In term 3 we are focusing on the 1850s Ballarat gold rush, this was one of the reasons that our camp destination for this term was. Dun, dun, dunnnnn… Sovereign Hill. Sovereign Hill is one of the closest experiences to the gold rush, they have replicas of all of the shops and buildings including the confectioners store, the gold office, the blacksmith and so many more. They also have a school that we actually attended. Here is some of my experiences that I had on the camp.

Sovereign Hill can teach you so much, even if you think you know everything about the gold rush and eureka stockade I’m sure that you’ll learn something else from Sovereign Hill. I have learnt and enjoyed so much about this camp. I’ve learnt lots from school including the toys that they used and how to write in copperplate handwriting. The toys that they used in the 1850s surprised me especially because they separated the toys into boys toys and girls toys. Some of the that us included skipping ropes, cup and ball, quotes with horse shoes, button toy and badminton with either a wooden bat or a bone bat straight from the butcher. I personally really enjoyed the badminton style game because it was really fun to play a familiar game in a different way.

I also learnt in school about copperplate writing. We learnt that you need to learn how to draw a pot hook which is like a ‘S’ but on a slant. This was fun and challenging. We all changed our clothes when going to school because our modern day clothes didn’t fit the time. (1850s) we wore knickerbockers which sound funny but are definitely not funny when you have to wear them. Because it was freezing over at Ballarat and the knickerbocker pants are only 3 quarter long it is freezing. We also wore some baggy shirts which came in various colours. Then we wore a hat, a blazer (jacket) and a tie that was like a bandana. This made the experience very fun and realistic.

We got to see the gold getting smashed out of quartz and then made into a golden bare. The gold got to over 1000 degrees Celsius hot. After this the man poured the liquid gold into a container and he had to be quick because even if it was so hot gold goes very solid very fast. Then he took solid gold out of the container and into water which amazingly made it cold enough for him to pick it up with in seconds. 

I felt lots of emotions at different moments in this trip from frightened to amazed here are some of those experiences. I was more excited than scared for the mine tours that we went on but I still had some fear. One of those experiences was when we went on a 45 minute long tour in a mine that was around 1 kilometre deep. For a whole minute or 2 we were in complete darkness, no light what so ever, even if you had your eyes completely open. This was kind of scary but I really enjoyed this then we went on the tour and it was really good. Another emotion that I felt was amazement. This was when we saw the Aura show. The Aura show first explained in a 3D movie of how gold was created. Then we saw a holographic type of show outside. After that we saw a short movie inside about the gold rush and eureka stockade but then… 3, 2, 1… the screen splits in half and we can see outside, the coldness of the air outside froze everybody but when the screens split we could see what was like gold rush diggings. Eureka hotel, bar, shops and tents. The show showed us the eureka stockade in action and how the Bentley’s hotel burned. Amazingly there weren’t a single actor! There was only screens on buildings that showed people on them that could move around each screen.

At Sovereign Hill we got to buy some things. Some of the things that I got were for my family members and when I gave them the gifts they were so happy and that made me very happy to see them liking the presents that I’d got for them. 

A PLA that was used a lot was courage. We used these in school when the inspector took a visit to our school. He was checking out how clean things were and how up to standard our work was. He expected the grade 2’s (these year levels were by height but we’re all really in year 5 (in our normal school)).to know their 12 times tables and the year 3s, 4s and 5s to know their 17 times tables. I was in year 4 so I had to know my 17 times tables. The year 2s did very well and were very fluent and same were the year 3, 4 and 5s but we mucked up a little bit at the end. The inspector was impressed but then he needed to see the boys copying books and the girls sewing. Some of the boys work was a bit smudged because the nip quills were very hard to use. Ma’am used the excuse the a bird had come inside and sat on their work which wasn’t true but the inspector believed it. Then the best part came. The inspector used to have a horse and went to Master. Leo’s dad to get new horse shoes on the horse. Master. Leo’s dad is hard of hearing and to get your horse four new shoes you can say ‘can I get my horse shod. Now because Master Leo’s dad is hard of hearing he heard ‘can I get my horse shot’. So he killed the horse. Then the inspector asked Leo if he’d had lots of meat that night and Leo answered ‘yes’. This was so hilarious but it was so amazing because Master Leo kept a straight face the whole time somehow.

To enhance the Sovereign Hill camp I would’ve loved to have one more day at school. We had only 2 days to learn everything but if we had one more day it would’ve been more fun and easier. I also would’ve loved to try some of the professions that the shop keepers had. This would’ve been so fun and we would really have understood what the shop owners did.

Have you been to Sovereign Hill? Do you know anything about the gold rush or Eureka stockade?