Boxing Day - Melbourne Tour Day 3

Today being another holiday, our breakfast consisted of bland bread and silly cereals. This morning, we're supposed to go to Sovereign Hill. We first dropped by the Gold Museum across the road, while waiting for it to open. The Gold Museum gives quite a comprehensive history of the gold rush in Ballarat during the 1850s. The place is packed with replicas of gold nuggets, mining equipment, and interactive displays showing how mining is done. There's a souvenir shop selling gold trinkets (what else), which made the girls quite happy. The tour guide wasn't so happy because a few of them were late in getting back to the bus. Right outside the Gold Museum is a sculpture of Sir Henry Bolte.

At Sovereign Hill, you're transported back to 1850s Ballarat. The 25-hectare Sovereign Hill has about 60 building spread over the recreated goldfields township. There's a main road with quaint little shops on each side of the road. The shops are real and manned by costumed staff. You can walk in any shop and make your purchases. Other volunteers in period costumes walk around, so don't be shy to take pictures with them. (What a job!) Feel free to hop on horse-drawn carriages passing by, but don't forget to pay your fare. Our designated guide walked us through some huge steam machinery, then to the underground mines. The place is dark and cool, and the air is thin. The guide showed us where the gold deposits are, how the miners communicate with the people above, etc. We also watched a multimedia show depicting life in the mines. After the tour, everybody rushed to the Red Hill Gully Diggings to pan for gold. Everyone was so serious in shovelling up the sediments and sifting through them in shallow pans, in hopes of finding real gold. I was skeptical; I mean, all the gold must've been sucked out by done. Only after reading the park brochure did I learn that $30,000 worth of real gold is put into the creek every year for people to "discover." Chanced upon a Redcoat soldier giving a musket firing demonstration. Somewhere in the park is a gold smelting demonstration, where a $50,000 pure gold ingot is poured. Too bad we ran out of time. Twelve Apostles is a few hours' drive away, so we had to leave early. Is it worth the $32.50 entrance fee? I don't think so.

My colleague advised me to sit on the left side of the bus when we're driving along the Great Ocean Road. Sit on the right, and you won't see a thing. Well, we're on our way to the Twelve Apostles, I'm staring out the windows, but all I see are trees. Later on the trees started thinning and the ocean came into view. A few minutes later, we're parked at the grounds of Port Campbell National Park. Huh?! Where did the hours of Great Ocean Drive go?! We must've taken a different route or something. Anyway, we crossed a tunnel to the viewing platforms and we see the majestic Twelve Apostles. It's now a misnomer because a couple of the Apostles broke down and plunged into the Southern Ocean. One of them crumbled just last year. For the geology-inclined readers, the Apostles were originally part of the cliffs behind them millions of years ago. Through years and years of waves and wind, the soft limestone started to wear away, leaving caves in the cliffs. As the sea retreated, the caves became archways, and when they eventually collapsed, the rock islands isolated from the main cliffs became known as the Twelve Apostles. We didn't stay too long because the kissing flies were out in full force. The sun was at maximum brightness and coupled with reflections from the water, my pictures appear washed out. It's still an impressive sight though.