Bendigo Victoria - Trams, Central Deborah Mine, Alexandra Fountain, Brill, Birney Safety Car

A bit of  a grey and gloomy day - the temperature has plunged to 15 or so,  so to brighten things up, a tram ride is order.

We choose to go to the Central Deborah Gold Mine end, but as we've done a few mine tours over the years, a 75 minute walk through this old mine didn't really appeal

Central Deborah Gold Mine. Bendigo Victoria

Instead we bought our tram ticket and waited for 302 to arrive, which it did in only a few minutes. Ding! Ding!

Talking Tram. Bendigo Victoria

It's a beautifully restored 1925 'Birney Safety Car'' tram built by Brill of Philadelphia, USA and originally seen in service in Adelaide in these colours and with this number. The remaining railway kept for us tourists goes from the mine, up the main road, past the cathedral :

Sty Mary's Cathedral Bendigo Victoria

and then the Alexandra Fountain on Pall Mall named after the Princess of Wales (in 1881) :

Alexandra Fountain,  Bendigo Victoria

and into the old depot, which naturally enough is now the Tram Museum, and where we took the tour of the workshops. I was really impressed with how professional and prosperous the whole setup was, apparently they now do work restoring trams from all over Australia and the world

Train Museum  Bendigo Victoria

The blue tram is privately owned by some fifteen-minutes-of-fame TV person (our guide said their name 10 times and no one had any idea who she was talking about) and is being converted into a static restaurant and bar before being returned to Sydney. The green one is a Melbourne W class tram being restored for the Melbourne Tram Fanciers. Restorations cost about a million dollars each

Restoration workshop  Bendigo Victoria

Judy is asking for a 1 7/8" wrench to adjust the brakes on this W class tram...

Judy 'in the pit' under this tram.  Bendigo Victoria

You take pot luck on any tour. This lady was really good, she even handled the inane question from the Canadian about how pensions work in Australia. And I thought we were here to look at old trams!

 Guide doing her thing at the Tram Museum. Bendigo Victoria 

Look out! No, it's OK, its just a dummy in a dummy tram driver's cabin hamming it up for the camera

Brian driving the tram. Tram Museum  Bendigo Victoria

Just a few of the fully operational trams in the shed. They say that the Brill 'Birney' cars are highly collectible, especially in the USofA and worth $2.5 million each. Shame they only have five of them!

Tram Museum.  Bendigo Victoria

Inside one of the trams

Tram Museum.  Bendigo Victoria

After the tour, you get back on the tram and it continues up to the Joss House terminal (we elected to skip the tour) before returning to the Central Deborah Gold Mine

We had a late lunch before finding some shops so we could buy a new microwave oven. Ours died without warning between Canberra and Bendigo. I spent an hour installing it by adapting the existing brackets and then it was time for afternoon tea. I had a delicious lemon meringue pie and Judy tucked into a vanilla slice from the Beechworth Bakery, now located in Bendigo for your eating pleasure

The grey sky has cleared and the sun is out, but its still windy and pretty cold, so we are have a quiet late afternoon in the van