29th February. The day that dosn't normally exisit.

I renamed this blog entry to celebrate the 29th February, a rare day! It's a bonus day, so something grand should be done with it, so I was off to Ballarat to find some gold.
Sovereign Hill has been one of the best attractions I've visited so far. It's an open museum - an entire town plus 2 mines and homes representative of the 1850's gold mining era. I heard about it on the Overlander train, the lady next to me was going to Ballarat and told me it was a must see.

I left the bnb at 9am was there by 10.30am, I didn't leave until 4.30pm there was so much to see. As well as the mine tours and shops and people dressed in proper attire for that period there was also a list of events and activities throughout the day. For example musket firing, black smith demo, gold pouring, candle making, metal spinning, sweet making. There also stuff to take part in like coach rides with lovely big horses, bowling, gold panning and a funny game at the hotel which you could actually stay at which looked like a thin snooker table, the aim was to get you balls into little cups at the far end of the table for which you scored points. I scored 6 points but my opponent scored 7 points, so she won!

On one side of the shops were the houses with vegetable gardens and chickens, and on the other side were the mines. It was the best day, have a look...



Apothecaries Hall - Doctors and Chemist.

The blue and red jars in the Chemist are to show its a Doctors/ Chemist as these were the colours on the ambulance, this was to help those who couldn't read. The doctor had an 8% survival rate.



Candle Makers

The candles are hung on a rotating wheel in batches, they start at just the string, they are dipped in the tallow bath and hung back again to dry, once dried they are dipped again until enough layers have built up to form the candle.

Those horses are vey sort after.

Tin Smiths



Gold Pouring into an ingot, a 4kg bar here is worth $150'000

Musket firing

 This guy was great, the police at the time made sure people had a licence to mine, if they didn't it was a $5 fine, the police were corrupt however and a man on handing over their licence would have it ripped up and asked again for his licence. So instead of making $20 a year policeman's salary, they made an awful lot more. He also explained the unrifled musket, the unrifled bit meaning it did not have a rifle which was a twisty bit that made the bullet spin and therefore travel faster, further and truer. The musket didn't have this so it was unrifled and was less accurate and would spit out a more wobbly bullet.


Sweet Shop

 

What was really cool was all the things made in the various shops were used throughout the town, for example the Blacksmiths made tools and metal work used in the mines as well as house hold items for sale to the public. The candle maker provides all the candles of course, you can buy them too. The Saddlery makes and fixes the things used on the coaches horses, there's the  wheelwright and coach builder, the tinsmith who all things brass, candle holders and house hold fixings, kitchen wares, stuff like that. The people in the businesses were real skilled tradespeople who just got on with their jobs and every now and they might have a scheduled demo where they would talk about their craft and what it meant for the mine and the town. I think that's what makes this place so authentic is the real crafts people who work there, and even though its a theme town, everyone working there has a real job to do. I saw gardeners, men refilling wheel barrows with wood for the boilers, shop keepers and other peoples in dress going about their business.

There is almost too much to see at Sovereign Hill.