November 3, 2014 - Ballarat, Drive back to Melbourne, then Flew to Christchurch

Daily itinerary were:

• Visited Sovereign Hill Gold Museum
• Visited Sovereign Hill Historical Park
• Lunch at Crown Casino
• National Gallery of Victoria
• Shrine of Remembrance
• St Patrick's Cathedral
• Melbourne Chinatown
• Flew and arrived Christchurch, New Zealand at 11:50PM
• Checked into The Elms Hotel

We had a relaxing breakfast and were able to wonder around the motel campground to enjoy the fresh air.  At the same time, we spotted a group of auto lovers lined up their antique cars in the parking lot.  It was a rare occasion that one would run into so many antique cars in a same place.  In addition, the owners of these cars were very friendly and even invited us to get onto their cars for photo.

The first tour attraction was the Sovereign Hill Historical Park.  It is an open air museum in suburb Golden Point of Ballarat.  It represents Ballarat's first ten years after the discovery of gold there in 1851 and it comprises over 60 historically recreated buildings with costumed staff and volunteers,  The creation is completed with antiques, artwork, books and papers, machinery, livestock and animals, carriages and devices all appropriate to the time.  Alicia missed the opening time and led us to there too early, therefore, she took us to the nearby Gold Museum to kill some time.  In addition to see the exhibitions, some of us ended up at gift shop buying souvenirs.  Quite a few of us bought beautiful glasswares featuring traditional motifs such as kangaroo, koala, and little penguins.

The time we were allocated in Sovereign Hill Historical Park was limited again.  We only had enough time to rush down the 2 main streets and took some photos.  One of the attraction is Gold Mine Tour which is 3 hours underground adventures into the world of 19th century mining, but we did not have the time.  It was a shame for driving this far and paying a lot of money for entrance tickets (regular ticket costs $78.50 AUD) and only spent about 30 minutes there.

After the short visit of Sovereign Hill, we rushed back to Melbourne to have lunch at Crown Casino which is one piece in a massive jigsaw of leisure, arts and recreation facilities on Southbank, Melbourne known as the Crown Entertainment Complex.

After lunch, we visited the National Gallery of Victoria and saw the only piece of the Van Gogh exhibition there.  With only 20 minutes, we didn't see much.  Next, Alicia took us to the Shrine of Remembrance and St Patrick's Cathedral.  We had about 10 minutes at each of these locations and then she took us to Chinatown.  We did not have much interests to see the Chinatown and we were not sure why she insisted to take us there.  Maybe it had to do with taking some of us to shop souvenirs at one of tax free shops owned by her friends.  Most of us did not go with her, however, for those who went with her did buy some souvenirs there.

Then she took us to the airport to catch a 6:35PM flight from Melbourne to Christchurch, New Zealand.  When we got to Christchurch, it was 11:50PM.  Everyone's temper was short when we did not see our tour guide Vivian at the airport when we arrived, and later boarded on a very small tour bus.  However, Vivian was pretty calm in explaining everything and the driver was pretty decent in loading our ample and heavy luggages quietly.