Day 4 - Strike Gold at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat

Waking up this morning, it is colder compared to yesterday. We have decided to go northwest towards Sovereign Hill, located at Ballarat Town for Gold Panning!

Let me recite some history in brief about this "Gold Hill". Sovereign Hill recreates Ballarat’s first ten years after the discovery of gold in 1851 when thousands of international fortune-hunters rushed to the Australian goldfields in search of riches. By day, Sovereign Hill is where Australia’s history comes to life! It's just like stepping back in time – from the hustle and bustle of Main Street where costumed ladies and gents parade their new-found wealth, to the excitement of the Red Hill Gully Diggings where you can pan for REAL gold.

Allright, enough of historical story above. We started our journey around 11am from Melbourne to Ballarat town via Western Freeway. The journey is about 110km which took us about 75 mins or more appropriately from Glen Waverley, it is about 120 min, which is 2 hours.



At about 1.30pm we reached Sovereign Hill. Uncle Martin bought us the entry ticket - $ 37.50/pax and without waiting, we rushed into and started our Gold Panning journey.

We were provided the map of Sovereign Hill, and to our astonishment, it is BIG. We started to worry whether we are able to conquer every place stated in the map. Anyway, this didnt burn our desire to enjoy the time around this old town being built to show the younger generations on how their predecessors erk their way to live.



The first sight we saw are those Chinese Camp around the Gold Panning area. These camp are really classical and it shows how's the life of the Chinese Miners.






Just beside it, it was the Gold Panning area, we can see there were alot of young school children panning for Gold! Infact, there are on a learning trip provided by their school. Australian education emphasize on exposure. As the old saying say, "You listen you forgot; but, you do you remember". These youg kids are so good in panning. I did asked them on how to pan as well.





Let me share with you all.
4 steps:
1. Find where is the gold
2. Submersion
3. Panning
4. Separation and Retrieval

Do you all understand the 4 steps above? I think you are not. Want to know the answer?
The answer is, do visit Sovereign Hill. :P

Allright, just joking. Let me guide you all.
Step1, Since gold is much heavier than water (about 19 times heavier), the gold stays on the bottom and gets caught in the sand in slow moving areas around bends of the stream and along the shore. It also tends to get stuck in small crevices in rocks and wedged in pieces of wood. Try to find places like this along the stream.



Step2, After that put about 4 handfuls of material into your gold pan. Submerse the pan in the stream. While holding the gold pan under water, move the pan in a circular motion so that the lighter materials will be carried out of the gold pan. Don't move it too rapidly or you may lose gold along with the rocks and sand. Keep doing this until about half of the material in the gold pan is gone.

Step3. Lift the pan out of the water and begin swirling it around with it tipped slightly to the side where the riffles are. When all the water is gone dip the pan into the water again, bring it back out, and start swirling again. Keep doing this until nearly all the material in the pan is gone.

Step4. Use a suction pipet to spray water into the pan and seperate any nuggets or flakes of gold from the sand in the bottom of the gold pan. The pipet is also useful to suck up small flakes of gold and deposit them into a display vial or other container. If you didn't find any gold, don't worry. It takes practice, patience, and a little luck to find, but keep trying. There's nothing like finding gold in the bottom of your gold pan!

Interesting right? We did tried out, but time is limited. After the gold panning, we made our way to the Gold Smelting Works to see how an $ 80,000 pure ingot being poured! This is no joke. I will not describe much in this, a picture show a thousand words. When you all see the picture you will undertand what I mean.


After the show, we took sometime around the store and we did bought some souveniers of real gold for our rememberance. We made a Gold Plated Coins at $10 each with our love message written on each gold coins.




Besides that, there is a machine to calculate on how much we are worth in gold based on the calculation from our weight. Just to share with you all, I am worth $2,148,845.06 and connie is, $1,394,864.34. Astonishing! We have a valuation certificate too. So dont play play! Best in Melaka and Batu Pahat, and some people say Muar. Haha.

After that we continue our photography journey around Sovereign hill, where we visited the Red Hill Mine, Bowling Center, Tinsmith, church and etc...









In addition, there some free coaches ride around Sovereign Hill. I can't describe ever place we went, as it is too many. But, the photographs below will explain everything. So enjoy reading..



At about 5pm, we have to leave for the Gold Musuem located opposite Sovereign Hill as the closing time for both of them is 5.30pm amd 5.00pm respectively.

The Gold Museum extends Sovereign Hill's story of Ballarat a majestic provincial city built on the wealth derived from the great Australian gold rushes of the 1850s. The rest are just histories.

We managed to capture a picture with the statue of Sir Henry Bolte, the founder of this musuem. Salute!

Pictures are more interesting! So enjoy seeing the pictures as per below.. :P

We had our dinner at Sofia restaurant back at Glen Waverley at about 8.30pm. It was a italian pasta dinner. The dinner was quite nice and it was not a too tiring day for us and we off to bed early today. Good night...

Day 3 - Completely Australian ~ Phillip Island - Penguin Parade

Waking up this morning, the sun shone brightly and it is the second day in Melbourne. Strolling around Uncle Martin's garden I saw these...




After the adventure on the winding roads of Great Ocean Road, today 4 of us headed South of Melbourne for penguin hunting!

At 9am, We started our journey by having a western style like breakfast in the Natalie Cafe - Quality Hotel near Glen Waverley. It was quite a heavy brunch to keep us full.

At about 11am, we started heading to Warneet, south east of Glen Waverley. Warneet is a small town in Victoria where its local government area is the City of Casey.

Our first stop was Tooradin Pier. It is a well known Pier for the aussies to hunt for fishes.



A Historic Fishermans Cottage Musuem was built there too.


The pier does provide some camping facilities and you can order the country's favourite Fish and Chip to enjoy the sea breeze while eating! A small playground was also available for children to chill it out.



One thing i noticed that, there are many seagulls around Victoria. They are not afraid of human-beings, so give them some foods and you believe me, you will be surrounded sparkling white feathered seagulls.




Tooradin Pier offered great panaromic view. However, the day when we were there, it was low tide and it was only muds infront of our eyes. So advise for backpackers again, you can check the tide time in the internet before you visit this place.




Spending around 1 hour there, and it was time to get going again. At about 1pm, we continue our journey and we reached San Remo at 1.45pm, where we went pass the so call "The Narrow Bridge" that will link Phillip Island with the mainland of Victoria.

We stopped by the Tourist Information Center of Phillip Island to gather some information and our admission tickets to the Penguin Parade. We managed to get a great offer whereby a ticket to the Penguin Parade included an admission to Churchill Island and Koala Conservation Center. 3 in 1! It cost about AUD35 and it is cheap!



300m ahead of the Information Center is Panny's Chocolate Factory. This was our first stop in Phillip Island. An admission fee of AUD12, we got to see how chocolate is fabricated.


The ingredients needed to make chocolate..





These penguins are made up of chocolate!



We did have chance to make our own chocolate too! The chocolate that i made myself - Quan love Ying.

While we enjoyed our tour of Chocolate, my aunt and uncle have their time off having some nice coffee in the coffee house. The chocolate is quite sweet, price wise, moderate. For me, it is just a piece of chocolate but the interesting part was, I got to know how chocolate is made.


At about 2.45pm, we left to Churchill Island. Churchill Island is the site of the first European settlement in Victoria. It contains a working farm and a homestead. My aunt and uncle love this place alot and so do we. It was our first visit to this island. We can see a large farming industry around the Island. Clydesdale horses, highland cattle, sheep, ducks, chickens, peacocks, bisons and etc.. Completely australian!

















There were some classic Australian in-house design under exhibition too.








So lucky we were that we got to see how the sheep is being skinned by one of the personnel in Churchill Island.




Spending about an hour and half, at above 4pm, we left to Koala Conservation Center. Now, this is interesting. We got to see Koala all around. At to my astonishment, Koala is also having a pouch. Same like a kangaroo! It is so cute. Peering down from the gum trees, fat and fury, wet noses and a gentle smile!


A male Koala will have a big head, large nose and a stain on its chest. It weights above 50% more than female koala. Koala sleeps about 20 hours a day. The remaining hours, they spend on feeding and moving around. So you would be lucky if you can see a Koala awake! They fed on Gum leaves normally and would be at the peak of the tree while enjoying the youngest leaves on top of the tree.


At about 5.30pm, we left the Conservation Center, and we headed towards the Penguin Parade. It took about 30 min to reach our destination. We cant wait to see these little creatures. It was very cold here. Advise to bagpackers again, bring more equipment to keep you warm when you visit Phillip Island.


We spent some time around the Information Center in the Penguin Parade to understand what is all about of these famous little penguin in Australia. Some knowledge I gained were, these penguins do not have external sex organ when mating. Instead, they used a special opening called cloaca which allow the male to transfer the sperm to the female by climbing on her back and exciting her by vibrating his flippers. Believe me or not, this little penguins, have a 17% divorce rate and it's not surprising that many have to find a new mate each year. As for whose role to take care of the chicks, each parents take turns in guarding the chicks and after two weeks, both parents will have to leave to hunt for food as when the chicks grow, their appetites got bigger. They fed their food to their chicks by regurgigating mushed-up fish into the chick's open mouth.

Enough of all the theories, and it is showtime now. We quickly made our way towards the beach and we see from our very own eyes, how brave these small penguins were. At every evening at dusk, the little penguins come home from the sea at Phillip Island. They seemed to know each other as they made their way from the hungry seawaves to the beach. Some reached the beach and it saw no one, it will waddle back into the sea or it will start to "peep" a high pitch sound, giving signal to its friend. From the waves to the sand dunes, these little creatures will move in groups as they waddle to their burrows to feed their chicks. What a loving scene! Goose bum all over~ :P

Too bad, photos are not allowed. So, go your own and see with your own eyes! It is absolutely fascinating.


At about 8pm, we left from Phillip Island back to Glen Waverley. By the time we reached it is about 10.30pm and we had our dinner cum supper at Rock Kung Chinese Restuarant which offered yummylicious roasted duck, chickens, pork.

By the time we finished and reached home, it is about 11.30pm. Brushing up and went to bed at 1230am midnight, charged ourselves up and looking forward to conquer Sovereign Hill tomorrow!