Sovereign Hill

One of the activities high on Jack and Jarrah's bucket list for this trip was panning for gold.  So off to Sovereign Hill it was for us!  Sovereign Hill is a nationally acclaimed open air museum and historical park, situated in the early diggings area of Ballarat.

Sovereign Hill re-creates Ballarat’s first ten years after the discovery of gold in 1851 when thousands of international adventurers rushed to the Australian goldfields in search of their fortune.

The day started well when we were advised that it's Children's Week and it's free entry for kids.  Yippee!  As we walked through the doors it was just like stepping back in time.  Main Street is full of 1850s style shops and hotels, a theatre and a school.  The town is alive with costumed ladies and gents, horse drawn carriages, Red Coat soldiers and drunk and trigger happy troopers (traps).

There's heaps to do, but we got right into the action first up.  Straight to the Red Hill Gully Diggings to try our luck!

With a little instruction we did ok.  We got enough gold to warrant buying a little bottle each to put the pieces in, anyway.  More panning later, time to check out the town. We checked out the blacksmith demo which was pretty cool.  The Blacksmith was hot.  What he could do with a few bits of hot metal wasn't bad either.  Jarrah bought himself a great little souvenir horseshoe with his name stamped on it. Next it was onto the musket firing demo.  This guy made the blacksmith look warm.  Musket was really loud.   Soon it was time to give the kids a taste of what school was like in the Gold Rush of the 1850s.  They met the school Ma'am, Miss Trudy, and were lectured on manners and behaviour.     Miss Trudy taught them how to use a nib and ink and they were not dismissed until their work was completed.  Fletcher got an A+.   We all tried out luck at the old timber 9 pin bowling saloon.   There were the Redcoats.  Yup, there he is again.   There was candle colour dipping at the soap and candle works, and boiled lolly making at Brownes Confectioners.  Free samples were given.  Yum.  Sweets that is, not candles.   Next we joined a Diggings Tour.  The guide was a real character and it was easy to believe he was actually an 1850s gold miner.  He took us through what it would have been like to live (and die in many cases) in Ballarat during the Gold Rush of the 1850s.  Not a great place to live by all accounts.  Dirty, dusty, smelly and corrupt.  Some people found big gold nuggets.  Some people became rich.  Lots did not.   When gold was discovered at Ballarat, thousands of people left their homes and jobs and set off to the diggings to find their fortune.  At the start of the gold rush, there were no roads to the goldfields, and no shops or houses there.  People had to carry everything they needed.  They travelled by horse or bullock, or by walking with a wheelbarrow loaded with possessions.   By the end of September 1851 the non indigenous population of Ballarat had swelled from 200 to about 10,000.  By 1852, the news had spread to England, Europe, China and America, and boatloads of people arrived in Melbourne and headed for the goldfields. A few people struck good finds of gold and became rich, but many did not.  Mostly the people who did well were the tradesmen who sold food and equipment, or landowners who sold land to people who wanted to build homes and settle down after the gold rush. People came from all over the world, intending to strike it rich and return home to their own countries. For many, the journey to Australia took seven or eight months, and on the cheapest fares, conditions were tough.  There were many epidemics of illness on the ships, and those who survived the journey arrived at the goldfields weak and unfit for the hard life on the diggings.  Fresh food at the diggings was limited, and the basic diet was mutton, damper and tea.  Clean water was in short supply because the diggers muddied the creeks, so cleanliness was difficult.  Sewerage was not disposed of in a sanitary fashion, and disease was common.  There were a few doctors or chemists at the diggings, but not all were qualified. Many people died of diseases such as dysentery or typhoid. There was also violence on the goldfields. Thousands of people intent on making a fortune were all crammed together in a small location, in rough accommodation with few comforts, and tensions rose easily. There were fights, often over claim jumping.   The journey to and from Melbourne was long and hard, and dangers included bushrangers who held up travellers and robbed them. The police were brutal as most were ex convicts from Van Diemen's Land who were corrupt and ruthless. Life was tough.  But of course if you found gold it was all worthwhile.  Unfortunately only 15% of gold miners were this lucky. To get a feel for what it would have been like to strike gold, we headed over to watch a gold pour.  Here pure gold is melted to 1200 degrees and poured into a mould to create a $150 000 ingot. That's $150K, right there!   We went underground on the Red Hill Mine Tour before heading back to the diggings site to find some more gold. Jarrah was as industrious as ever.    Jack waiting for the gold to jump into his pan.   Fletch didn't find any gold!   Hence he couldn't feed his family.    Life is tough on the goldfields.   Unsurprisingly, we were the first to arrive at Sovereign Hill when they opened their doors, and the last to leave at the end of the day.  It was a lovely surprise, however, to arrive home to a delicious roast pork dinner, complete with baked rice pudding for dessert.  Lynn (did I mention she is a chef?) spoilt us to bits and the beautiful meal went a long way to cheering up Fletch.