Soveriegn Hill

I woke up at 8:30 we were going to Ballarat today. We then got directions to go to Ballarat (Sovereign hill). We left in our rental car and drove to Sovereign Hill listening to music. When we got there, we went to the Gold Museum. It had a lot of big nuggets in there, or at least, replicas. We then went into the city. The city was based on late 1800s Ballarat. When we got inside, we got a map and started to go gold panning. Dad, Sheila and I tried to do it for about half an hour. We all were about to give up and Dad said, “No, just a couple more minutes.” In that time, a person that worked there was dressed up as an early settler. He taught us how to pan for gold but my hands were too cold to do any more. Sheila and dad continued and got a lot of gold. We then saw some redcoats and they fired their muskets.

We then walked down main street and looked at all the stores. We walked around for a while and then we stopped and ate at the dining room of the United States Hotel. We signed up for the Labyrinth Gold Mine Tour and went to the “Gold Pour.” We saw the goldsmith take out liquid gold and almost instantly turn it into a solid ingot. We still had a while for the Labyrinth tour, so we walked around and looked at the lolly stores. We then went to the tour and the tour led us underground to a mine. We saw real gold sticking out of the wall. Our way to get in and out of the mine was a tram. We went to an “old style” bowling saloon and we all tried it out. We went to the city residential area and school. We looked at the shops again and went gold panning until it closed.

We then went to dinner with Dad’s friend. We went to an Italian restaurant. We came back and went to sleep. The whole day was fun.