Day 6: A Bag of Lollies... A Game of Chess and then off to Sovereign Hill

Started the day off with a visit to the castle lolly shop where the boys picked the sourest lollies ever (eye watering sour) and Bryn whipped me at a game of outdoor chess.... It was then, car fully packed, off to Sovereign Hill for our second day which started with a show where we learned about extracting gold using mercury and the process of smelting which culminated in us seeing a $130,000 ingot of gold being poured – the boys got to touch this briefly before it was placed in the safe.
We then raced off to see a musket being fired by the resident trooper and get a brief lesson on the ‘equipment’ he was armed with including the two sets of cuffs (one for men, the other smaller set for women/children) which had to be screwed up to hold them in place and a variety of firearms that got progressively more accurate as time went on. From memory there was some gunpowder, a top hat, a pistol, a colt revolver and a muscat… but don’t hold me to that! The trooper had us laughing when he explained how many of the police of the time came to the colony because they were criminals and we then, in our wisdom, rewarded them by giving them a job, a gun and also paid them to do so!

Wandering in and out of the shops in the main street was interesting, particularly hearing the boys’ take on things including that they thought a shoe horn was an icecream scoop and a candle snuffer was a spoon! We listened to an accredited apothecary who extolled the wide ranging benefits of stinging nettle and related stories of times when ‘round’ ladies achieved weight loss by swallowing a tapeworm egg and then taking a 3 day diet of pommegranites in order to pass the worm before it grew too big and starved the women to death. His advice also extended to how to go about diagnosing if someone has worms (involving a torch at night and inspection of the obvious place… apparently the worms crawl out towards the light…) and the virtue of chilli and capsicum oil for arthritis. The history lesson included that the blue square bottle of oil of serpent was known and used by all. It had nothing to do with snakes at all but being about 50% nettle was a household staple and well used by drovers and shearers who had very poor diets and returned home in poor health due to a lack of fruit and vegetable in their diets.

A quick stop at the doorway of the United States Hotel rewarded us with a snippet of a two man band creating quite good music out of a pair of boots, two spoons, a stick and a barrel… fantastic!

Next door to the hotel, we stopped in at the Victoria Theatre for a midday performance of the spider dance by the notable ‘Lola Montez’. Khi was a little confused at the end when everyone got up to leave – he asked ‘is that it?’. We explained that the showing of ankles and flashing of bloomers was indeed risqué for the day which he was amused at. I pointed out the difference of such a show to perhaps a film clip of our times (ie something like wrecking ball)…. I have realised that I don’t know anything about this historical character but I was intrigued enough by the dialogue I witnessed that I will be certainly doing some reading about her in the future – she seemed like a bit of a breaker from tradition which appeals to my sense of right!

It was then lunch at last in the bakery next door to the theatre where we shared fresh scones, apple cider cake, pumpkin soup, wedges and spaghetti bolognaise. Refreshed we headed up for a primitive game of bowling (with stone balls and exceptionally long lanes) and then back down to the tinsmith’s shop. What a maze of pulleys and tools….. piles of copper shavings on the floor, what an WHS nightmare… every step was a hazard! The smith tinkered away however, oblivious to it all, and obviously lost in his craft.

The redcoats then came marching…left right, left right, all the way through town to the beat of their drum, up the Main Street, past the ladies with parasols and coming to a halt right in front of us! What good fortune, or so we thought until we were advised to put our digits in our lugholes and the soldiers fired their weapons – my goodness they were loud – digits or no! The boys noticed that one of the soldiers was indeed the confectioner we had watched yesterday making boiled sweets.

Khi commented that he would like to work at Sovereign Hill and get to dress up and work in the different places each day. I think I agree with him and all the people working there seem to genuinely enjoy what they are doing. The feeling of the whole placed is relaxed but very professional. It is fantastic how everyone gets into character, either by dress and/or accent, and then engages with the visitors or just each other as they wander about the town – all the time without deviating from their role. It makes all the learning and watching so much more enjoyable and memorable. I know it is common sense, but the power of experience in learning is so unbeatable. I think the unit of work that Khi did last year on the goldrush took several weeks to learn and I am certain that his learning was well surpassed in about a 6hr period of his experience of Bendigo and Ballarat!

After the redcoats, it was back to the Confectionary Factory as the kids wanted to watch this display again (not sure if it was the lure of guaranteed sugar at the end, or genuine intrigue)…. This time it was blackcurrent lollies being made which were equally delicious.

The final stop was the undertakers to see how coffins were made and transported, and a lesson next door about how candles were made (including the graphic description of how animal fat was rendered and what it would have smelled like…. Not pleasant!). We got to see the traditional method using the dipping donkey, producing the lovely handmade tapered candles and then an explanation of how this process became more automated with the water cooled machines which are no longer used due to water restrictions.

On the way out we had one last gold pan and managed to find several small flecks, but nothing worth throwing the jobs in over! One of them we found in Bryn’s small goldpan which he purchased at the foundry.

A quick stop in at the Beechworth Bakery (in Ballarat!) for some afternoon tea and hot beverage before hitting the road for the 2 hour or so journey to Warrnambool. Many fields later (several of which were being burned back), one detour onto a dirt road which confused the satnav no end, one absolutely liquid gold sunset later (much to my delight) and one long lesson on the difference between consecutive, concurrent and sequential serving of punishments (Khi was desperate to get his ipod back.....) and we eventually arrived at our destination just on dusk.

Check-in revealed that there is most certainly a marked difference between a 4 star room in a castle to a 3.5 star spa apartment in Warnambool! Never mind, it has everything we need and it is nice to have a bit of space. I’ve done a load of washing or two and the place now resembles a Chinese laundry – a nice byproduct of my efforts is the smell is fresh and clean (unlike the smelly socks I’ve been travelling with the last few days!).

Nothing planned for tomorrow but we are hoping for a bit of a lazy catchup type of day so will be happy to potter about and perhaps go to the laser show tomorrow night.

Unfortunately no wi-fi here though, so I will have to post this up tomorrow if we can locate somewhere with free wireless…. Even if that means stopping at Macca’s! Unless of course I can get tricky and hotspot my phone...

Sovereign Hill

Gold Pouring