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Ballarat, one corner of the Golden Triangle

Decided to spend two nights in Ballarat, arguably the centre of the so-called Golden Triangle and home to Sovereign Hill, a re-creation of the gold rush days of the mid 1800's in this area.

We took it real easy yesterday, drove about as far as we have cycled on many of the days in Australia. Left the caravan park and headed for the wool museum in the central district of Geelong. Geelong used to be the centre of the wool distribution industry in Australia and the museum depicts various aspects of the wool industry. We spent several hours going through the various parts of the museum and all of us found it quite interesting.

A collection of notes from the museum include the weaving machine. There is an old weaving machine that is used for demonstration purposes. While we were looking at it, the mechanic was doing some repairs and maintenance on the thing. We asked a few questions and his reply was "if you don't mind waiting a few minutes, I'll fire the weaver up and give you a demo". Sounds great to me! So he got the thing operational and moved the process along at a snail's pace stopping frequently to extract pieces of wool showing us what was happening as it moved through its cycle. Quite the piece of machinery it is, too!

From there we looked at the exhibit dealing with the "million dollar bale". The wool is pressed in to bails weighing up to about 175 kilos, the bail in question weighed in at about 140 kilos and was sold about 20 years ago for about $1 million (Canadian). The breeder had gone through a whole lot of trouble and breeding to come up with the cleanest, finest (to date) wool the world had seen. There was a sample of the wool and it was so clean looking that you assumed that it had been washed and carded but it was in its actual state as it came off the sheep. Since the time of this sale, there have been finer (fine, as in softer)  wools produced but none have sold for what this one did. Apparently the Japanese mill that bought the wool wanted to make a statement to the clothiers of the world that they were a major player in the clothing world. At the end of the day all the wool in the bail ended up being made in to three (!!!) suits. I'll bet they didn't sell at Michael Moores. Part of the video included the auction and the Japanese purchasers commenting that they felt they "got a bargain". Obviously their idea of a bargain suit and mine are worlds apart.......

The other part of the museum that had some interest was the attempt of a woman to create some sort of "world piece of knitting". There are a number of pieces and if you have the inclination, you can sit and add your bit of knitting to the work. You sign the register and get your name in the book of knitters at the end of all of it. Wendy and Jean each added their piece of handiwork and a photo was taken (which will be added in the next day or so).

From there we headed on up the highway towards Ballarat. Along the way we passed through the town of Elaine and also Lethbridge. At Lethbridge there is a winery (and this suprises you?) and cheesery so the driver of our vehicle  made the executive decision to take a short break after the grueling drive.

Not bad cheese (all goat and sheep) and the wine wasn't half bad either. We did a sample of tastings and asked Jean which she liked best. She is catching on to the game, she liked the Chardonnay the best and it, of course, was the most expensive wine that they had for sale. Turns out that the chardonnay is all but gone from the last harvest. The owners of a one star Michelin restaurant in France tried the chardonnay last week and liked it so much that they bought out the remaining full cases for use in their restaurant. Not that this should be a surprise, the winery is quite taken with the idea of their wines (and a chardonnay at that!) being exported to France. Quite the feather in their cap.

And, even better, they still use some corks and I now have a Lethbridge Winery to add to the table. That should get a few Alberta heads wondering where the winery is. The old timers will remember the Lethbridge beer which has long since been swallowed up by one of the majors. Maybe it is located in the old brewery? Where do the grapes come from? Will keep them guessing.

While we were tasting wine, a fellow came in and asked if he could take photos of us trying out the wine. Turns out that he is building the winery's web site and is looking for pictures of people sampling their wines. Wouldn't that be a hoot to see Bob and Jean (along with Wendy and myself) helping a winery to flog their products?????

Got to Ballarat early in the afternoon and checked in to a caravan park that is one of the nicer ones that we have stayed in. The main tourist draw in Ballarat is Sovereign Hill, a recreated mining town from the 1850's and we decided that we would spend a day (the following one) to go through the site. As well, there is a recreation of the bloody miner's strike but this is only in the evenings. We tried to get in last night but it was already sold out so decided to try the following night.

As we had a bit of free time, we headed over to the Botanical Gardens which are quite common in many of the Australian cities. This one was started about 125 years ago and has a lot of old and very large trees. The gardens sit alongside a small body of water that was originally a slough but has had the water level raised by the addition of levies. Lots of ducks and other bird life with the usual collection of families wandering around, enjoying the serenity of the grounds, having an ice cream, throwing meat on the barbie and the like. Very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

There is also an old tram line that runs a short ride. Wendy and Jean caught a ride and watched the world go by as they bumped along. They were talking with the operator and when they told him where they were from, he knew of the place (usually they know Calgary, but not Edmonton) because of the old tram line that runs across the High Level Bridge. Apparently they were part of the group that sent one of Melbourne's old trams to Edmonton about two or three years ago. I guess people know the city for different reasons (and some don't involved WEM or Wayne Gretzky).

Wendy switched on the t.v. to see what was one and, if you can believe this, we both got tied in to a cricket match and must have spent an hour watching the one day test match between Australia and South Africa. Game went right down to the last few balls with SA winning it. This belies my prejudices, but I never thought you would use the words "cricket" and "excitement" in the same sentence but the build up to the end built up the excitement, for sure. There was a 15 rain delay about 5 minutes before SA ended Australia's misery.

Unfortunately Australian announcers have the same disease seen in just about every country (the British football commentators seem to be the exception) in that there is no question where their loyalties lie. All the bowls were great bowls (didn't the SA'n batter just nail it over the fence???), the defence was superb and so on. I still remember the British commentator watching one of the British football matches commenting "let's face it, X just isn't good enough to play for this team or at this level". Don't think you'd ever hear that anywhere else!

Today we headed on over to Sovereign Hill and took in the site. And quite the sight it is, too! Over the years (and the continents) I've been through a number of re-created towns or villages including a lot dealing with the mid 1800's. I would put this one right near, or possibly right at, the top of the list of ones to see. It is a fairly large site and while the buildings, for the most part, are relatively new, their building was based on a series of paintings done by a number of individuals at that time. All of the staff are in period costume and you almost get the sense that it is a working village. The bakery (good meat pies, but I digress) bakes, the blacksmith does all the village's smithing, there is a wheel building and carriage shop which actually build and repair and so on. Many of the different areas have demonstrations spread over the day and that is quite interesting as well.

We caught the wheel building, gold pouring, musket firing, and the gold mine tour. The gold pouring was interesting, the fellow makes a brick of gold (the adverts say it is worth A$50 k but at today's prices the three kilo brick is apparently worth about $71 k) right before your eyes. It is poured in to a mold and cooled in a pool of water. People can have their picture taken and then the brick is deposited in to a vault bolted to the floor. Presumably for the next demo, the same brick is melted down again. But along with the demo is a description of the process, the dangers and so on.

Part of the demonstration talked about the "Welcome Suprise", the 59 kilo gold nugget that was found under Sovereign Hill. It was found in a small mine and sent to England for melting down and making into coins. The coins were called "Sovereigns", yet another little bit of trivia to add to your knowledge. The nugget was, until then, the largest nugget ever found. Several years later, another was found in the area about three kilos heavier. One of the exhibitions included a number of large nuggets worth about $200 k (but no doubt worht a lot more these days) found in the Ballarat area in the last five years. Apparently many are found just below the surface (I'm talking inches, not dozens of metres) using a metal detector. No wonder some people get the gold bug and never loose it.

We did a tour of the mine and heard a lot of the same things that we heard when with did the Bendigo mine tour. In my case, if I hear the same things enough times, I might actually remember it. This one had a short demonstration of an air drill putting a hole in the wall and ended with a short train ride to take you back out of the mine. Well worth the time and effort to take in this demonstration. The only complaint is that I think the tour should be restricted to children over a certain age. The shafts are narrow and quite dark, we had a number of young kids on the tour and they were not real comfortable in the mine. The noise they made at times drowned out the guide's commentary so we missed some of it for that reason.

Sovereign Hill is, not surprisingly, on a hill and the tour of the town involves a lot of up and down. After about five hours of walking, watching and listening, we had had enough and packed it in. Bob and Jean are back at the caravan park catching a few winks as we still have the "Blood on the Cross" to attend this evening. This is back at Sovereign Hill so we'll make another visit to the site tonight.

Tomorrow is really the beginning of the end of this part of the trip. We hope to leave bright and early for the 1 1/2 hour drive to Bendigo. There we pick up the bikes and the rest of our luggage and head in to Melbourne where we have a room booked near the airport. Lots of packing, washing and sorting after that should just about end the day. Bob and Jean leave early the following morning for Edmonton and we leave later that night for Bangkok. And then it is all over for Australia! It scares me how fast the three months has passed. We are, unfortunately, rapidly approaching the half way point in this trip. Ouch! But, the upside is that we will be getting back on the bikes and both of us have missed that part the last few weeks.

I hope to get one more posting before leaving Australia, I'm guessing tomorrow from Melbourne.

Cheers!

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