Sovereign Hill is located in Ballarat, about an hour’s drive to Melbourne. In the 1850s when gold mines were found at Sovereign hill for the first time, it suddenly became hustle and bustle as a lot of gold prospectors, including Chinese people from Guangdong Province and Fujian Province, flooded into the so-called the “New Gold Mountain”. At Eureka Center and Central Deborah Gold Mine, the Australian ancestors' frontier border relics are reserved, telling the gold rush story from the 1850s to the 1860s, and revealing the realistic townscape of Sovereign Hill during the gold rush in the 1850s. Goldfields at Sovereign Hill has witnessed the economic development of Australia. Today, Sovereign Hill greatly promotes the tourism development in Australia, attracting thousands of tourists to come here to feel the gold rush fever initiated more than 100 years ago.

As soon as you arrive at this town, what comes into your eyes is like a vivid oil painting of the 18th century, showing the life and scenery at that time. The buildings and carriages as well as the people's dress still keep the characteristics of the old days, as if the "gold days" were coming back. Walking around the town, you will see special shops everywhere, such as bakeries using the bread making method in the 18th century, clothes stores for the nobles, blacksmith's shops, harness and saddle shops, and grocery stores selling necessities such as candles. Even the ancient bulletins have survived from the past. You may feel that you were back to the past as a member of the town at that time.

The most attractive part during the Sovereign Hill gold rush tour is visiting the underground gold mine. You can see the steam pump for extracting waste water from the pit, and get to know the tough life of the miners. The only light source in the mine are candles, which were the necessity for the miners though they are now used as a romantic decoration in western-style restaurants. The miners used candles to test the oxygen content in the pit to ensure the security during production. They also used the candles to heat drinking water, to get the only warmth in the damp and cold pit.  

Out of the pit, you can experience the gold washing pleasure. Tourists can wash gold by the river where the miners panned. Scoop up the sand from the sand mine and wash it carefully in water like washing rice. If you are patient and lucky, you will harvest gold dust and bring it home as a souvenir!

If you want to learn more about the gold mining history and gold washing method 150 years ago, you can come and visit the Gold Museum near the gold mine at Sovereign Hill. It displays the antiques at the time of gold rush, the course of Eureka Stockade, the primitive tribes in central Victoria, and the establishment of the animal husbandry industry, as well as people's gold rush enthusiasm upon the discovery of gold. The tour will be perfect after it is ended at the Gold Museum.