Our day trip today was to Sovereign Hill at Ballarat, which is like Beamish back home - an open-air museum of an old Goldrush town, which was on this site in the 1850s. But first, we had to make a stop at the Post Office in Torquay to send our Australia-themed Christmas cards!

The drive to Ballarat took about an hour, and we were all pleased that the sun was shining. When we arrived, we paid our quite steep entry fee (well, Mam paid - thanks!) to get in and were given a brief introduction and pointed in the right direction.

Our first stop was the New York bakery for something to eat - Dad and I enjoyed Devonshire Tea and scones, but I think Dave regretted his choice of 'Tea Sandwiches' which were tiny! The site was very big and quite impressive - similar to Beamish, although it's all in one place - no long walks or tram rides to get around! They cram a lot of things to do and see into the site, and we saw a lot of interesting things - a display by redcoat soldiers, a gold pour demonstration (they have melted down and poured the same gold into a block thousands of times over the last 16 years!), a tour of a gold mine underground, a sweet making demonstration, as well as browsing in the many shops, cottages and other buildings such as the fire station and bowling alley!

By the end of the day, we were all quite tired from walking around in the sun, but had really enjoyed our visit. Our tickets also got us into the Gold museum over the road, so we had a quick browse in there, before heading to McDonalds to use the wifi, which didn't work(!), so we soon headed back to base.

That night, we watched a film called 'The Experiment', which we hadn't heard of before, but it was very very good!