Sovereign Hill

Where else can you dress like it’s the 1850s and not get strange looks? Sovereign Hill takes you back to the heady times of Australia’s great gold rush. There’s real gold to be panned – and it’s ‘finders keepers’, an underground gold mine and street theatre and with costumed goldfields characters. You can see a $150,000 gold pour, where gold is heated to molten temperatures and magically transformed into a gleaming solid gold bar by craftsmen at work in the blacksmith’s forge. Then there’s candle works, the wheelwright’s plant, the coach builder’s, the Gold Museum and the confectionery factory (which is liquid gold for kids). By night, Sovereign Hill presents its impressive sound-and-light show, 'Blood on the Southern Cross', the legendary story of the 1854 Eureka Uprising, a great Australian drama. Even the accommodation is in theme, with the Sovereign Hill Hotel offering governor's rooms, sovereign rooms or colonial rooms. Sovereign Hill was named Australia’s best ‘Major Tourist Attraction’ three times, most recently in 2016 and 2015.