Beechworth - Echuca - Bendigo

Loving Victoria! Maybe cause it's my 'return to country' since I was born in Melbourne or maybe its the amount of historical buildings and slight Englishness of the towns, combined with beautiful scenery as we drive through the countryside. Had the BEST couple of days in Beechworth - a perfect syncronicity of carbohydrates and history ie it's the home of the famous Beechworth Bakery and it's 'Ned Kelly country' as well as being a Gold Rush centre.

We did a great guided walking tour of the town in the daytime, and then at night, I did a 'ghost tour' which was at the now closed Beechworth Asylum, which housed up to about 1200 'insane' people from the mid 1800s through to the 1990s. Very atmospheric and creepy, but no I didn't see any actual ghosts, though I heard some amazing stories!

Of course, insanity often meant no more than post-natal depression, post traumatic stress disorder for returned soldiers, or even just depression, and so there were also a lot of sad stories of people committed by husbands, families or a judge after committing a crime, and then spending the next 80 years there. Apparently it was considered a revolutionary step forward when after the place had been operating for about 80 years one of the Superintendents allowed the patients to wear underwear under their canvas uniforms!

From Beechworth it was off to Echuca which is also very very lovely. We did a day cruise on the Murray and then - after a horrible day of freezing cold, gale force winds and two hailstorms - the skies cleared and we were able to go on a fantastic sunset dinner cruise. And the plus of the bad weather was that enough rain had fallen that the Murray was about 1 1/2 feet higher than its been for a year so the paddlesteamer was able to go further along the river than it had in a long time.

From Echuca it was off to Bendigo, where we did a 'talking tram' tour of the city - basically an hour long trip on a tram that runs as a tourist attraction with a commentary on the beautiful old buildings and history of Bendigo. And the weather has improved so while I'm still getting my head around the idea of wearing jeans and a jumper in late November, as long as the sun shines I can cope! Next stop Ballarat.