Travel to Australia

Day 4 Ballarat - Melbourne (289 Km.)

We leave Port Campbell back to Melbourne, taking the Princess Highway, although first we will make the last visit to the 12 apostles.

(in 77 Km.) Colac: Lake Colac and the huge Lake Corangamite are a refuge for many birds, with botanical gardens and an aviary.

(in 102 Km.) Ballarat: Ballarat is a great city of provinces that makes a more lasting impression whatever the direction of origin. From the west, you enter via the Western Highway to the Avenue of Honor, flanked for 22 km with trees and dedicated to the soldiers who fought in the First World War. At its final end, the Arch of Victory is crossed to enter Sturt Street and the city. From the east, it is reached by the Western Highway (Victoria Street), flanked by grass, trees and colorful flowers. Trains stop at the elegant 1889 station, topped by a dome-shaped clock tower. The Ballarat area was founded before the discovery of gold and therefore continues to be the commercial center of the area. However, gold has marked the place indelibly: almost a quarter of all the gold found in Victoria came from Ballarat and its rich mines, before it ran out in 1918. Today, in addition to the obvious tourist attractions, especially Sovereign Hill, and the magnificent architecture, the town is interesting by itself. Sturt Street and Victoria Street end on both sides of the Bridge Mall, the central shopping area at the base of Bakery Hill with its old facades. To the southwest of the city center, Eureka Street advances from Main Street to the headquarters of Eureka Stockade, with several museums and old warehouses along the street. Main Street becomes Ballarat-Buninyong Road, and six blocks down is interrupted by Bradshaw Street, where Sovereign Hill, the rebuilt mining town, is located.

To the northwest of the center, reaching Sturt Street, are the Botanical Gardens and Lake Wendouree. The most complete nineteenth-century urban landscape is seen along Lydiard Street, which advances from the center until past the railway station; The street has several two-level facades, with decorative wrought iron galleries and works, most of the period 1862-1889. The old Mining Exchange (1888) has been recently renovated with its original splendor, and the architecture of Her Majesty Theater (1875) also reveals its glorious days of the golden age. The Ballarat Art Gallery at 40 Lydiard St, another magnificent building, is the oldest provincial art gallery in Australia, founded in 1884. Its extensive collection is particularly complete in colonial and Heidelberg school painting. Nearby, on Sturt Street, it is recommended to visit the imposing city hall of classic style, which dominates the center. There are more than 50 hotels in Ballarat, the survivors of the hundreds who once occupied the excavators. Some of the most elegant flank Lydiard Street: the Craig's Royal Hotel, at number 10, and the George Hotel, at number 27, are an integral part of Ballarat's architectural heritage. Unfortunately, during the 1970s, the municipal council forced most old pubs to tear down the galleries, as they were unsafe, so very few survived in their original form. One of them is next to the Golden City Hotel, at 427 Sturt Street, which led the municipal council to the Supreme Court to save its magnificent wrought iron gallery; Now the hotel is open on weekends as a bar and is very crowded in summer. As you go to Eureka Street and Eureka Stockade, look at the dozens of antique stores and alternative stores on Main Street; Many of the buildings are old. The headquarters of the Eureka Stockade, in the Eureka Memorial Park, is marked by an information board and an imitation of the palisade, while the video presentations and exhibitions at the new Eureka Stockade Center offer more information on the history of Eureka. On the same street, towards the center, Montrose Cottage, at No. 111, is the last original mining house, furnished in the style of the 1850s and equipped with a sample of social history. York Street runs parallel to Eureka Street, where the Ballarat Wildlife Park is located, on the corner of Fussell Street, home of koalas, kangaroos, emus, uombats, Tasmanian devils and reptiles. The Botanical Gardens, designed in 1858, cover almost 0.5 km² along Lake Wendouree, northwest of the city center. Begonias grow very well in Ballarat; so much so that a Begonia festival is held for 10 days in March, and the greenhouse is used to expose them. On the other hand, the Avenue of Big Trees deserves particular attention, with a Canadian redwood among its colossi and the classic statuary donated by rich miners distributed throughout the gardens. The pride of the place is the Pompeii Hydra of Benzoni, one of the sculptures located in the Statuary Pavilion. Next to it is Prime Minister Avenue, where you can see a bust of all the prime ministers of Australia.

The rebuilt mining town of Sovereign Hill is located 1.5 km from downtown, on Bradshaw Street. Some 70 buildings and shops reproduce the originals of the main street of Ballarat in the 1850s, and several artists stroll there dressed in period costumes. The town was planned around a mining well in the 1880s, which can now be visited through guided underground excursions. There are excavations where you can learn how to look for gold and a mining museum full of steam machinery. The intricately detailed Chinese town is the most interesting, but in contrast to the main street, this limited settlement is deserted, since no Chinese are seen on the streets or in buildings as part of the environment. Sovereign Hill offers an exterior light and sound show, Blood on the Southern Cross, which uses the entire Sovereign Hill panorama to tell the story of Eureka's palisade. In front of Sovereign Hill, the Gold Museum offers an overview of the rebuilt town. It has an outstanding sample of authentic gold and a wide collection of coins that are distributed in the different samples, which explore the history and uses of gold. Another purpose of the museum is to highlight the social history of Ballarat. The Eureka Exhibition details life in the mines and explains the situation that caused the rebellion of Eureka. A central aspect of the exhibition is the painting by George Browning, an artist from the mid-19th century: it depicts the scene of Eureka's palisade with English soldiers firing at the bellicose-looking crew behind the trench, which is usually classified as the only armed rebellion of whites that has taken place in Australia.

(in 110 Km.) Melbourne: We return to the capital of Victoria to start the visit of the city in the morning.