Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BALLARAT
POP 85,935
Ballarat was built on gold and it's easy to see the proceeds of those days in the grand
Victorian-era architecture around the city centre. The single biggest attraction here is the
fabulous, re-created gold-mining village at Sovereign Hill, but there's plenty more in this
busy provincial town to keep you occupied: a day spent admiring the architecture, wander-
ing through the superb art gallery or hanging around Lake Wendouree and the botanical
gardens is a day well spent. Rug up if you visit in the winter months - Ballarat is renowned
for being chilly.
History
The area around here was known to the local indigenous population as 'Ballaarat', meaning
'resting place'. When gold was discovered here in August 1851 - giving irresistible mo-
mentum to the central Victorian gold rush that had begun two months earlier in Clunes -
thousands of diggers flooded in, forming a shanty town of tents and huts. Ballarat's alluvial
goldfields were the tip of the golden iceberg, and when deep shaft mines were sunk they
struck incredibly rich quartz reefs. In 1854 the Eureka Rebellion pitted miners against the
government and put Ballarat at the forefront of miners' rights. For more on the Eureka Re-
bellion,
Click here
.
