Aradale 👻👻👻

Let Us tell you:
Aradale Lunatic Asylum built to house the mentally ill or insane as you would say back on those days. Purposely built on a mountain right here in Ararat, Vic AU with the belief that any winds from the south had a calming, healing effect on their patients and would basically help them heal from their mental illness. Aradale Asylum has two sister facilities: one at Kew the other at Beechworth, both also in Victoria, AU.

Opened in 1867 to house up a large number of patients until its closure in 1993, however one ward remained open for another couple of years thereafter. The building itself comprised of 63 building to make up Aradale, meaning it had to be self sufficient with 30ha Vineyard and their very own winery. Extensive training facilities and 4ha lavender farm. Livestock and own piggery as well as a market would have also been needed! Additionally of course crops and gardens for self grown varieties of food.

The rest is for you to explore (and there is heaps!), broaden your knowledge and experience whatever might happen… 👻
We had a ball and our guides get the thumbs up!!! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Now it’s your turn to step into unknown territory.

 

In the search of gold…

Whenever I am off work for a few days, it always seems like as if I had been away for a literally a week!

Why is that?

Because I enjoy the time I am away up to it’s finest detail. This past week was again one of those weeks where I simply packed the car up with a tent and sleeping bag, picked up my Partner and told him to drive… this way  – pointing on the beautiful gold mining town of Ballarat on the Melway. Okay fine… maybe not quite like this as we did have it planned to start off with.

It was a somewhat slow drive towards the City, through the tunnel and over the bridge…it then turned into a long drive as we drove past two exits which would have cost us less time to get there…two hours later with a slight scenic tour past Geelong we arrived within Ballarat, Victoria.

#Soprecious. #Sobeautiful. #Soamazing.

We did book a tent site at the nice Eureka Stockade Holiday Park, we have previously stayed there. To be truly honest with you…I enjoy camping and sleeping in a tent as long as the place we are staying at has a decent Bathroom with showers! Call me cray but it’s one of those things I can’t live without…a nice shower to start off my day…my partner did make the experience of what happens otherwise!

So anyway back to this incredibly perfect trip… we arrived at Ballarat, and drove straight to Sovereign Hill. Basically what it is for those who have no idea, Sovereign Hill is a ‘living’ museum..please don’t relate it to the film “Night at the Museum” with Robin Williams where everything comes to life, however the result sort of is the same…in a way.

The people at Sovereign Hill are dressed up in the costumes of the 1850’s, as the museum covers the first nine years of the gold rush in Ballarat so do the people dress in the different year’s of the gold rush history i.e corset dresses + maiden dresses, for then men it was suit and tie or work wear.

The Museum offers a lot of opportunities to gain the knowledge of what is was like back in those days. As it was a Mining Town with men, women and children flocking to the area in their search for gold, so came the opportunity to go through a Gold mine tour at Sovereign Hill, at one point we were thirty meters underground, as it was quite a hot two days with just above thirty degrees which made the gold mining tour extremely relaxing +  allowed us to ‘cool off’ just a tiny bit. Yes, the Gold Mining Tours are guided but there is also a tour available which is self-guided.

Ballarat’s well known Sovereign Hill interactive museum allows visitors to walk through the Main Street and adjoining streets set in  the 1850’s, I did feel slightly out of place at the start walking past those in their corset dresses and here I’m in my denim shorts, sandals and blouse…not quite so 1850.

At Sovereign Hill the chance to visit the Gold museum across the road also exists, which allows visitors to see the ‘Welcome Nugget’ + the ‘Welcome Stranger Nugget’ as well as read up on the history of when and where the gold was found in the area…trust me when I say that I was and still am highly tempted in buying a metal detector, shovel, and prospector’s license…this license is essential or you might find yourself in a lot of trouble!

The days we got to spent at this amazing place was truly one to remember because

WE FOUND GOLD!

 

What am I writin’… we did not… or did we?

Sssshhhhh… you make up your own answer 😉

#visitballarat #inthesearchforgold #museum #interactive

Now it is your opportunity to take the kids, pack the car, take your prospector’s license (just kidding with that one) and head to Ballarat, visit the Gold museum, take an underground mine tour, read up on the history, do some candle making + dipping, see how candy is made by hand, see the gold pouring, take a coach ride, the the musket firing, see the red coat soldiers parade down the main street, do a guided tour of Sovereign Hill, enjoy the Sound + Light Show or pan for gold – you might be lucky! Sovereign Hill offers so much for adults and children alike I could write a book about it.

One last tip though.. when visiting Ballarat it is worth staying at least two days to be able to enjoy it all.

Have a great start to this wonderful week!

A. xx