Ballarat, Gateway to the Goldfields
After gold was discovered in 1851 towns and villages sprang up across Victoria's western region practically overnight. Touring the Ballarat region makes for a compelling journey into Victoria's fascinating past.
This history-packed route includes all the important heritage sites, towns and villages of the region. Follow the route out of Ballarat to neighboring Creswick, then on to Daylesford - Victoria's spa centre and site of historic gold rushes of the mid 19th century.
Continue on to the galleries and gardens of Castelmaine, the legendary antique stores of Maldon and explore the Mount Alexander Diggings. The Goldfields Touring Route incorporates 33 heritage sites around Maryborough, Bridgewater, Dunolly, St Arnaud and Carisbrook as well as Castlemaine, Clunes and Bendigo.
Mining Life
"In the first days of Ballarat's mining life, when womanless crowds wrestled with earth...the arrival of a woman emptied many a tent of besoiled and hardy diggers", wrote W.B. Withers in his History of Ballarat, first published in 1870. According to Withers, the first woman to arrive on the Ballarat goldfield was a bullock-driver's wife, whose husband had left his bullocks and turned to gold-seeking. Next came Mrs Thomas Bath, said to be the first European woman to settle permanently on the goldfield.
Craig's Royal Hotel in Lydiard Street was built on the site of Bath's original wooden hotel from 1862, and remnants of the original hotel remain today within the building.