Location:
Sturt Street is one of the widest and most picturesque thoroughfares in the country. It was one of the first main streets in Ballarat and was designed according to W.H. Urquhart’s 1851 survey.
The Sturt Street Gardens are a central reservation that run along Ballarat's main boulevard. The gardens span 13 city blocks from Grenville Street in the East to Pleasant Street in the West.
The historic gardens are significant for their heritage features including significant statues, bandstands, memorials and trees. Three of the reserve's monuments are listed on the Victorian Heritage Register and the entire gardens are listed as a heritage precinct by the City of Ballarat.
This multi will take you on a short walk of the first 2 blocks of Sturt Street and highlight some of the significant monuments.
GZ S 37 33.ABC E 143 51.DEF
Visit the waypoints to answer each question.
WP1 James Galloway Monument
This Eight Hour Labour Day Memorial was constructed in 1880 to honour James Galloway, who founded the eight hour system of work in Victoria. This monument is constructed of quartz and bluestone and incorporated cast-iron lion heads.
A= The number letters in the month that this monument was tendered in trust to the Ballarat City Council +2.
WP2 Robert Burns Statue
The Robert Burns Statue was erected to commemorate the Scottish Poet Robert Burns. Burns was born in Scotland in 1759 and was a popular farmer and poet. The memorial was commissioned by local sculptor Scot Thomas Stoddart in 1884 and carved from Italian marble by the sculptor John Undy. It was unveiled in Ballarat 13 years later.
B= The number of panels on the granite column with gold lettering.
WP3 The Gas Lamps of Ballarat
In 1881 the City of Ballarat introduced 20 gas lamps - this is one of two 'original' Sugg lamps in Ballarat (the other one is at the junction of Sturt and Grenville Streets), the oldest of their kind in the world. It is particularly rare because these English 12 sided lamps were built large enough to house candles, pre-dating piped gas systems when street lights became much smaller. In 1807 William Sugg became the first person to make and lay a gas pipeline for lighting, and the Sugg company which designed and manufactured gas lighting was for a time one of the biggest such companies in the world.
C= The number of ‘L’s in the last word of the plaque that faces north.
WP4 The Burke and Wills Fountain.
This fountain is monument to a very Australian Story. The Burke and Will’s expedition, which sought a route from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria in Australia's far north, has a Ballarat connection.
Dr William Wills, the 2nd in charge and the astronomical and meteorological surveyor for the expedition was something of a local. He learned trigonometry, Euclid drawing and geometry working in the Ballarat Survey office, initially having worked as a gold digger and then at his father's surgery practice on the Ballarat goldfields in the 1850s.
Following the tragic demise of all but one person on the expedition, a massive clocktower and monument to the expedition was proposed on this site. A public call for subscriptions to raise the 200 pounds required for the grand structure yet only managed to raise 79 pounds. In 1866 a new push to complete the monument began again; the monument before you was unveiled the following year.
The only survivor of the expedition, John King, had his name added to the monument only after his death in 1872. In the mid 20th century this corner became a popular late-night gathering place, with hot pies and snacks for sale from a mobile cart for late night revellers.
In 2011 a time capsule interred at the time of the monument's construction was opened, its contents found to be a collection of coins, a copy of the Ballarat Star and a bottle of spirits, now broken and its contents long spilled out. The same year a new time capsule was placed in the monument with its opening date set at 2111.
D= The number of spherical lamps on top of the fountain.
WP5 The Queen Victoria Statue
There have been several Royal visits to Ballarat, beginning with the Duke of Edinburgh Prince Alfred's visit in 1867, followed by Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales in 1881, the Duke of York (later King George V) and his duchess in 1901, the newly coronated Queen Elizabeth II in 1954 and Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1983.
This statue of Queen Victoria was commissioned in 1897 to mark Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee, unveiled before a crowd of 20,000 people, and the square where the statue resides was named Victoria Square.
E= The number of brass plaques on this statue times by 2.
WP6 Queen Victoria Fountain
The fountain commemorates Queen Victoria. It was unveiled by the Federal Attorney-General and Acting Prime Minister the Honourable Alfred Deakin on 24th May 1902.
F= the number of spouts on the fountain times by 4, then add 1.
Checksum = 64
Ballarat GeoTour:
This cache is placed as part of the Ballarat GeoTour. This GeoTour was made possible after receiving a grant from VicHealth as part of their Reimagining Health grants in 2020. To discover more caches in the Ballarat GeoTour please visit: https://geocachingvictoria.com.au/ballarat-geotour