Ballarat & Sovereign Hill

Ballarat is the third the largest inland town in Australia, after the country capital Canberra and Toowoomba near Brisbane, with almost 100.000 people living here. The city was first setlled around 1850 when gold was discovered in the area. The years following the discovery, the population grew and the region got richer. Many beautiful Victorian-style houses were built in the town, which can still be seen in Ballarat's streets, mainly on Lydiard Street, Havelock Street and Main Road.

Corrupt government officials collecting hefty "gold taxes" and licenses lead to resentment among the gold diggers, giving way for Australia's first and only rebellion. The miners were bitterly defeated by the government troops, but nevertheless a law was soon passed to reform the tax and license system and to give the miners more government participation rights.

A decade later, the rivers got more and more depleted from gold, and gold had to be found deeper underground. The individual miner mining for gold in the river bed was soon replaced by companies, able to support much larger equipment for digging mines deeper in a rocky underground.

Although the city itself is quite nice with the Victorian houses, a lake and nice surroundings, but the towns claim to fame is one of Australia's most visited attractions. Sovereign Hill is a recreated gold mining village like Ballarat used to be. It is a nice trip through the gold-mining history of Australia starting at the very beginning of the gold rush when people came here with horse and carriage, set up tents and used a sieve for washing the gold dust straight out of the river water. Main Street is a recreated street from the time when more people came here and the town got richer. Industrial mines and stamp batteries are found at the end of the recreated town.

Quick Tips:

There are a few places to stay in Ballarat, but a day trip from Melbourne is enough to see Sovereign Hill and still have some time to wander around in Ballarat itself and watch the Victorian houses or the tranquil lake.

Best Way To Get Around:

The best way to get here is to take a V/Line train from Melbourne's Spencer Street station to Ballarat Station on Lydiard Street. This trip is around 120km and takes almost 2 hours. From the Ballarat station it is a nice 2km walk along some of Ballarat's architecture, or you can take a 20 min bus trip to the entrance.

Dig for gold in this recreated gold mining town! It recreates the atmosphere of a town a hundred years ago. If you have some time to spare in Melbourne, it's definitely worth a day trip. It is a nice trip through the gold-mining history of Australia. Actually the town is set up as different stages through history. You start at the beginning of the gold rush, when a gold mining town consisted just of a few tents and some horse-drawn carriage. The gold dust was filtered right out of the river water with a sieve. Later on the tents were replaced by wooden and stone houses, and the town got a chapel, a bakery, a pub, etc. The sieve was soon replaced by more ingenious machines.

As time went by, the river ran out of gold dust, so better techniques were developed to be able to extract the gold from rocks and stones. Factories were built that offered those techniques. Around the small town there are plenty of activities to entertain yourself. You can try your luck washing the water in the river to find some gold dust, you can see the blacksmith at work or find out how the gold smelter did his job. In the factories you can see the machines battering the rocks and you can talk to the nicely dressed-up "locals" to find out what they are doing. There are a few places around where you can have a snack or a drink.

The Gold Museum is located just next to the entrance of Sovereign Hill, in an ugly grey building. The ticket price of Sovereign Hill (a hefty 16-32AU$) includes entrance to the Gold Museum as well. You can visit the museum seperately for 4-8AU$, but I would only come here if you really want to visit Sovereign Hill, because the museum is reasonable only when it's free.

The museum is divided into a few parts. First part consists of a collection of different sized gold nuggets. Second part focuses on the history of the gold in the Ballarat areas, with pictures and postcards from the past, tools used like smelter pots or pickaxes, a quite interesting collection of Australian furniture and clothes from the time of the gold rush and historical books on these times.

The most beautiful part of the museum however, according to me, is the collection of gold objects from different cultures, like gold coins (many), religious ornaments (a few crosses and a chandelier) or ornamental plates (only a few).