Labour Day in Australia falls in March. We decided to venture out on our first overnight road trip to a town called Ballarat. In Ballarat is a place called Sovereign Hill(http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/). Sovereign Hill is an area that is left over from the gold rush that occured in the state of Victoria in the 1850's. Many of the buildings have been recreated to give you the true feeling of life at that time. It is worth making the drive, we spent an entire day there and probably could have been there longer. For those of you that have been to Barkerville, you would enjoy Sovereign Hill immensely.
We started out with some gold panning. Apparently there is actually gold to be found but I can also say that Steve and I are both still working!
There are loads of people walking around in costume to give you the full effect of the time. They are really friendly and pose for pictures constantly.
Not that I noticed but the youngest 2 are a perfect fit...
We even managed a game of bowling. No pin setting machine or ball return here. You have to do it all your self.
We went for the required wagon ride.
We went for the required wagon ride.
A couple of the streets of Soveriegn Hill.
It is a working mine and this man was showing us how to make a gold brick from little gold peices that are smelted to get rid of the impurities. It was 99.9% pure and worth $150 000 Australian.
Of course we stopped at the candy store for a little treat!
By the time we left the streets were deserted. We went on the last tour of the day of the underground mine. It was super interesting and not for anybody with claustraphobia.
Funny sign on a building.
No comments:
Post a Comment