Ballarat Begonia Festival

It is a long, long time since I visited the Ballarat Begonia Festival.

I am not a big fan of begonias.  I find them a blowsy plant.  If plants were the cast in soap operas, I could see begonias behind the bar in the Queen Vic (Eastenders) or the Rover's Return (Corrie). I would not go out of my way to go and look at a whole load of them.

I am also not a big fan of paying for entry to the Ballarat Botanic Gardens, which are usually free to enter.  I am certainly not a fan of paying for entry to the gardens, and then having to pay for entry to the hot houses to look at begonias.

The Ballarat Begonia Festival does not figure high on my list of things to think about.

The monthly market by the lake, on the other hand ...

We don't go all that often.  It's not very big and there isn't anything specific that calls us to visit. However, on sunny Saturdays when it is on, we do trundle out because it's a beautiful location and there is enough at the market to keep us interested.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. So Jim, Lindsey and I went out late morning to have a look.  And, of course, the Begonia Festival was on, as it is every year on the Labour Day weekend.  Freyja and Simon were in town over the weekend and had plans to go to the festival.  So we visited the market and then went across the road to the Botanic Gardens.

Lakeside market:

Things have changed in the 30 years or so since I last went to the festival.  You no longer have to pay to go into the gardens.  There are food stalls, plant stalls, seed stalls.

There are things for the children to do; things for adults to do.  The heritage tram rides were free over the weekend

The Western Bulldogs were there:

It was a beautiful day by the lake:

We met Freyja and Simon, plus Julia, Travis and Travis' daughter.  Julia's sister was there with her little lad.  And Julia's parents were also there.  Haven't seem them for years.  Jim had never met them.

We didn't go into the hot house where all the begonias were!

Lindsey, Jim and I  went back to Hill House and had lunch with Ian, who had been out doing other things and come back with a delicious frittata.

In the meantime, in Gifu Austin and Tatsuki had gone to see Spiderman at the cinema:

(Photo by Austin)

In Sheffield, Cally and Flynn have new bunk beds:

(Photo by Tabitha)

And Rupert is feeling toast deprived in Mount Helen:

(Photo by Freyja)

All in all, it was a good day.