Sovereign Hill Admission | Melbourne

For tour meeting point and time, please take the tour vouchers as the final confirmation. The meeting point and time in the tour info are only for reference.

Opening hours: Tuesday - Sunday 10am - 5pm 

Sovereign Hill is a living museum presenting the story of Ballarat as a gold rush boomtown. Gold was discovered here in 1851, triggering the greatest alluvial gold rush the world has ever known. The sleepy pastoral settlement of Ballarat grew rapidly into a fine provincial city built on the wealth derived from its gold.

Covering 15 hectares of a former gold mining site, Sovereign Hill's Outdoor Museum brings the gold rush to life through a living township with over 18 scheduled activities happening throughout the day, you can find yourself panning for real gold, witnessing musket firing, seeing boiled lollies, wheels, and candles being made all before your very eyes.

The Outdoor Museum enjoys international renown as a living museum featuring rare trades, working machinery, exhibits, and costumed interpreters.

Daily activities include:

• The Diggings Tour: Explore Life on the early Goldfields hosted by a costumed interpreter.
• The Red Hill Mine Tour: Discover the dark, dangerous world of deep lead mining and witness the discovery of the famous “Welcome Nugget”.
• Gold panning: There’s real gold to be found in The Diggings and it’s yours to keep! Make sure you stop by the Waterloo store and purchase a gold bottle to protect your precious find.
• Musket Firing: Our Troopers will tell you about law and order on the goldfields and demonstrate to you how to load and fire a musket.
• Sweet Making: Discover how boiled lollies are made in the traditional way and enjoy a sample at the end of the demonstration.
• Gold Pour: Pure gold is melted to 1,000 degrees Celsius and poured into a mould to create a pure Gold Ingot.
• Candlemaking: Be mesmerised by the enticing scents of our 19th-century candle factory and watch our candle makers in action.
• Bowling: Set up the skittles and try your hand at 9-pin bowling.
• Wheelwrighting: Watch our skilled craftsmen create hubs, and spokes and assemble coach wheels using traditional 19th-century methods.
• Underground Gold Mine Tour (additional cost as per price list): Take a ride on the old mine rail deep into the underground. The process of mining is extremely arduous, with workers venturing into pitch-black mine shafts every day. The harsh conditions in the mines, characterized by dampness, darkness, and poor ventilation, make it a nightmare for miners.During the Gold Mine Tour, you can hop on a small mine cart to experience the working conditions of miners from the past. In the dimly lit mine shafts, you will come across various exhibits and models depicting the work of miners in days gone by. The tour guide will share stories of the miners as you enter the mine.The image above shows the "elevator" that miners used to commute to and from work. During quitting time, everyone rushed to board it to get out of the mine quickly, which was quite dangerous, leading to numerous accidents.