I left Maryborough at 0930 heading north through rolling farmland. After 8kms, I reached Timor, a tiny locality with a single (now closed) general store:
The next town was Dunnolly, at 22kms, which had a number of nice old buildings, and a monument displaying the anvil on which the largest ever nugget found, the "Welcome Stranger" was cut up. This is not to be confused with the Welcome nugget which was found at Ballarat, and which I referred to in the blog post 2 days ago.
Tarnagulla, at 35kms, had an old ruined church, and a few historic buildings:
The next part of the route was through a box ironbark forest:
I arrived in Maldon at around 1430 and found a room in the wonderfully atmospheric Maldon Hotel:
I then took a short ride out of Maldon to Mt Tarrengower, and rode 180m to the top. At the summit there's an old mine poppet that has been converted to a lookout tower giving 360 degreee views over central Victoria. It's lit up at night and visible for miles around. Local children all grow up believing that it's the home of the Easter Bunny, for some strange reason:
View looking east, with the Grampians in the distance:
Maldon was declared a "notable town" as long ago as 1966, the first in Australia to be recognised thus, and had been preserved remarkably intact with all its buildings in ther original state.
The town's Easter festivities were starting to get underway, and from the balcony of the hotel I was able to get an excellent view of the brass band and the scone baking contest:
Had a good dinner in the nearby Kangaroo Hotel.
Distance today 85kms, total 1661 kms.
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