local statues (Queen Victoria, “The Queen of Earthly Queens”), passed the grand Town Hall, the Military Museum,  the Golden Dragon Museum (highlighting the city’s Chinese goldminer history), and into churches and cathedrals.

It’s funny the things you ‘take away’ from a place – the things that stick in your memory long after the event. In 2012, it was the  insufferable heat and the wonder of discovering that Bendigo – or just out of – is home to The Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, the Western world’s largest Buddhist Temple – a 50 metre high monstrosity sitting in the middle of the Australian bush. (You can’t make this stuff up).

This time, I keep thinking about a number of other things. Firstly that one William Charles Vahland, a prodigious architect of the gold rush era (he actually arrived in Bendigo in search of gold), was responsible for the design of over 100 buildings and monuments in the city – there’s even an App you can download to take a self-guided walking tour of his achievements – which I wouldn’t have known but for the Information Centre.

I also keep wishing I had purchased a great book I saw at Bendigo Art Gallery (the largest regional gallery in Australia and home to over 5,000 works). It was called “Architecture According to Pigeons” by Speck Lee Tailfeather, published by Phaidon. The perfect gift for the architect who has everything.

I also ‘collect conversations.’ I think most writers do. There are two that are still with me – fragments, words taken out of context with only half their meaning. The first was between two girls at the table next to me in a café.

“It was $9.99,” the first girl said, slurping on her smoothie straw.

“That’s completely fucked,” her friend replied, viciously stabbing her poached egg.

I went away wondering what they were talking about. I still am.

Then, at the magnificent Bendigo Sacred Heart Cathedral – where I had sneaked quietly through the hefty wooden door feeling like a non-Catholic heathen hoping not to be caught -  I met a little old Irishman, who was photographing the three amazing aisles  and the staggering flying buttresses.

“It’s ‘loovely’ ain’t it?” he said, taking photos with his cumbersome-looking iPad.

 I agreed – who wouldn’t? The place is truly wonderful. It took 88 years to build (interrupted) – the foundations were begun in 1896; and it has some beautiful features – the Australian blackwood seating, the Calacatta Vagli Extra marble floor imported from Italy, the many carved wooden features, the stained glass – everything.  Remarkable craftsmanship. I feel a tiny bit religious just thinking about it all.

But in the words of the Irish visitor, “I hope they’ve got plenty of heaters!” He was pleased with himself when he said that. He giggled a bit. Then he pointed out the “Prints for Sale” – a printed replica drawing of the outside of the Cathedral.

“Only $2. That’s a bargain,” he said, and I left him wondering whether or not to invest. I drove away thinking about the Catholic parishioners shivering in a Bendigo winter inside their splendid building. I reckon I’d do it – if I wasn’t an “aimlessly wandering” heathen – just to feel the beauty of it all. That’s good architecture – when you can ‘feel’ the spirit of the place.