BALLARAT

As well as Bendigo, Ballarat is famous for gold. Got back to my room from such a unique town, which has 70's and 80's mood, I still feel like as if I was in 'Gold Age'.

Lucy and Tim, who are my neighbors, invited me to Ballarat. They both are actually from Ballarat and I spent great 3 days with them.

Ballarat is like a plain and not crowed
unlike Japan. Placed away about 1 hour
and half driving from the Melbourne city,
Ballarat is the third largest region in
the Victoria state.

I went to Ballarat Wild Life Park with Lucy. They have lots of kinds of animals from all of Australia. Kangaroos are released everywhere in the park and free to hop and jump. They are soooo lazy like Aussie.

Although they dont have the platypus which is what I really want to see in this park, it's ok because I patted koaras!!! I didnt expect this!!! Can you see a little baby on the mother's back? He is so cute! but his father was behind the twigs and he scared me by barking like a dog. He was sooo aggressive. I though the koaras were supposed to be calm and slow, but it's not always true.

On the second day of my Ballarat visiting, we three
went to Soverign Hill which is sorta theme park.
The buildings catch gold rush which occured here
in Ballarat. Tours and performance are conducted
all the time and you can spend a whole day here
without being bored.

One of the events here is gold mine tour.
You go under the ground and see how workers
seeked for gold. A guide also lets you know
the history and relevant information.
We rode on a small train as you see in the
right picture. And then, we found a chunk of
gold. We cant get close to it and if
once we try to touch or steal it, a sensor
works and you might bocome suspicious of
stealing the gold. Dont go greedy for
money here.

A creek goes across this theme park.
You can freely hunt for gold here. I
dont think there still are nuggets of
gold around here, but it's so fun to
get keen on gold detection.

I dont know What this is meant to be.

He was showing us a gold nugget that he smelted
just in front the audience. Soon after this it was put
into a safe. I wonder how often he makes a nugget
and what he does for it after this performance.

PREVIOUS PAGE