What a big day we had today! After what turned out to be a fairly late night last night, Gaz and I slept in til about 7:30am and then took our time getting ready. We set off with Kevin and Marion at around 10am and walked the (advertised) 300 metres (Gary said it was a lie and at least 600 metres) to Sovereign Hill, a replica of the Ballarat Goldfields in the 1850s and 1860s. Gary and I were here with the kids about 25 years ago but the others had not been before.
With military precision, we planned our day and packed a lot in. We started with a bit of a walk around, then joined the orientation tour, followed by (in no particular order) watching gold melted and poured, went down a mine for a self guided tour, a wheelwright demonstration, candle making demo, we did gold panning (no luck of course), watched a theatre re-creation of a town meeting hoping to ban Chinese, saw a stables and livery demo, saw the red coats march up the street and fire their guns, went into many shops, played bowling, watched a foundry demo. Somewhere in there we had lunch at a café as well.
It was all a good experience, though very tiring. Gary baled at 3pm and walked back, while Kev, Maz and I kicked on and even added a trip to the Gold Museum across the road on the way home. Marion will forever remember that the ‘Welcome Stranger’ nugget was 2280 ounces, because that is her postcode lol. I was knackered by the time we got home around 5pm.
We put together a bit of a scratch dinner, though it was very yummy – salad, vegies, and left over cold meats – and then got ready for our evening adventure. At 8pm we set off yet again for Sovereign Hill where we attended “Blood on the Southern Cross”, an outdoor ‘spectacular’ that tells the story of the Eureka Stockade. We had seen a show similarly named at Sovereign Hill 25 years ago and frankly thought the earlier version was better and more dynamic. So that was somewhat disappointing. It was OK, though quite cold as some of it is outside. A breezy 13 degrees made me glad I had worn two jackets to ward off the cold.
Back home a bit after 10pm and it was time to settle in and plan for tomorrow, our last day in Ballarat. I think we’ll all sleep well tonight!
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