Bendigo National Swap Meet

The annual Swap Meet has been held in Bendigo since 1975, run by the Veteran Vintage & Classic Club Bendigo. Held in November each year it now has over 1,600 sites and attracts in excess of 20,000 people over the weekend and is known worldwide.

  Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 12mm f8, 1/80 sec

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  Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f22, 1/50 sec

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  Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f16, 1/25 sec

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  Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f5.6, 1/80 sec

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  Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f16, 1/100 sec

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  Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f5.6, 1/30 sec

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  Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f22, 1/40 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f5.6, 1/15 sec

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Bendigo Region Redux

Quintessentially Bendigo             The Bush
   Click on text to jump to post                   Hills           Click on text to jump to post              Sunrise
                                 Walking Click on text to jump to post
       Wider Area              More Mining                   Lake
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Winter         More Lake               Catchments                Fishing
                            Bendigo Pottery       Click on text to jump to post
       Autumn                                         The Town               Mining     Click on text to jump to post
 Water                           Dam                   Regional History    Click on text to jump to post

Mount Alexander

Mount Alexander is approximately 125 km north-west of Melbourne and 40Km south-east of Bendigo, near the town of Harcourt. Mount Alexander rises 744 metres above sea level and its name is associated with the surrounding district  known as the the Shire of Mount Alexander, centred on Castlemaine. The mountain is included within the boundaries of the Mount Alexander Regional Park.

 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f16, 1/125 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f16, 1/80 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f16, 1/40 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f16, 1/40 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f16, 1/40 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f16, 1/30 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f16, 1/15 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f8, 1/60 sec

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Large scale quarrying of granite in the Mt Alexander area started in 1859 with stone supplied to the Melbourne to Echuca Railway. From the late 1880s Mt Alexander granite was used extensively on prestigious buildings in the centre of Melbourne includeing the Burke and Wills Memorial in the Melbourne General Cemetery (1864), the Princes Bridge (1888), Block Arcade (1892), Flinders Street Station (1910) and the former National Bank of Australasia Head Office Collins Street (1927)

 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f9, 1/250 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f9, 1/320 sec

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The presence of flaws meant that there was considerable waste which is why there are many pieces apparently abandoned. The peak for this area's quarries was in the 1910s due to the increasing popularity of the stone for monumental work in cemeteries. With the use of stone in major buildings declining in the 1950s, the monumental use kept the quarries ticking along.

 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f9, 1/160 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f9, 1/400 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f9, 1/100 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f9, 1/125 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f8, 1/1000 sec

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 Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f8, 1/160 sec

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Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 @ ISO 200, 11mm f2.8, 1/640 sec

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Photography Redux

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Photography is
     Light , Composition
              Depth Of Field, Bokeh
                    Exposure, Focus
                           Aperture, Perspective

Wallflower

Nikon D300, Nikkor 105mm Macro f2.8 @ ISO 200, 105mm f3, 1/100 sec

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Dry Stone Wall

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-f5.6 @ ISO 800, 34mm, f8, 1/30

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A dry stone wall forms my front yards fence. The stone wall was built around 1871by hand by James Sheard. This wall runs for about 1000 metres (3,292 feet) around the street block, forming a 65,000 square metre or 6.5 hectare (16 Acre) compound. Shown on the map below. The property originally featured an orchard and a dam. There appears to be two houses, that appear to at least partially be original buildings. The houses are surrounded by an extension of this wall to form yards that separate them from the main compound.

The house at 216 Carpenter Street was built in 1871 by pioneers of Bendigo James Sheard and Pheobe Sheard (nee Strickland) on the property of 16 acres purchased by James for 2 pounds. James was born in Halifax Yorkshire England. He came from a long line of stone masons. He migrated to Australia and arrived in Melbourne onboard the Donald McKay in 1857. He headed straight for Bendigo (called Sandhurst at the time) where he began working at the Cat Quarry,  (known because of the large number of feral cats in the area) James eventually took over the Cat Quarry. James Sheard died in 1914 and is buried in Bendigo.

All the stone that went into the property came from the nearby Cat Quarry owned and worked by James Sheard. This is why the area is known today as Quarry Hill.

This area was first known as Charcoal Gully, where an Anglican school was opened in 1857. In 1873 it was replaced with a State school known as Sandhurst East, a name which lasted until 1908 when it was named Quarry Hill. The locality is generally hilly and hardly disfigured by mine or quarry workings and includes the Bendigo Cemetery site which is bounded by Carpenter Street on the east, Houston Street on the north and surveyed in 1857.  Bendigo Cemetery and the the cemetery's chapel are on the Victorian Heritage Register.

Screen Capture from Google Maps

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Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-f5.6 @ ISO 320, 26mm, f16, 1/100

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Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-f5.6 @ ISO 800, 32mm, f8, 1/60

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Dry stone walling emerged in Australia in the mid 1800's in areas where a proliferation of stone in the landscape was the result of land clearing. In the case of Bendigo this activity seems to have coincided with the Gold Rush that started in the 1850's. There would have been lots of stone available from the diggings and many Anglo Celtic and European migrants for whom stone walls were historically and culturally significant in our early settlement. This availability of relatively cheap skilled immigrant labour and maybe the need to protect crops from rabbit plagues necessitated the building of these walls.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-f5.6 @ ISO 800, 18mm, f8, 1/40

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Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-f5.6 @ ISO 200, 170mm, f9, 1/250

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Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-f5.6 @ ISO 800, 24mm, f8, 1/60

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This broken section below shows the method called 'Hearting' where small stones and clay are used as filling or packing inside the two external walls. These “Double” walled constructions are made by placing two rows of stones along the boundary to be walled. The rows are composed of large flattish stones. The walls are built up to the desired height layer-by-layer (course by course), and at intervals, 'Throughstones' where heavy, large stones placed at regular intervals along the wall to tie the two sides together. These have the effect of bonding what would otherwise be two thin walls leaning against each other, together with 'Hearting, greatly increasing the strength of the wall and give the wall its A shape side on. It appears that the easier availability of wire and higher wages resulted in a decline in full construction of stone walls after the 1880’s.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-f5.6 @ ISO 200, 36mm, f16, 1/125

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Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-f5.6 @ ISO 800, 24mm, f8, 1/40

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Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-f5.6 @ ISO 200, 36mm, f9, 1/200

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