Monday, December 11, 2017

Sovereign Hill

It is probably 20 years since I last visited Sovereign Hill.

I don't remember there being any gardens there last time:
But lots of the houses and cottages have ornamental and vegetable gardens.
I presume this iron work was made by the on-site blacksmith:
Herb garden behind one of the cottages:

A patchwork quilt in a cottage decorated by the CWA (Country Women's Association).
A sampler in the same cottage:
The only sewing machines I saw were in the harness-making workshop:

Some things don't change:

But this is definitely new:
Pouring a 3-kilo bar of gold:
Worth $160,000 at today's gold price. It is locked in a safe at the end of the show.

Interesting brick sculpture outside the Gold Museum:
 Terrestrial, 1985, by Peter Blizzard, celebrates 100 years of the Selkirk Brick Works.

The Gold Museum's current exhibition, Re-Awakening the Dragon, features antique artefacts from the Ballarat Chinese community, including the head of the third-oldest dragon remaining in the world (from the 1890s):

A 1-day entry ticket allows you to visit for two consecutive days, which means we didn't have to see everything today. We'll be back tomorrow!

4 comments:

Sue SA said...

I have not been since I was a kid, but would love to go again and take my children, looks wonderful!

Jeanette said...

Looking better than ever. I have heard the night light show is very good.

Kate said...

Looking good. The gardens are lovely and set off the buildings. I am not sure what year(s) it is suppose to represent but in the early days gardens (apart from vegetables were probably low priority.

Jeann of Melton said...

I haven't been to Sovereign Hill in the day time since Megan was a baby and she will be 44 in January! 20 years ago we celebrated my 50th birthday with dinner and Blood on the Southern Cross. I am impressed by the gardens as I remember dusty roads.