Dimboola Day 2

Day 2 in Dimboola we expected to be very quiet, as everything is closed on Wednesday.
We headed to the Pink Lake to see if there was anything pink about it. Yes, it was! How amazing. Graham finally got his drone up and working. Check out the photos. What was not amazing was the overseas tourists who threw a plastic drink bottle in the lake and watched it float away. Please don’t come here again.

Had a coffee and checked out a few of the shops in town that were open (for a Wednesday). Everyone has jumped on the Imaginarium / Steam Punk theme and even the boring old gift shop is quirking it up. Shame the collectibles and antique shops were closed as they had quite eclectic displays in their windows.

Pete and Graham had a good chat with the gift shop owner. The old theatre has been purchased and there was a recent fundraiser by the new owner who does fantastic impersonations and had played in a few bands around Sydney and Melbourne. He has big plans for the theatre once it is renovated.

The town has an old Holden dealership and workshop that looks like it is from the 70s. It has been closed for over 20 years. The owner shut the doors one day and has left tools, car parts and car body parts where they were the day he walked out. There are even two old cars still on display. People have tried to get him to sell but he won’t have it. The strangest thing! If we had been in town longer Graham would have loved to hunt him down, even if it was just to clean the showroom windows.

We went back to our cars, which were parked outside the closed Imaginarium, to head back to the caravan park. Next thing the door opens and the owner pops his head out to see if we wanted to come in for a look. I was in the door before he finished the sentence. The owners are a gay couple from Melbourne who purchased the old bank in town and renovated. The bank is a two storey building with soaring ceilings and the attached bank manager’s house out the bank.

It was like stepping into a wonderland. Jamie and Chan have completely renovated the bank themselves and have turned it into a quirky gift shop and homewares downstairs, complete with life sized stuffed giraffe, and accommodation (even quirkier) upstairs. We got a full tour of the building including the old safe and a look at the underground wine cellar which was once the vault. My favourite room was the library; chandeliers, Chesterfield lounges, books to the ceiling and full of art. The rooms upstairs are all themed. So over the top – I loved it! Photos can’t capture the detail. Just wow.

Jamie and Chan created the Steam Punk Festival. This year they had 3,000 people and next year expecting 4,000. Dimboola is a small town – no idea where all these people stay. Jamie refused to take credit for the town’s revitalisation, but everyone in town spoke about the closed shops before they arrived and how many have opened recently, with more shops due to open later in the year. We have seen many dying towns on our travels but Dimboola is the opposite.

Jamie suggested we pop over the road to see if his friend was at the new microbrewery, which is due to open later in the year. He was there, and invited us in for a look. It’s an old factory workshop and the owner has done all the renovations himself. His wife has hunted far and wide to fill the place with art deco furniture. Once again – wow! And, once again, photos don’t do it justice. I can’t wait to see the finished project.

Victorian roads are absolutely shite, but we will definitely make a return trip to Dimboola.
Finished the night with some more Uno abuse and possum spotting. People must think we hate each other.Read more