We headed into Ballarat today, the lands of the Wadawarrung people, to visit Sovereign Hill! It was quite a drive there – 1hr 45min – but handy that it didn’t open until 10am, so we didn’t have to leave too early. All round, it was a brilliant day experiencing what life would’ve been like for people in the mid 1800s in Ballarat. We had plenty of fun, saw so many things, and learnt so much as well. As expected, we were never going to get through everything today, and we really wish we lived closer so we could get an annual pass and go again and again.
We started off with a couple of mini tours / talks from a couple of the characters around, and this made for a perfect start to the day to help set the context of what people around the goldfields would’ve needed to go through as they tried to make their fortune. We then wandered through the Main St of town looking through a few of the different shops, and also watching a pantomime in the theatre. Everything was acted out so well – not so intense that you couldn’t have a conversation with people, but well enough that it helped you understand more about whatever context you were looking into in the moment.
We headed to the gold panning area a bit before lunch – the initial rush (pardon the pun) of people heading there first thing in the day had worn off, and so there was a bit more space. The artificial river they’ve created through town for gold panning has been salted with little gold flakes, so we knew there was potentially things to find. And it wasn’t long at all before Debbie was on the road to make us all rich! She found quite a few flakes of gold. Eliza found a decent sized piece as well, but it unfortunately was lost as we tried to get it into our little jar.
After we’d had some lunch, we found a few different fun activities to do throughout the afternoon – we headed to the school to practise writing with a quill and ink, we headed to a printing room where we got to do some letter stamping, and in amongst that we also climbed to the top of the gold mine tower, which had some amazing views over the region.
Before the day was out, we had another go at gold panning at Eliza & Daniel’s request. Debbie found a few more flakes of gold – maybe there’s a chance for early retirement for me yet..
And before we knew it, it was pushing 4:30pm, and we really needed to get on the road back to Dunkeld. It had been a brilliant day of adventures and learning – like so many things on this holiday, we wish we could stay longer or do it all over again. The upside of having a late afternoon and evening drive home was being able to watch a pretty amazing sunset as we drove.
