Year 5/6 News

Year 5/6 Camp to Sovereign Hill

By Flora, Dion, Joshua and Lily H

In Week 8, the Year 5/6s visited Sovereign Hill for a three-day camp.  We had a fantastic time and learned a whole lot about the Victorian Gold Rush in Ballarat. 

While we were there, we did the following fun activities:

Gold Panning

We all eagerly panned for gold! We got a pan and started panning, hoping to strike it rich and call out “Eureka!”. We scooped up some dirt and rocks from the creek and swirled them around and around the pan. Some people got shovels and they dug out sand from the centre of the river and put it into their pans. The gold panning was how people found gold back in the 1850s. It was much easier and safer than going underground to mine. Our class was lucky enough to find small bits of gold. Some of us were even able to find small nuggets! 

Education Sessions

On camp, we also did many educational sessions. In one of our education sessions, we got to try and write in Victorian cursive, with quills and ink.  We all tried very hard to make it look nice, but the fonts were VERY hard. Ma’am (an actor teacher) told us that our teachers weren’t dressed appropriately based on the 1850s, as they were showing too much skin and their ankles! Ma’am was wearing a skirt (which was covering her ankles) with a crinoline under it to make her skirt puffy.  We also got to look at artefacts from the past and guess what they were and what they were used for. We learnt quite a lot about the 1850s and life on the goldfields.

Aura Light Show

On the first night, we went to the lightshow. We arrived at 7:30 PM and put on really exciting glasses that revealed to us a realistic 3D movie showing us how gold came to earth. Next, we travelled in a tram to the next part of the lightshow. We got ready and took our seats; there was a giant screen filled with the Australian habitat. It was very exciting to see the Aboriginal story behind gold. 

Finally, we took our seats and watched an amazing show of the Eureka Stockade. We saw the story of the Eureka Hotel being burned down by the angry miners (they even used real fire) and how that started the unrest on the goldfields that led to the Eureka Stockade. It was fantastic.

Chinese Quarters

We entered the Chinese Quarters camp at Sovereign Hill, ready to find out some Chinese history. First, we entered a temple where the Chinese prayed, then we had the privilege to wander around and see the interesting things the Chinese people had back then. We saw their tents, interesting posters and buildings. We also saw the shop that would have sold meat, bowls and dishes to people at the time. It was so interesting.

Mine Tours

We were lucky enough to explore two different mines at Sovereign Hill. We had tours of the Red Hill Mine and the Quartz Mine. We rode in a tram to go down into the mine, and the journey was 90 seconds. It was pitch dark, but our eyes quickly adjusted to the low levels of light. We were shown how you could find gold in quartz, and also how miners back in the day used to make a hole in the mine, then put dynamite in the hole and blow it up. The tour showed how miners used drills to drill the mines, which was very efficient, but it was loud, and miners went deaf in 6 months.

The Red Hill was a self-guided tour, and we saw how big the huge gold Welcome Nugget was. We saw holograms of miners discovering the Welcome Nugget. Overall, we thought mining would have been a very hard life in the 1800’s.

Red Coats

The Red Coat Demonstration was one of the highlights of our experience at Sovereign Hill. This is where three soldiers, a drummer boy and a captain, march through the main street, led by the drummer. The three soldiers all had guns, a red coat on, black pants, a white sash and a weird kind of hat. You can't miss the Red Coats, the drummer boy’s drum is VERY loud. The captain was in control of everything. When saying “left”, they would all turn left, and when saying “One”, the first gun would go off. The soldiers would stay put until the captain started shouting positions. “Position 1!” He would yell, and the soldiers would start to load their gunpowder. “Position 2!” The captain would yell, and they aimed their guns. “March in!” The soldiers took one step forward. “One!” First gun goes off. “Two” Second gun “3!” Third gun goes off. The gunshots were so loud that they made the whole class jump!  

Lolly Making 

Our 5/6s loved seeing how raspberry drops are made. First, the sweet maker boiled the mixture until it was completely melted. She then poured all of it over the table, which was so satisfying to watch. It started to harden very quickly, and when she talked about how it was made in the old days, she would bend it all until it hardened a little bit. After it finished bending and blending, another person came in and fed the raspberry mixture into a machine with a mould attached. The raspberry drops popped out the other side in one large sheet. Then she cracked them all out onto the table. We all got one piece and it was so delicious!

We had the best time at Sovereign Hill. We had lots of fun and really learned what it was like to live during the time of the Gold Rush. We are very grateful that we got to have this experience.

Enjoy our photos!