The Grampians to Ballarat, October 2002

The YHA in Halls Gap was probably the best YHA I'd ever been to. Designed to be environmentally friendly, they recycled the shower water in the toilets and had two enormous kitchens. I had no intention of cooking, so made my way to the pub for a counter meal. It was about a kilometre walk, but the food wasn't bad. Naturally, it was completely empty at 9.30pm, so I made my way back, wishing I'd brought a torch because it was really, really dark.

On the road to the Grampians

The next morning, I checked out and drove into the national park. My first stop was at McKenzie falls. There were two choices of walk. The lazy one to overlook the top of the falls, or a strenuous one to the foot. I took the lazy, and quick option. It wasn't the most exciting set of waterfalls I'd seen, but at least it had some water in it, unlike other Australian waterfalls I've visited.

Then I went up to a picnic place called Zumstein. It's a good place to spot kangaroos and wallabies, but I was there at midday, so there were none about. You really need to go along later in the day near dusk. After that, I drove on back towards Halls Gap via a different road. There was another waterfall that I stopped and had a look at. This one was tiny and the water disappeared into the pile of stones at the base. It was quite odd standing right at the bottom of a waterfall and not getting wet.

I had some lunch in Halls Gap and decided to drive on to Ballarat. It was a fair distance, so it was late afternoon when I arrived at the Sovereign Hill YHA. Sovereign Hill is a re-creation of a 1860s gold mining township. The YHA is around the back and I paid to visit the park the following day. The guide book does warn that you need to book early at the hostel, but there were only 4 of us there.

The following morning, I visited the historical park. There's an audio-visual show which tells the story of some of the miners in Ballarat in the mid-1800s. The town itself is a living museum with people dressed in costume acting out various different scenes. There's also some of the old mining equipment, which was steam driven. It's fired up at scheduled times, so you can see the crusher in action.

Panning for gold at Ballarat

One of the other displays involves smelting a gold bar worth about $60,000. It's heated up to about a thousand degrees and molten gold does make an impressive sight. The only thing that is extra is the mine tour. It was only about $3 and well worth it. You get to go into the hill along purpose cut tunnels. You can still see some of the original mining tunnels and one of the members of staff climbs through them with a camera giving a commentary. The public aren't allowed to enter the tunnels because they're unsupported. Then finally, there's a short ride in a mining railway truck.

The park is well worth a visit and I spent several hours there before deciding I ought to start back on the road at about 2pm. I was planning to stop in Geelong.

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