Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Sovereign Hill Ballarat: a Great Day Trip From Melbourne

Well it's the school holidays here and if you are looking for something fabulous to do with the kids, I suggest you take them to Sovereign Hill in Ballarat.  We travelled there last Summer and literally struck gold.  It's only a short drive out of Melbourne and was a fantastic memory maker of a day.  The Beach House Brats are still talking about it.


Ahhh the lure of striking it rich..  I've never seen Mr Beach House work so hard, as he panned for gold and rocked the cradle for the elusive gold. He was never interested in rocking it when it contained a baby.


With the price of gold so high at the moment, we probably earned more that day than we do in a whole week at the boat factory.  It was more fun too.  There's a definite art to panning for gold and I got the hang of it real quick, as did my babies.


We found six or seven chips like this, which was very exciting.  Gold fever set in and we were there for the duration.


Despite the heat wave, we could cool down as it's very thirsty work.


The Beach House Brats loved the history oozing out of every corner of Sovereign Hill.  There are authentic shops lining the main street of town, which are run by individual business people dressed in period costume.  I can highly recommend the bakery.


There are also characters roaming round, who are willing to engage and give you an interesting on the spot history lesson, or crack a joke with the kiddos.  This is living Australian history people and we loved it. Not a computer screen in sight and the Beach house Brats survived.


We took a ride around town in the Cobb & Co Coach.  Hard to believe this was once the only method of public transport in Australia.



They have actors playing out scenes on schedule.  The streets cleared as these guys marched into the centre of town for a musket shooting demo.


For me of course, it was all about the vintage.


The Big Beach House Brat was chosen at the gold pouring demo to hold the gold bar worth $160,000.  A minute before this shot was taken, the gold had been molten hot, but cools and sets very quickly when dipped in water.  If only I could do the same with egg whites.....don't ask.  The gold was very pure, as they had used the same gold in the demo, since the 70's.


We travelled underground to try our luck as well.


It was cool and wet down there, but very safe and you get to see gold deposits in the rocks along with all the old machinery and just how hard and dangerous it would have been to get the stuff out for the miners.  It was very interesting.


This fellow was fabulous



You can even hire a big function room down under for your party if you desire.


Everyone came away a winner.  This fabulous destination is only about 1 hours drive from Melbourne and is a really well run tourist attraction.  For more of my recommendations for great places to visit in Melbourne go here and here

Today I'm linking up here

21 comments :

  1. We took our 3 oldest there 11 years ago when we did a trip to SA and Vic. It was lots of fun- will have to take the younger ones sometime- maybe when we study Australian history next!

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    1. Time you went back.. And thanks for the pinterest invite

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  2. If I ever visit Australia I would definitely visit as this is right up my alley - I love historic villages. My daughter is a guard at Fort York in Toronto this summer and I just did a post about it (http://gracie-senseandsimplicity.blogspot.ca/2012/06/stalking-guards-at-fort-york.html). It's interesting how similar the uniforms were to the ones in your village - just the pants are different. What time period was the village supposed to be? Fort York is from the early 1800s.

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    1. This one is around the gold rush days of 1850 and as Australia and Canada were both British colonies at the time, I guess the uniforms were similar.

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  3. I was there in 2003 Carolyn and I loved it. Although without kids in those days I always thought it would be the perfect place to take them. I also loved the Gold Museum and the Eureka Stockade museum. All very professional. It'd have to be a in the summer though! We went in winter and well, you know, I froze! LOL

    Anne xx

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    1. I believe the Eureka Stockade reenactment at night is fabulous and we will be going back there next time to do that next time we are in the area.

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  4. Dear Carolyn, what a fun day!!!
    Yes, I would be so interested in the vintage stuff, too!
    I recently got the Sunshine Award and would like to pass it to you!
    You were one of my first followers and have been very kind to me!
    Please check my latest post to know more about the Sunshine Award!
    Hugs,

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  5. Sovereign Hill was my favorite place to visit as a child! My parents live in Ballarat, and my father took my son there last week - he loved it, and bought a little jar of gold flecks as his souvenir. I'm looking forward to him returning from Australia in 3 days!

    Enjoy the rest of your school holidays, Carolyn. I hope the weather in Sydney cooperates - my son flew to Sydney this morning!

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    1. Oh Susan that is so ironic that I posted just after he was there. I can't wait to hear all about his trip and what he thought of good old OZ. I hope you will post something about it, as I love to see us through the eye of others.
      Carolyn

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    2. PS it's very cold here in Sydney, but I bet an American boy could cope with it at about 9C-14C
      Carolyn

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    3. Yes, the temperatures are about what we are used to in Texas in winter :)

      I created a blog for him! I started to post pictures as they were being sent to me, but he got too busy to keep sending them!

      http://triptoaustralia2012.blogspot.com/

      I'm also going to get him started with a scrapbook, or a smashbook...

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    4. Heading off to have a look at it now.
      Carolyn

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  6. I love these kinds of places--when I was young, my mother took me all over the northeastern US and Canada to go to living history museums.

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    1. Living history is a great way to learn. I love this kind of ting too.

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  7. This is a wow post. Wonderful info about this day trip and attraction. Makes me want
    to go.

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  8. Loved my one and only visit there. Would love to go back. We also panned far gold. I did no find much tho.

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  9. Looks like a great visit!

    - The Tablescaper

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  10. Hi! very interesting!
    i love your post

    HPS


    Visit me anytime!

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  11. How fun! I would love to visit Australia some day!

    Warmly, Michelle

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