15.07 Sovereign Hill, Ballarat
A little day trip was in order, so we took the cross-country train to Ballarat and headed to Sovereign Hill, which is about 100km from Melbourne. Sovereign Hill is a living museum representing Ballarat during the discovery of gold. So we thought that it would be a little fun...
Welcome to Sovereign Hill. Joanna's packed her lunch and is going to hunt for some gold, if she can beat the bus load of Japanese tourists that have just arrived!
Thank goodness we went before we came - as Joanna is demonstrating!
The town, as you will see, has plenty of shops all selling various wares. That is snow under the bench that Joanna is sitting on, but they had snow making machines there for the school holidays!
This structure was used to house the pump needed pump all the water out of the mine. It was also used to dump all the slag from the quartz & rock processing.
Everyone can have a go! Although the chances of actually finding something are pretty remote - all I managed to do was find a large bit of quartz & handful of pebbles. Back to work for us on Monday then!!
These were the only vehicles back in the day, this horse was enjoying the day off watching the others cart people around all day!
Looking over the Sovereign Hill site from the Pump Tower.
Housed in the Pump House is a massive steam engine driving the pump beam, being fuelled by three enormous boilers! Which was very handy when trying to warm ourselves up!
This is where the Chinese workers used to live. It is still being used to this day copying all sorts of electrical goods and slight redesigns of old Rover cars!!
Some more shops...
Not sure whether Joanna is reflecting about her old stomping ground in London or for her names sake!
Some more horses.
One of the workers cottages, probably not a miner's though!
Looking back towards the gold mine.
Plenty of other shops...
This is the horse-drawn coach ride that you can take around the site.
We had a good day wondering about and learning about the Gold Rush of the 1850's. However you still had to pay for the attractions once you were inside. We paid $30 each (with YHA discount) and extra for the Gold Mine tour - which was the best bit!
Welcome to Sovereign Hill. Joanna's packed her lunch and is going to hunt for some gold, if she can beat the bus load of Japanese tourists that have just arrived!
Thank goodness we went before we came - as Joanna is demonstrating!
The town, as you will see, has plenty of shops all selling various wares. That is snow under the bench that Joanna is sitting on, but they had snow making machines there for the school holidays!
This structure was used to house the pump needed pump all the water out of the mine. It was also used to dump all the slag from the quartz & rock processing.
Everyone can have a go! Although the chances of actually finding something are pretty remote - all I managed to do was find a large bit of quartz & handful of pebbles. Back to work for us on Monday then!!
These were the only vehicles back in the day, this horse was enjoying the day off watching the others cart people around all day!
Looking over the Sovereign Hill site from the Pump Tower.
Housed in the Pump House is a massive steam engine driving the pump beam, being fuelled by three enormous boilers! Which was very handy when trying to warm ourselves up!
This is where the Chinese workers used to live. It is still being used to this day copying all sorts of electrical goods and slight redesigns of old Rover cars!!
Some more shops...
Not sure whether Joanna is reflecting about her old stomping ground in London or for her names sake!
Some more horses.
One of the workers cottages, probably not a miner's though!
Looking back towards the gold mine.
Plenty of other shops...
This is the horse-drawn coach ride that you can take around the site.We had a good day wondering about and learning about the Gold Rush of the 1850's. However you still had to pay for the attractions once you were inside. We paid $30 each (with YHA discount) and extra for the Gold Mine tour - which was the best bit!
Labels: attractions, ballarat, photos
posted by Nathan at
11:46
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