Mary Quant and the Jade Buddha

Saturday 27^th March, 2021.

No big rush to get going today, but we still don’t want to waste any time. We’re staying about 5km out of Bendigo and we saw there’s a Vinnies at the local shops, so we head there first. I miss the turn and discover the Recycling shop at the local tip. Didn’t know it was there and not enough towns have them. So much stuff going into landfill, when it could be recycled. There was a Salvos on the way into town as well.

Free parking on Saturdays at the carpark in town, so we parked and headed over to the Tourist Info Centre via Chancery Lane to see if there’s a self guided walking tour. There's art in Chancery Lane. We also talk about our plans for tomorrow and we end up booking the Central Deborah gold mine tour and the Talking Tram, the hop-on, hop-off tram in Bendigo. 

more street art

 

We have tickets for Mary Quant at 1.30pm, so decide to have an early  lunch and go to the Art Gallery to have a look around beforehand. We eat at Oya’s Turkish Kitchen at Fountain Court on High Street. We had a donner kebab and it wsa like none I’ve ever had! The bread was so soft and light, not the usual lebanese bread most other places use.

 

The Bendigo Art Gallery is housed in a heritage building on View Street and is the largest regional art gallery in Australia, probably how they managed to secure the Mary Quant exhibition. There’s a reasonably sized permanent exhibition of art, that we enjoyed looking at until 1.30. This skull greets you at the front door. "Sometimes the dead are more alive than the living" Carved from Wombeyan marble.

 

The Mary Quant exhibition was interesting, and it’s easy to see why, in the day, the fashions caught on with younger women. It was more than clothes though. It encompassed a range of other items, shoes, undergarments, tights and socks, make up, dolls and even a box of men’s ‘colours’ aka make up! I saw the dress that had been the subject of a major restoration on a tv documentary on the establishment of the exhibition.  An orangey colour lace dress with a lining and the iconic daisy motif on the front.

 

When we left the exhibition we climbed the many, many steps to the top on the Poppet Head Lookout, just at the back of the Gallery and were rewarded with a panoramic view over Bendigo. It was quite breezy up there. Rosalind Park is in the middle of Bendigo CBD and is large, green and has the most magnificent trees, planted in the early colonial days and would be worth more time, but unfortunately, I don’t think we have any. 

 

Quick comfort stop and a cold drink at a nearby pub, it’s back to the car and off the see The Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, on Sandhurst Town Road, Myers Flat. This Great Stupa is now home to the Jade Buddha of Universal Peace, the largest gemstone quality jade Buddha in the world, and according to the website ‘The Jade Buddha for Universal Peace is the largest Buddha carved from gemstone quality jade in the world. The size and beauty of the statue make it a wonder of the world. 

 

The Buddha has been carved from a rare boulder of translucent jade (“Polar Pride”) which was discovered in Canada in the year 2000. The Jade Buddha is 2.5 metres high and sits on an alabaster throne of close to 1.6 metres high. The Jade Buddha itself weighs around 4 tonne and is considered to be priceless ………….  The Buddha has been named the Jade Buddha for Universal Peace in the belief that this Buddha will inspire all beings to follow the peaceful path.’  It’s exceptionally beautiful and I’m glad we drove out to find it, even though we got a bit lost on the way back. I’m sure I saw a doco on TV about it and a monk who was there to speak to visitors said there had been a couple of Compass shows documenting the journey of the building of the stupa and Buddhist complex. There’s even a café out there.