2-17-13

Martin: Our vacation trek continued...

We passed through the city of Ballarat for the second time on our trip, again not stopping to look around as we would be returning in days to come. By around 4pm, we were nearing our farm stay in the ghost town of Majorca and spotted our first signs of a smoke plume on the horizon from a bushfire burning some distance off to the east. Majorca is not 'on the way' to anywhere, so there is only the local farm community traffic - a few cars an hour. Majorca sprang up as a large town when gold was discovered in the creek back in the 1860's. Within a few years, 250 shops, hotels and pubs lined the main street to support 8,000 locals as mining went underground. The majority of the gold was taken before the turn of the century and the town died. Today, it doesn't even have a single shop and the closest town is Maryborough, 10km away. It too sprang up in the gold rush days but the town survived successfully as it was located on the rail line.

Photo above: The last store in town closed down some time ago.

Me: For the 3 days Bob was home he got in 3 bike rides! We both enjoyed the grass that is sprouting all over South Mountain. Love that we've had enough rain to bring some green to the desert. And that means wild flowers soon! :-)