After breakfast we left to go to Maldon, a small town in the Gold-Mining area. We passed through Bendigo, and arrived in Maldon around 11.30. Its a great little town, but I can't help thinking that it could be much better with a lick of paint and a few more shops selling local produce etc.
We had a cheese scone and a drink and then walked around the town. There are a couple of nice little shops there, and an awful lot selling second hand books, antiques, nik-naks etc and much of the stuff in these shops is pretty awful. At one end of the town is a 'gnome factory' which is fairly awful. The quality of the stuff you can buy there looked mediocre to say the least. There was also a pretty rank Christmas shop there. Unfortunately the vintage motorcycle museum was shut, which was a shame as it looked really good through the window.
We then went back to the same place where we had coffee and we had lunch. I had a teryaki rosti and Alicea had vegetable samosas. Both were very nice.
After we left there, we went to the Goldfields Railway, which is a steam train that runs from Maldon to Castlemaine.
Alicea, not being a train bore like me, drove to Castlemaine with Mary while I took the trip on the train. It was pretty good.
At one point, I thought it had broken down as the train stopped for five minutes or so as it reached the crest of a hill. Apparently, they were pumping water into the boiler so that when the loco headed downhill the water didn't run away from the boiler.
I met up with Alicea and Mary at Castlemaine, and after I watched the train turn around on the turntable, I joined them in the car and we drove back to Moama, via the shops.
