Melbourne Travel Blog: Part 6 | Sovereign Hill Gold Mine
/Going Back in Time: 1850 - Sovereign Hill Gold Mine in Ballarat
One of the attractions in Melbourne you must visit is the Sovereign Hill Gold Mine in the suburb of Ballarat. A small city from the 1850 gold rush in Australia is preserved as it was back in those days. You will be able to go back in time and experience a gold mine city.
Visiting the whole city would take a full day, so I rushed to finish everything as fast as I could. Some of the places you can experience in Sovereign Hill as they were in the past are:
- A real underground gold mine and the ability to ride a real mine tram
- Original working conditions and mining equipment
- A real gold melt & pour to make a $100,000 gold bar
- Blacksmiths and traditional craftsmen
- Bakery, bank, blacksmith, post office, grocer, tentmaker, tinsmith, bank, post office, candle-dipping shop, lolly shop, stables, nine-pin bowling saloon, library and various other shops on the main street
- Houses, tents, water well, and gardens from the old days
- 1850s-style hotels, schools and a theatre with goldfields entertainers
- a gold museum is also located right across from the front exit
I spent my whole day videoing as much as possible at Sovereign Hill and will post these on You Tube.
Chasing Kangaroos at the Lysterfield Lake Park
Going to Australia without seeing kangaroos is like going to Egypt without visiting the pyramids. I encountered my first kangaroo sighting in the Lysterfield Lake Park, which is located in the greater Melbourne area.
There are 60+ different species of kangaroos. Some of them are big and some of them are small. The ones I was chasing in the park to take pictures and videos are the small ones. They wouldn’t let me get very close. I saw some of them carrying babies in the pouch located on their bellies.
