Ballarat

Rather than driving directly back to Albury from the Great Ocean Road, we stopped and spent a night in Ballarat. Although we all found downtown Ballarat charming, we spent most of our time in Ballarat at Sovereign Hill. Ballarat is one of Australia's oldest gold mining towns. Sovereign Hill is a partially preserved and partially recreated 1850s township where you can see exactly what it would be like to visit Ballarat in that era. While we were there we rode a carriage, walked into some of the homes, watched the blacksmith work, and watched them pour a gold bar worth almost $200,000. We also toured one of the actual gold mines and tried panning for gold ourselves. Much to Kristen's disappointment, we didn't get anything.