Sovereign hill is an amazing place, operating for over 30 years now it is a fantastic reconstruction of Ballarat in Goldrush times. Braiden and I took part in one mine tour before checking out the bigger mine tour with Kel and Braiden which takes you 60ft underground into a quartz gold mine by train, and shown the conditions that both company gold miners and solo miners faced, and the difference between the two. The conditions were truly hard and it was no wonder not many men saw it past their 30's. It was extremely interesting to learn that the deepest mines in Ballerat were 1100ft deep, 900ft below the water table.
Ballarats mining history fairly much stopped at the outbreak of World War One with not enough men left behind to keep the mines in operation. (There were around 95 mining companies and countless lone prospectors in the region).
There is still one company mining gold in Ballarat at present with water drainage being one of the biggest expenses faced, however there is estimated to be enough gold left that it would be economically viable to level the entire city and replace it with an open cut mine.
We also visited the Gold Museum accross from Soverign Hill which was worth a walk around to see replicas of the nuggets found in the area. Definitely worth a look if you are in this part of the country.
In the evening we joined a few caravaners at the communal camp kitchen for a chat and cooked up a BBQ feed.
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