Melbourne Day 5:Panning for Gold

The day started out with waking up early to drive out to Ballarat, famous for the Gold Rush of the 1840s -1960s. There is still enough gold there to be mined that the city itself still thrives off the gold alone. We began by walking around and seeing the Sovereign Hill theme park as its called. It is literally people dressed for the times, the buildings and environment is so realistic and replicated of that time period. It was so much fun. There was a gold pouring show. The guy melted the gold and purified it, and then poured it in front of everyone. It was fun to watch. The bar of gold is worth over $112,000 Australian dollars. We saw a guy dressed as a soldier fire a musket black powder style. It was loud and funny to watch. There were different gold mine tours we went on as well. They were dark and very deep underground. It was cool to see the different types of mines and what each type had to offer. We also panned for gold along the man made river. I was the only one who found a ton of gold. Christmas presents for those who are nice. Hint Hint...

There were different stores and buildings, including a bowling alley. At the end of the day we went to a gold museum and then a light show about Blood on the Southern Cross. It was an intense story of government abuses of the gold miners and diggers and where it finally broke out in a 15 minute massacre that killed many. The show had no actors just lights, scenery, and voices.

I could see a huge difference between this historic site and the towns progress compared to that of Nauvoo. This town after twenty years finally built stores and houses, schools, and so on. Nauvoo within months had everything needed for a good society. So you can kinda see peoples progress rates with different desires in mind. Most men mining for gold after the rush died at the age of 35 or so. The boys would start work at the age of 12. There's even a dinamite drill called the Widow Maker. It's no wonder it took them so long to progress and built a society. There childrens school was a tent for a long time. It's a beautiful town, but the backround makes you think. What is the price of gold to you?

After the tours ended, we headed home. My friend, who drove, began to get tired and started swerving a bit on the road. I told her she should pull over and take a nap. She got angry, turned the radio up and kept driving. She sped up, kept making sharp turns, and scared me so bad. I made sure to keep talking to her, even though she looked angrier and angrier. I knew if push came to shove I could grab the wheel and the emergency brake and end the drive till she got some rest. I later found out that she simply had taken too many of her required daily pill and it was making her very moody and on edge.

I'm at the airport right now, getting ready to go to Tazmania. I have some good spots to see there.