Sovereign Hill, Ballarat

I heard a knock. And another, and another. It seemed like the whole world was about to break down and there was nothing I could do to get rid of that knocking sound. Then, I opened my eyes. Grabbed my phone on the bedside table, looked at the time, and instantly jumped out of bed as if I was sleeping on a hot pot of lava. "MY GOD!" it was already 8:00am. I was supposed to be at Uni at 8:30. No time for whines, I jumped into the shower and quickly got dressed. At 8:35, my housemate and I were at the waiting spot for the bus. Now, whoever said you couldnt get from your bed to uni (including packing your bag) within half an hour, I've proved them wrong.
At around 9am, the bus finally arrived (and don't sue me if you know if I'm a few minutes off the exact time. I said AROUND 9). While waiting for the bus I had already made a few new friends, and so we all hopped onto the bus, with our very nice Italian driver who told us stories about his family up to where his niece went on a honeymoon.
Our first destination was the Sovereign Hills, which is the very famous gold mining town, now mining from tourists, with a hefty entry fee of around 25bucks student price. As we walked in, a totally different atmosphere surrounded us, bringing us back in time to the days where Australia was still under British colony. There were horses trotting along (except of course, now it's yet another tourist scam, charging 4bucks per person to ride in the carriages) and nice little stores all specializing in making different things.
With a maximum temperature of 18deg celcius, and plus the fact that it drizzled once every half an hour, today obviously wasn't the best day to be going round Sovereign Hill. However, we were kept entertained by their ongoing shows around the little town. Watching AUD 75,000 worth of gold melting before our eyes was certainly a sight of a lifetime. We also had a chance to admire the world's second largest gold nugget, and there was a nice little stream where we could try our luck in harvesting for some gold. Now don't start being cynical, because my housemate Jessie and our friend, Kheng Ying managed, after much cooperation and hard work, to find a flake of gold, as big as a wing of a fly. Yup, NO KIDDING. THEY FOUND GOLD! haH!
as for myself, well... frankly, the group I was with were all camera whores, thus, due to peer pressure, I turned into one as well for the day. (haha.. :P excuses? or am I just fitting into my "own kind"?) That said, here are a few pictures we took...

Picture 1: 'pretending' to harvest for gold... told u we were being cam whores... I mean c'mon.. who looks for gold smiling like it's a colgate ad?

Picture 2: Lovely dresses!

Picture 3: Second largest gold nugget in the world. ooooooo~~

After Sovereign Hill, there was yet another destination to tackle. We went to the Ballarat Wildlife park, about 5 minutes away from Sovereign Hill. We weren't there for long because the park was about to close and the shows were all over by the time we arrived. But that's ok, because besides posing with fat-ass over-fed kangaroos, and crazy emus running up and down chasing people with food, I met Mark Holden! Yup, that guy who talks gibberish to the Australian Idol contestants, often making no sense at all except his trademark 'touchdown' (s). Jessie saw him first, and then she was like "Aly, that's the Australian Idol guy" and at first I was like "what? err.. are you sure? no way..." I was thinking, "what in the world... how the random... how is it possible to bump into Mark Holden, the guy who was supposed to be out doing auditions in a Wildlife park, in Ballarat?" but later, Jessie's statement was justified when I saw the Channel Ten sweater he was wearing. Cheapo. He must have gotten it for free from a sponsor.
Anyway, I approached him later, and asked "are you Mark Holden?" and he was like "yeah." and so we had a little conversation ("Alycia asks a question, Mark answers" type of conversation) and he said that they were in the middle of doing auditions, and he would be travelling down to Alice Sprigs soon. Then, I conveniently asked if I could take a picture with him. (yeah rite... it was written all over my forehead 'I'M DESPERATE FOR A PHOTO??!!') anyway, pays off... here goes:

This picture was taken while his daughter glared at me sending telepathic messages like "get away from my daddy RIGHT NOW! It's OUR DAY!!" His wife, on the other hand, just walked away. *whine*

Enough of that. Below are a few pictures of the lazy kangaroos...
That's me slaving to feed the kangaroo who couldn't even stand on his two feet.

So.. I decided... perhaps I could sit on him.

Of course, the park had a few more lively kangas as well, and I'd like to end on a high note, so here's a more positive picture of the mummy kanga feeding her joey!