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Marching guards at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat
Our self contained accomodation
inside the pyramid
Bluestone and brick, the Fine Art Gallery
Lake Wendouree is also a very popular spot for picnics. There are playgrounds, picnic tables and BBQ's at several points around its circumference, or you can just sit on the grassy shores and admire the views...
Ballarat is quite a sporting city, whether for the sportsman or the sports watcher.
All summer long, there is cricket, then Autumn/Winter/Spring, football dominates.
Of lesser fame is Basketball and we have a very good basketball stadium. There are 3 major swimming pools: 1 at the University of Ballarat at Mt Helen (limited hours), 1 for the general public indoors in Gillies St (YMCA) and the outdoor slightly heated Eureka Pool in Eureka Street.
Walking or cycling around Lake Wendouree (6 km) is a very popular activity. The lake itself is often used for rowing events.
Netball is a popular sport, and there are several disciplines of martial arts taught in Ballarat.
There is also an indoor go-kart track and much much more (but don't ask me, I'm not a sporting person) Depending on what sport you want to do. Bikes can be brought up from Melbourne on the train, but there isn' t a lot of provision made for them.
More views around the Cemetery...it's also interesting to take a wander and see just how many times the most common names (such as Elizabeth and Mary, for example) come up on the headstones from the 1800s and early 1900s.
In December 1854, the diggers of Ballaarat rose in rebellion against the Government of Victoria. They were being unjustly treated and felt they had no redress except by violence. They set up a republic, under the flag of the Southern Cross, on the slopes of Eureka, with Peter Lalor as their Commander in Chief.
There is far insufficient space here to relate the story of the tragic affair at Eureka, other than to mention that, on 3rd December, a small army consisting of detachments of the 40th and 12th Regiments of the British Army, together with a number of Police, stormed the crudely built stockade. Twenty-five of the rebel diggers were killed; a large number were more or less seriously wounded; 145 were taken prisoners but subsequently released because the "Riot Act" had not been read. The soldiers had fired on them without warning and the diggers had only defended themselves when attacked.
But, though the diggers were defeated, the people of Melbourne sympathised with them and demanded that the diggers of Ballaarat should be given votes, so that they might elect a member to the Parliament. On October 3rd 1856, the diggers of Ballaarat elected as their representative in Parliament, Peter Lalor, who had led the Rebellion, and who had lost his left arm in that tragic business.
Lalor remained in Parliament till his death in 1886. From 1880 he was the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, and on two occasions declined the offer of a Knighthood from the Imperial Government.
The episode remains a focal point even today and is the only major disturbance, other than the atrocities that happened to the indigenous population, en route to self government.
Early in 1852, the Government sent up Surveyor W H Urquhart to lay out a township. He quickly saw that low-lying Main Road was an unsuitable spot.
For a while he considered the high land near the present junction of Humffray and Grant Streets, but he finally decided to get out of the population areas and lay his township upon the plateau. He meant the new township to go north and south.
Lydiard Street was to be the main official street, with public offices, churches, banks and hotels; Armstrong Street was to be the main business street; Doveton Street, the residential street, while cross streets were named Dana, Sturt and Mair Streets.
On 5th May 1857, the first municipal Council met at the Golden Fleece Hotel in Lydiard Street, with James Oddie as the first Chairman. A pipe was laid from the lake. It went underground, along Webster, Drummond and Sturt Street till it came to where the Burke and Wills Monument stands today. Here came the carriers with their water carts which they filled from the stand pipe, and then hawked the water around the Town, selling it at 10 shillings per car load.
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