Skip to main content

The Sovereign Hill Minor



The gold rush continued today with a trip down to Sovereign Hill at Ballarat. After an argument with the GPS we eventually found ourselves heading down the A300 to that city. It really is a pretty route through the countryside and historic towns. Many views were like out of a classic Australian painting.


I feel a kinship with this country. When I was a young kid we would stay out at farms around Victoria, so I knew the smell and the sound of the wind trhough the windbreak pines, the feel of the hard soil and the stubble, the scent of hay and dung. I wonder how different my outlook would be if I was here and not living in Sydney.


Sovereign Hill is one of Victoria's most popular attractions. It recreates the old gold mining town, from the main street of shops and workshops, schools and cottages, to the mines and diggers' camps.

Alex isn't to keen on history, but he loves machinery and factory processes. Sovereign Hill has many operating workshops and Alex enjoyed seeing a blacksmith in action, the belts and pulleys of a brass smith and the press of the tinsmith. Not to mention the steam driven big rock crusher. We explored the Chinese encampment, panned for gold (without skill or luck), watched boiled sweets being rolled out and went down a simulated mine.






The gold pouring was surprisingly educational, with a very succinct and clear explanation of the chemical processes used to separate and purify gold.

Also educational was sitting in an old classroom trying to use a pen and ink. Sorry, as a leftie I failed!

But what Alex loved best was the pirate pantomine in the old theatre. He laughed and participated and even ran down to get his photo taken with the actors!

As it was getting late we didn't hang further around Ballarat and headed back towards Bendigo.

We took the bypass at Hepburn Springs to try the different spring waters. I quite liked the naturally carbonated first spring at Locarno Springs, then less until I hit one with a high and disgusting sulphur content. That spoilt it, but Alex found a playground, which cheered him up.


Rather than hunt around Bendigo for food we stopped at the Railway Hotel at Castlemaine. There we had a somewhat pricey but very nice meal (though I can't recommend their "Indonesian" curry) with dessert.


Then utterly exhausted we arrived back at the hotel, where we first had to play Connect 4 with Alex in the relaxing lobby area before being allowed to collapse into our room.


I enjoyed the drive through the countryside and the atmosphere at Sovereign Hill. It's good to understand the very tough conditions that many of our forebears, both Western and Chinese, had to endure and how they got by. It makes you thankful for what we have today.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IKEA Museum

We have a packed itinerary today. Flat packed and assembled with an Allen key. There are patches of snow on the ground that weren't there the previous evening. We are a bit sad to leave the Duxiana after the comfy beds and the breakfast of cold cuts, fruits and hot waffles. I tried the Swedish caviar on my boiled egg. It was... Interesting. I was very disappointed to realise that, after talking it up for months, I had forgotten the Disgusting Foods Museum in Malmö yesterday. Too late now. We catch another Oresundstag train, for a bit over an hour. Past yesterday's Lund, past increasingly white fields and towns to Älmhult, home of IKEA. The conductor warns us that the train will split in two so we have to move carriages forward. Unfortunately, there we no spare sets of chairs for all of us. The IKEA Museum showcases the history of the furniture company, along with temporary exhibitions. One of these was "Hacking IKEA," about using IKEA ob...
Post a Comment
Read more

Asagaya and heading home

How can I be happy? I am about to return to a country where the toilets have at most two buttons and no seat warmers. But the tickets are booked and there are no cyclones, typhoons or other disasters standing in our way. It's almost time to go back to my first home. First B wants to do some "local shopping". So we catch the Chuo Line up a few stations to Asagaya, a residential area with a number of Shotengai, covered and uncovered arcades leading away from the station and narrow alleys lined with bars. It is an interesting area for a wander around. We are mainly looking, do some shopping for toothbrushes and sweets from Seiyu, a Wal-Mart owned supermarket/minor department store. We skipped breakfast and lunch is ramen and gyoza at a small restaurant near the entrance to the Pearl Centre shotengai. With the help of a staff member, I manage to purchase tickets at a branch of Lawson to the Ghibli Museum for a friend travelling to Japan in May. There are some...
Post a Comment
Read more

One night in Canberra

It's the April school holidays and we are too busy to have a break but need one because of that. And because it's the Easter weekend the options are limited, so we just drive down to Canberra for the night. No, this isn't our first trip for 2023. I wrote about Japan on another site .  I refuse to wake up early so we depart after 8.30 AM. There is not much to say about the drive except that the clouds seem so low and Lake George is very full. We stop at a rest area and at the lookout up the hill to take it all in. Everyone is hungry so we first stop in Dickson and then can't think of anything to eat, so I drive us to Civic, where we can't decide and end up eating at the Singaporean Killiney Kopitiam branch.  The Canberra Centre has nice shops. I dream of getting an iPad from the Apple Store, we buy a blanket and toothbrushes from Muji and wish that Lego wasn't so expensive. Nothing we can't get in Sydney, but then we rarely go out shopping in the city. It...
Post a Comment
Read more