Ballarat has a an old feel to it, driving down the roads and looking at the architectures. I pretty much regretted that we didn't had enough time to really explore the whole city of Ballarat as we were rushing back to catch dinner and our flight back to Malaysia.
Since it was a short trip we decided to go to Sovereign Hill, which is an award winning open air museum that depicts the lifestyle of the locals in the Gold Rush days. It's pretty amazing that they sort of recreated a whole town, complete with actual mining shafts that were used during those days!.
As you walk past the entrance the gold diggings was the centrepoint of the park. Complete with mining tools which you can use to hunt for your own gold!...
The Gold Diggings, complete with a "lost" prospectorThere were 2 mines which have guided tours. One called Red Hill and the other was The Sovereign Quarts Mine. The Red Hill is where you can locate the famous Welcome Nugget, the second largest gold nugget ever found in Australia, weighing at a whopping 69kg and consists of 99% pure gold. At today's market price it would be about RM7.59 million!. The sovereign Quarts Mine is a paid tour where they would bring you through an actual gold mine, with a tour guide to explain every details about life in the shaft during those times...
The Welcome Nugget...
The underground mining shaft...Walking around the town was an interesting and "lively" experience. It's set in the 1850's era, complete with it's replica buildings, farm houses, schools, shops, bakery, tailor and comes complete with costumed staff willing to take pics and talk to you!
Scenes around Sovereign Hill...We completed our tour with the "gold pour" Demonstration. Where they actually showed how gold was melted in those days and poured into a 3kg bullion bar, which is worth more than Rm30,000 in today's prices!.
Thinking how to run away with the gold bar!...The next posting would be one of the highlights of the trip... PENGUINS!... =)
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