Ballarat

Ballarat is a gold rush town, the hub of gold mining in Victoria in the 1850s. It was originally Aboriginal land home of the Koori tribe and Balla arat means 'resting place' i.e. a nice place to chill out and sleep a bit.

Today mining for gold continues as well as it being home of Mars Australia. It has some lovely buildings and plenty to see and do.
Here is Heidi panning for gold in the stream at Sovereign Hill, a historical recreation of a gold rush town of the 1850s built around a former mining site.

Heidi didn't find any, but Rich did and being the gentleman here is Heidi holding their tiny nugget.

OK its a bit small so here's a blow up photo.
 
Sturt Street is the main thoroughfare of the city, and is some 60m wide. It apparently was built this wide so that 'bullock carts' could be turned round on the main street. (They must have been huge hairy bullocks as this street is REALLY wide - Rich)
All the trees down the centre of the street are trimmed up as xmas trees too which is lovely and festive.
We finished off our trip to the town lake, used for the rowing at the 1956 olympics.... well there is a drought. Not even a puddle in the middle at the moment (try saying that after a Castlemaine XXXX)1.





1 Noone drinks XXXX here at all.