Day 6: Ballarat-Sovereign Hill

Today we planned a full day at Sovereign Hill, and that's exactly what we did!
We heard rain last night and there was a drizzle when I was coming back from a shower in the morning but it cleared to a perfect day.
Darren and I last visited Sovereign Hill about 15 years ago and remember it being ridiculously cold, so we rugged up in preparation for today. But were pleasantly surprised. It was cool but not as expected.
We were at Sovereign Hill by opening time at 10am and left on closing. The kids enjoyed a full day panning for gold, doing every tour we could possibly do, watching sweets being made, watching gold going through the smelting process, and basically learning about life in the 1850's gold rush.
Micaela's highlight was the horse and cart ride, Brandon's was the mine tours and Ethan's was panning for gold.
The caravan park we are staying at is only 300m from Sovereign Hill, so we decided, seems it was such a nice day, we would walk up. After leaving at 5pm, we walked down the hill and went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, which was delicious and service friendly and fast as we told them we were in a rush as we were heading back up to Sovereign Hill for the light and sound show.
So after dinner we walked back up the hill to see the show. Again it was fantastic. Micaela and Ethan thoroughly enjoyed it. Brandon, whilst not disliking it, started to feel really tired so got a bit fidgety during the final stages of the show. To his credit he still managed the walk back to the park, and even remembered the 6 digit pin number to the gate to get back into the park. Wish I had his memory!
Once back we had 3 very tired kids, Brandon was almost asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Darren managed to have a good look around the park yesterday to get ideas, especially in regards to the jumping pillow. Jenny, I will be emailing you some photo's soon regarding signage.
As a personal mention, Big4 Goldfields Ballarat has some of the best amenities blocks I have ever used. They are heated and well insulated from the elements making having a shower easier.
Tomorrow we are up early again to make our way to The Grampians. We want to get there with enough time to do one of the smaller hikes. This is one of my highlights!