Field Trip to Western VIC

I joined the students in my rural and regional planning class for a field trip today. We met at Bowen St (RMIT Swanston St campus) to board the coach to head to Western VIC (a part of the state I haven't explored before). I sat next to Jacqui, who shared all her yummy food with me - there were oranges, titbits and a good conversation. I first met her at our first class cos we were one of the first few students who arrived at the classroom early.

We travelled to Rockbank first which was a sad looking town. And although there were some beautiful houses, the general neighbourhood was forlorn and most of the houses were very much separated from each other. We were shown a subdivision that didn't quite work cos not many people bought the plots of land and built houses, thus leaving those who did looking abit lonely.

We also drove through towns like Bacchus Marsh, which I thought was a really nice looking town (despite its name - Marsh?!) and its residents look like they had alot of pride in their town cos it looked clean and inviting, Ballan, Gordon, Ballarat (which looked very interesting!), Buninyong, Enfield, Rokewood, Shelford, Bannockburn, and Little River. Some pics below:

The above photo is a part of Rockbank (I think - it was one of the first few sightings in our trip) and an example of perhaps a declining town. From a distance, you might be able to see a sign saying "Lion Park" and our coach driver said she visited it when it was a Lion Park previously. Now, it just looks abandoned, leaving a reminder of its former glory.

The above pic is one of the random pics I took when the coach was driving us to another town. But i thot the houses to the left of the pic look really grand and against that landscape (abit brown perhaps still suffering from the effects of the drought we've had), I thot it was quite gorgeous!

The above 4 pics were taken at Ballan where we had a short stopover (first town we actually alighted from the coach to stretch our legs and had a look around). The top pic is obvious - the hotel, post office, a quirky cafe and gallery which made use of recycled materials to decorate its outdoor yard, and a hardware store that looked pretty authentic of shops of earlier years.

Even though it says Beechworth Bakery, this bakery wasn't in Beechworth but Ballarat! That might have given you a hint as to the good reputation of the bakery at Beechworth (not a franchise) which I recently visited and their cakes and pastries weren't bad but the cappuccino wasn't great.

The above 2 pics are some street scenes of Ballarat - a really bustling town that has already outgrown its physical space. As potential planners, my lecturer asked us some questions such as how would we go about expanding the road and pedestrian areas to accommodate the growing population, and diversion of traffic so that traffic jams could be eliminated or reduced, and how would we arrange the commercial, educational and social areas of the town so access to these different areas are easy.


The above pic was taken around the area of Mt Helen which was rather quiet and scenic, although it rained steadily when we were in that area in the afternoon so from the little I saw through the rain, that's what the area looked like.

The above was a shopping complex at Bannockburn, our last stop to head to the toilets. After that, we headed home and boy, were we glad. We were quite tired and the rain helped lulled us to sleep. I enjoyed the trip as my lecturer was able to point areas out and explained how different uses of land are complemetary and others were conflicting. So, the lessons we had in class in the previous weeks came alive for me!