Help: Ballerat AU in July

Subject: Ballerat AU in July
From: Heely
Date: 17 Apr 02 - 12:01 PM

What's happening in Ballerat in July and early August? My husband and I are bringing my Mum (80) home for a visit from the States. I have never been to my Mum's home - she was a WWII war bride. My husband and I are both folk and classical musicians. Very interested in visiting a Pipe band rehearsal as we are drum major and piper respectively in our local band. I understand that my great uncle was a well known Australian Opera Teacher. My great granddad was an organist choir director in Ballerat for 50 years. Item of interest. . . we perform Australian folk music in the U.S.A. (Poor Ned, Blame it on the Kelly's, Botany Bay, South Australia.)We'd love to meet some folkies, or attend some events. Can't wait. Heely

Subject: RE: Help: Ballerat AU in July
From: JennieG
Date: 17 Apr 02 - 09:11 PM

Heely,

Ballarat is in the central Victorian goldfields area, and not far from there is Castlemaine - Maldon - Daylesford - Newstead - an area which seems to have more folkies per head of population than any other area of Oz that I know of! I live in Sydney but visited Victoria in January. Your best bet is to go to the visitor's centre when you hit town - they should know what is going on while you are there. I bought several folk CD's from the visitor centre in Castlemaine. Take your warm woolies though, it gets very cold in Ballarat.
And it has one of the loveliest patchwork shops in Oz too....guess what I do when I'm not playing music...
Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Help: Ballerat AU in July
From: Hrothgar
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 04:12 AM

Check the "Sydney Australia" thread for a couple of links that might help.

Sorry, I haven't worked out blue clicky things yet.

Subject: RE: Help: Ballerat AU in July
From: Heely
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 11:12 AM

Jennie, Thanks for your advice. I will plan to contact the tourist site. It is on line. We are prepared for the weather,mentally if not physically. It is just such a pain to pack all the woollens. I'd rather bring an instrument or two, but even a chanter was hard to get through customs in Scotland. We can't wait to see AU for the first time. My family was at Eureka Stockade during the gold rush, and I have a gold ring from a nugget that they got there and made in to a wedding ring. I hope that it will be open in the winter time. I was afraid that things would be closed during that time. I apologize for the delay getting back to you, but as you sleep I am at work. Cheerio. Heely

Subject: RE: Help: Ballerat AU in July
From: GUEST,John Gray - at work.
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 11:46 PM

Heely,

If you want to get in a little research before you leave give these sites a go;
www.maldoncastlemaine.com
www.ballarat.com
And email [e-mail]
Don't overload yourself with woollies, yeah it gets cold in Ballarat but no snow to speak of. Certainly not as cold as Chicago or Boston in winter.
When I'm in Ballarat I usually get by with a warm shirt, a woollen pullover and a lined nylon jacket and a couple of Bundaberg dark rums.
The Ballarat site is a good one, it has a calendar of events.

JG/FME

Subject: RE: Help: Ballerat AU in July
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 12:04 AM

G'day Heely,

As you well know, Ballarat and the Eureka Stockade are very much seminal to the Australian character. Sadly, very few songs came from (or, at least, survived from) the events. There is a brief reference in the English Army song The Hungry Army that places the soldier singing in the troops that suppressed the Stockade ... and that is about it, at least in the real tradition.

John Manifold, oddly, has an English song The Île de France in his Penguin Australian Songbook ... Only after you consult the note, do you realise that he heard the tune from a lady ... who did not remember the words of her father's song ... but recalled that it had been about an expred term convict, shipwrecked on sailing for England, caught up in the gold rush and the Miners' protests against the £3/month licence fee and fighting at the Eureka Stockade.

I was so frustrated that I ended up writing a song to the general description! I will look it up and post it when I get home (if the next big heritage Ball practice does not compel me to work on my dance music ... !).

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help: Ballerat AU in July
From: JennieG
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 02:35 AM

John Gray, when we were in Ballarat in early January it was quite cold! I didn't have warm woollies with me so ended up looking in the charity shops - didn't do any good as it was summer - so ended up being cold. Even the locals kept saying 'it's not usually this cold in summer'. Heely, the Eureka Stockade site is open all year round. So is Sovereign Hill, which is a replica gold town with re-enactors in period costume. Some of my family came out from Ireland to the goldfields during the 1850's too but they went to Bendigo, about 120 km north of Ballarat. However most of central Victoria was founded on gold.
Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Help: Ballerat AU in July
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 10:39 AM

Hello, Heeley (& Bob)

Check out Friends of Mount Alexander Diggings - 25 Farnsworth St, Castlemaine, local phone no. 5472 2118. In 2000 they put out a CD - Music of the Diggings - songs & tunes of the Central Victorian Goldfields, which I bought after reading a review. 2 of my favourite singers are on it - Dave de Hugard & Danny Spooner, it also contains instrumentals (including Scots Small Pipes & Scots Highland PIpes!!)& recitations. Musicians on the CD live in Fryerstown (piper), Newstead (Scots war pipes), Bendigo, Dalesford, Eaglehawk, Maldon - as Jenny says the area's full of folkies. There is a folk club in Guildford & it might be listed at the Folk Australia site, if Bob Bolton would have contacts among them.

Subject: RE: Help: Ballerat AU in July
From: Heely
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 10:56 AM

Jenny, Bob, John, et al, Thank you for all of your fun help. We truly can't wait to come to OZ. My Grammy came to America when I was born, her granddad was in the uprising at Eureka Stockade. But he was Scottish. He married an English girl from the family in the next tent. Grammy sang every song she knew to me until she died in 1972. I remember most of them, I don't know if they are original Australian or if they came from the homeland. It is easy to get mixed up when I live this far away. My brothers and I did an album of folk and Sea music in 1991. www.southernbranch.org/Tanners/. I will print out all of the neat sites and news that you shared. I promise to follow up on your leads and enjoy some real Aussie music while in the country. We plan to see family, but we hope to make some new friends as well. Thanks, Heely

Subject: RE: Help: Ballerat AU in July
From: John Gray
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 03:00 PM

JennyG,
I have a theory on why women are always cold and men are always warm. We blokes have so little going for us that if God hadn't of made it that way women wouldn't want to know us.As I said to my 3 boys as they grew up and discovered girls, 'always take your girlfriend to the snow up in the mountains, they'll definately cuddle in'.
Heely,
Whilst in Ballarat take time to go and see the Eureka Flag. It's displayed in one of the art galleries there and is the symbol of the only civil uprising in Oz.

JG/FME

Subject: RE: Help: Ballerat AU in July
From: Heely
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 04:32 PM

SORRY! my album is on southernbranch.com/Tanners/ I always seem to put the wrong combo. Heely