Monday was our turn to get some culture in our lives. As we’ve mentioned the city of Bendigo pretty much shut down for a four-day Easter weekend. Bendigo has a strong Chinese heritage, as the Chinese played a key role in the labor force during the gold rush in the 1850s. As a tribute to that heritage, Bendigo hosts a lengthy parade on Easter Monday that includes the longest parade dragon in the world. It was quite the scene to see a dragon winding through the street, manned by no less than 85 people. It’s quite the attraction and people jammed the sidewalks to witness the attraction. Almost equally impressive were the lion dancers – manned by some very athletic acrobats.
To ensure we tasted the full flavor of the day’s festivities, we stopped by Jen’s host family, Phil and Deb, for a lunch barbeque. Their house is the perfect location for a parade party, as a majority of the floats stage in their front yard.
Following the parade, we had an appointment for a viewing at the Bendigo Art Museum, courtesy of Judy’s “host mom” Julie. We actually haven’t spent much time visiting art in Victoria, so it was quite interesting. Despite being a city of just 100,000 people, Bendigo has an amazing collection of historic art. The fact that we had a guided tour really gave us an understanding and appreciation for the gallery’s collection.
We were whisked off to a quick tour of the Chinese Museum and managed to squeeze an entire hour of free time before we headed to Peter and Julie house for some stir fry dinner – evidently there are “red meat free” meals here! Christine couldn’t attend as she was hanging with her host Penny, but the rest of us had quite the entertainment as a serious thunderstorm rocked the area.
Being from Nebraska, we have seen more than our share of thunderstorms, but Bendigo (and the majority of the state of Victoria) has been decimated by a 10-year drought. So the locals were literally dancing in the back yard with the serious rainfall. We of course took credit for it!
