Hotels in Ballarat, Australia

A little about Ballarat...

Ballarat (37°33′S, 143°51′E) is a city in Victoria, Australia, and one of the country's largest inland cities. It is well-known for its history and heritage.

It is approximately 105 kilometres (65 mi) north-west of Melbourne, with an urban population of 88,437[3] people. The city lies at 441 metres (1,447 ft) AHD and consists of an area of approximately 740 square kilometres (286 sq mi), with the city occupying a built up area of approximately 75 square kilometres (29 sq mi).

Gold was discovered near Ballarat in 1851, and the influx of over 10,000 miners in less than a year transformed it from a pastoral town into Victoria's largest city. Ballarat is notable as the site for Australia's only armed civil uprising, colloquially referred to as the Eureka Stockade but more correctly titled the Eureka Rebellion, which took place on 3 December 1854.

While the city's growth slowed after the 1880s and Melbourne quickly overshadowed its importance, Ballarat remains a major inland regional centre and tourist destination, having retained much of its Victorian era heritage and is known for its grand heritage listed buildings and gardens.

Ballarat is notable for its very wide boulevards. The main street is Sturt Street and is considered among one of the finest main avenues in Australia with over 2 kilometres of central gardens known as the Sturt Street Gardens featuring bandstands, fountains, statues, monuments, memorials and lampposts.

Ballarat is home to the largest of a collection of several Avenues of Honour in Victoria. The fifteen kilometre (9.3 mi) long Ballarat Avenue of Honour consists of a total of approximately 4,000 trees, mostly deciduous which in many parts arch completely over the road. Each tree has a bronze plaque dedicated to a soldier from the Ballarat region who enlisted during World War I. The Avenue of Honour and the Arch of Victoria are on the Victorian Heritage Register.

The city also has the greatest concentration of public statuary in any Australian city with many parks and streets featuring sculptures and statues dating from the 1860s to the present day.

Some of the other unique memorials located in the Sturt Street Gardens in the middle of Ballarat's main boulevard include a bandstand situated in the heart of the city that was funded and built by the City of Ballarat Band in 1913 as a tribute to the bandsmen of the RMS Titanic, a fountain dedicated to the early explorers Burke and Wills, and those dedicated to Monarchs and those who have played pivotal roles in the development of the city and its rich social fabric. The most recent memorial is dedicated to a war hero Sir Albert Ernest Coates. Sir Albert Ernest Coates was a soldier and a surgeon born at Mt Pleasant in Ballarat who served as a medical orderly at Gallipoli, trained as a doctor on his return and was worked tirelessly with minimal resources to save countless lives in Prisoner of War camps during World War 2.

Recently (late 2006), the Ballarat "Big Miner" was erected at the eastern entrance to Ballarat. The larger-than-life statue of a miner holding a pick and pan greets visitors as they approach the city from the east.

The Ballarat Botanical Gardens are amongst the finest Botanical Gardens in Australia with extensive varieties of native and introduced species of plants and trees. Lake Wendouree hosted the rowing events for the 1956 Summer Olympics, and is a large recreational lake created out of former wetlands. The gardens are home to the annual Ballarat Begonia Festival, and feature a modern glasshouse and horticultural centre. Also of note is the Prime Minister's Avenue which features bronze busts of every Australian Prime Minister.

The town is also home to the award winning tourist park Sovereign Hill, a recreated 1850s gold mining settlement that is rated amongst one of the best tourism theme parks in the world.

Ballarat Wildlife Park a popular tourist attraction covers 32 acres and includes a large reptile collection.