Ballarat

We headed inland to Ballarat to try and escape some of the bad weather. We actually stayed in a small town about 20 minutes from Ballarat beside Lake Learmonth, and the wind howled across the lake, and the temperature struggled to get to double digits. Crazy Victorian weather! It's a pretty little town, but there didn't appear to be any shops open, and we hardly saw any people - maybe they stayed inside because of the cold.

Ballarat is a fairly large city with lovely historic buildings and gardens, etc. The major tourist attraction is Sovereign Hill - a gold rush village where everyone is dressed in period costume and you can try your hand at gold panning, or candle making, or watch demonstrations from the blacksmith. It wasn't too bad - but very popular with the school kids. There was one school group of at least 100 year 5 kids with half a dozen teachers looking a bit frazzled - obviously on their annual excursion.

Apart from walking along the lake and up and down the main street reading all the little heritage signs on the various buildings, we didn't do much more in the area. We considered going to the tram museum, but the weather was horrible, and it wasn't open on the other days we were there.Read more