Sovereign+Hill+Writing

Sovereign Hill
Smack! Went the cane whacking onto the ink covered desks. I was startled by the sound and I quickly started writing for fear of the cane. I remembered that I wasn’t in 2009 anymore but in 1854 in the harsh goldfields of Ballarat. I was dressed in clothes as old fashioned as Captain Cook himself. I wore short navy blue nicker bokers, an orange and black striped cap, a blue striped shirt, a dark green jacket and a black leather wallet tied around my waist. I’m not sure what the girls were wearing, but I know that they wearing thin dresses, short capes and small bag/purse things. The St. Alipius school was as dark as night. I couldn’t wait to break free from the school and have some wonderful free time to roam around and see what five dollars could get me. That’s exactly what I did and now I have a bag full of popular raspberry drops and a delicious horse head. The gold mining was very muddy and wet, but surprisingly fun. Each time I got a rusty pan full of dirt and water I hoped with my heart that I would at least get tiny specks of gold, but sadly none of that happened. Only the lucky people got some little bits of gold, which you immediately found out when they shouted out EUREKA!! Joyfully. The teacher we had was the strictest teacher I have ever seen, but I guess it’s his job to shout at us loudly and make us as scared as paranoid rabbits. I didn’t like that I was put in grade three, grade one up from the bubs. The ink was hard to write with because it would splodge all over my work and would make a blue mess on it. Finally, I never thought the time would come when Sir said those magic words because now it’s going to be play time. I walked outside with a rush and immediately went to see what games were there and there was: a hard horse shoe game, a simple cup and ball game, an amusing spin top game, a partly difficult grace game, exhausting skipping and if there was nothing else to do we would play a game of tiggie for a while. I’m now back in the colourful year of 2009 and now I know what harsh and cruel events people went through in the 1850’s. I’m now very thankful that I didn’t live through those times, but thinking about that doesn’t change the fact that I had a great time at Sovereign Hill.

Bryce Backshall

"ARGH!” screamed the people who got to class late, as they got the cane.”DON’T BE LATE AGAIN!” said Sir. The class continued working. We had all been hurled through the past to 1854, and I was lucky not to get to the classroom late! Drawing lines bores me, so I drew lines. It helped me wait until free time. I was dressed in a neckerchief, shirt, knickerbockers, jacket and a cap. On Friday we went gold-panning, but I didn’t find any gold. Then we had to line up with girls on one side and boys on the other. Sir told the girls to fall with grace if they fell at all. We walked to the gold pour in our lines, to watch a man make 99.9% pure gold. MMmmmm. Lollies! I thought. I had just bought a bag of mixed lollies. I traded Bryce a rainbow shell for a delicious rassberry drop. We decided to go back to school because it was raining heavily. We did not go outside for thirty minutes so it was now work time. When it was play time most of the boys played tiggie and got FREE MARBLES! I already had 252 marbles so I didn’t get any. The other games were cup-and-ball, skipping, grace and horse- shoes. When we went back to the classroom we had a singing lesson that I found very boring. I enjoyed the leprechaun stories though. At the last play time, I was going to play with a spinning top, but the ground was wet and it wouldn’t spin. So I played tiggie until it was time to warp back to 2009.

LUKE