Braxton Travels Australia 2023

Sovereign Hill is a replica of Ballarat in the gold rush days. We went to Ballarat to experience the goldrush and learn about the old days.

When we arrived I noticed that the houses were very small, dirty and unpleasant. The river that they got the water from was also used for bathing and emptying their toilets. Lots of kids got sick and died because they didn’t have the right medicine.

In the goldrush the police offices were armed with musket rifles, the only downside was that it took 40 seconds to reload it, and they didn’t have very good aim. We even watched a demonstration. The musket rifle was a very loud and I think it’s scared some people.

We found a blacksmith making a tripod that goes over the fire and you can hang your billy pot off it. It was very hot, because the blacksmith had a fire going, so he could soften the steel and bend it.

At sovereign Hill, they had a Gold mine, so we got to try and pan for some gold. We only found a couple of tiny flakes, but we put them in a bottle and kept them anyway.

We watch some people make hard-boiled lollies, they used water, sugar and glucose. Back in the 1850s sugar was very expensive so that made lollies very expensive. I was shocked because in the 1850s kids only got one lolly every one to two weeks if they were good and had done all their chores. The hard boiled lollies were so good that we had to buy some from the lolly store.

I would never want to live in the gold rush days, because it seemed very unpleasant and not much fun.Läs mer