Thursday, April 26, 2012

WITL 4 : Ararat

In the morning I took some pictures around the caravan park, hoping there might be some kangaroos still on site, but David told me that kangaroos are a nocturnal animal which avoid the daylight and are most active during the night. Knowing this, we should make sure we're back in time to the feed then again.


Our next destination was Ararat, the only town in Australia founded by the Chinese in 1857. A group of 700 hopeful Chinese immigrants from Guangdong province in southern China, made the slow trudge from the South Australia port of Robe to the central Victorian gold-fields. One of the main tourist attractions in Ararat is the Gum San Chinese Heritage Museum.


Designed in traditional Southern Chinese style, this unique heritage museum offers a look back at the regions colourful history and tells the stories of many of it's famous inhabitants. This is an important base for the understanding of the influence of Chinese on the development of Australia, economically, culturally and socially.  A series of exhibition spaces, state of the art presentations, and rotating displays of Chinese artefacts and period pieces provide a record of the rich colour and history of Chinese culture in Australia.




It was very interesting that the roof of this museum was donated by Ararat's sister city, Taishan in Guandong Province of China. Four tradesmen from Taishan took four months to fix the tiles into place. The roof was estimated to be worth $400,000 in the year 2000. 


On the way back to caravan park, I saw something quite amazing. As we passed a field close to the National Park, we saw literally hundreds of kangaroos. It was the first time I'd seen so many kangaroos.....
I felt like I could just stay there and watch them all night, but I had to feed the kangaroos waiting for us back at the caravan park! 


Arrived at the caravan park, it was just in time for feeding the kangaroo and today David filmed it for me. However, this evening there were not too many kangaroos coming. 


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