Melbourne – Day 2 – Sovereign Hill

As history goes, Ballarat was the site of a gold rush that started in 1850s, and was instrumental to early settlers laying the foundation for the township that is today. The 25-hectare site comprises 60 historically-accurate recreations of houses, business establishments and factories from the 1850s, and is also staffed by volunteers and employed staff who all dress up and role-play/work in attire from the period.

The highlights for the site – and we probably only tried or witnessed half of what the place can offer – include demonstrations of blacksmithing and wheelwright crafting, panning for gold, a mine tour, live theater – though we did check out a large number of shops, and also visited some of the abodes. There are a couple of takeout bakeries and sit-down restaurants too along the Main Street – we checked out and dined in both.

The place can get quite crowded too. The place was fairly empty up till about noon time, when several busloads of school kids – some belonging to what seemed like a high-school – especially boisterous and even rude from their shoving around and foul language – and they seemed to crowd around the attractions that appealed to young adults, while staying clear of the shops and sit-down restaurants in general. I reckon that if you want a more peaceful experience exploring the site, you’d want to try for a weekend visit instead.

Our day tour tickets also included a complimentary visit to the Gold Museum that’s just directly opposite Sovereign Hill – just a few minutes walk. The Museum contains numerous exhibits of gold artifacts and several other pieces of the town’s history. Worth a 30 minute visit, and longer if you’d like to take the time to read and digest each exhibit commentaries.

All-in, I think a 4-5 hour stay will be sufficient for a leisurely exploration of just about every attraction, and about 2 hours if you just zero in on the key bits and brisk walk through the other areas. In summary, a visit to Sovereign Hill is worth the expense, and even more so if you’re interested in the rich history contained in this living and interactive museum.

Last couple of words with our day tour operator too; Gray Line. The outfit is clearly an well-oiled machine. Their web site is easy to navigate with support for online payment options, and clearly displayed prices. Emails were also replied promptly, sometimes within an hour on Sundays even.

There are discounts to be had too; we wrote in to inquire about some details of the package pre-booking, and were given a 10% discount to use. As it turned out too, you can even get a 20% discount if you’re already on one of their tours, and book another tour directly with the guide. Gray Line picked us up at the Radisson @ Flagstaff – a relatively more luxurious property just next to ours – punctually at 0725hrs and brought us to Federation Square, their main dispatch point for tours of the day, where we transferred to our actual bus tour. Interestingly, the Great Ocean Road day tours that were gathering at the same location departed in double-decker buses that must have sat 30 or more visitors, while ours was much smaller at 17 persons. Seems that the Great Ocean Road tours are extremely popular, so we’re glad that we opted for a different company for our own trip this Friday, and one that specialises in smaller tour groups.

Our assigned guide – Adrian – was a pretty effective guide and driver, providing colorful and continuous commentary as we made our way over the Freeways from Melbourne to Ballarat, and met us early at every point. Being the good Singaporeans we were – and speaking of which – I think three quarters of the 17 persons on this tour were Singaporeans haha – we reciprocated by also being early to meet the bus at every juncture too.

Recommended for the Sovereign Hill/Ballarat Wildlife Park tour.