Keep the clan happy with the best Ballarat things to do with kids

Make friends with a meerkat or deep dive a sensory garden – this list of the best things to do in Ballarat with kids is your key to beautiful family memories.

Whether you need to fill an hour or want to dedicate an entire day to kid-friendly activities, Ballarat has a few tricks up its sleeve. From fun yet educational experiences to pure recreation, the best things to do in Ballarat with kids are made to busy budding brains and little limbs.

1. Sovereign Hill

hanging out at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat with kids — Make new memories with your kids at Sovereign Hill. (IImage: Tourism Midwest Victoria)

You may have your own childhood memories from Sovereign Hill as it’s been around since the 1970s, but the magic is even grander nowadays. Transporting visitors straight to the 1850s, the multi-award-winning open-air museum still earns plaudits from adults as it does little ones. The immersive attraction is set across a 25-hectare site (equivalent to the size of some 13 MCGs) and plays host to more than 60 historically recreated brick and timber buildings decked out with antiques, artwork, books and papers. It’s also staffed by costumed actors who can answer your historical questions and pose for photos.

Kids will adore every inch of the time warp with many of the venue’s activity costs included in your ticket entry. Pick up your licence and pan for real gold in a meandering creek, be awed by the Wizard Jacobs Magic Show, try your hand at old-fashioned boiled sweet making or candle dipping, go bowling, pay a visit to one of the workshops that spotlight older trades such as blacksmith and coachbuilder, or journey below the ground with a Red Hill Mine Tour and get a glimpse into what life was like for intrepid miners that descended upon Victoria’s goldfields in the 1800s.

Even the snacks are on brand with wood-fired and oven-baked pies, pasties and sausage rolls available. There’s also a bar serving up its own homebrew and the fancier New York Bakery restaurant to keep grownups satisfied. It’s worth putting aside an entire day to tick everything off, and it’s well worth noting that Sovereign Hill can accommodate those with additional accessibility needs.

Cost: Adult $52.50, child $33, family of four (2 adults and 2 children) $145.50, family of three (1 adult and 2 children) $103, additional child $28.50

2. Ballarat Tramway Museum

Visiting Ballarat Tramway Museum with kids — Let the young ones experience history in century-old trams. (Image: Tourism Midwest Victoria)

While we’re exploring Ballarat’s unique roots, consider the Ballarat Tramway Museum in the Ballarat Botanic Gardens as a source of inspiration for young minds. Yet another interactive thing to do with kids, the hot spot invites you to jump aboard 100-year-old trams that roll you around Lake Wendouree. Luring crowds since 1971, the museum also boasts seven tramcars to stickybeak, plus a handful of separate exhibitions and experiences. There’s also a gift shop selling miniature replicas and other toys, and the attraction is fully accessible with a tram (No. 1029) that’s tailored to welcome those with access needs.

Cost: Adults cost $15, children cost $7 and families cost $40

3. Ballarat Wildlife Park

visiting Ballarat Wildlife Park with kids — This park is a must-visit for wildlife lovers. (Image: Visit Victoria)

Set among 15 hectares of natural bushland and flowing with interactive activity, the family-run Ballarat Wildlife Park is bound to kill more than a few hours. Home to more than 100 free-roaming kangaroos, this popular activity will see your littlies discovering exotic creatures (hello tigers, penguins and meerkats) in addition to cuddling up to our famed native critters. And it’s not just those sleepy roos stealing your gaze. Wombats, dingoes, koalas, crocodiles, snakes and Tasmanian devils are all residents, so check out the day’s events schedule to help you learn more about your favourites. Delight your kids one step further with an animal encounter, providing them with one-on-one time with a giant tortoise, koala, cassowary and more.

Cost: Adults cost $40, children aged 5-15 cost $20 and families of two adults and up to four children cost $100

4. Tuki Trout Farm

catching fish with kids at Tuki Trout Farm, Ballarat — A kid’s first catch is a memorable moment. (Image: Tourism Midwest Victoria)

Jump in the car early to smash out the 40-odd minutes it’ll take you to find Tuki Trout Farm just out of Ballarat proper. Ambitious anglers will delight in the attraction’s trout-filled pond where all your supplied gear (think rods, bait and nets) will help even the inexperienced attract a nibble or few. The odds are so good that visitors are encouraged to bring their own cooler box and containers to help carry catches back to the accommodation with ease. Best of all, once you do reel a sucker in, the team clean and package it up for you. How easy is that?

Cost: Adults cost $14, children cost $10 and families cost $55

5. Kryal Castle

visiting Kryal Castle with kids — The enchanting castle will let the kids’ imagination run wild. (Image: Visit Victoria)

The kooky attraction you never knew you needed, Kryal Castle is a replica medieval castle with various activities on offer. Kids can try their hand at archery at the indoor range, find their way through the stone maze, watch on as knights in full armour face off in trials of jousting on horseback, explore the Torture Museum (if they’re 13 or over), go axe throwing, tiptoe around the Dragon Garden and Dragon Labyrinth, climb the Wizard’s Tower and even more. You can also stay overnight in one of the castle suites or a cabin, tiny house or camping site if you prefer.

Cost: Adult $42, concession $37.50, child (3-15 years) $31.30, family of four (2 adults and 2 children) $124.

6. Eureka Aquatic Centre

fun with kids at Eureka Aquatic Centre in Ballarat — Keep the kids cool and entertained with water activities.

Wear out little bodies at the Eureka Aquatic Centre , where warm days are best spent splashing around the venue’s three outdoor pools: a heated 50-metre pool, a learn to swim pool, and a shaded toddlers’ pool. There’s also an outdoor water play park as big and epic as those typically found in BIG4s (giant drop bucket included) and an outdoor playground and barbecue facilities. Post-swim, laze about the shaded areas that line the pool.

Cost: Adults cost $7.20, children aged 5-15 cost $6.30 and families cost $18.90

7. Lake Wendouree Adventure Playground

Lake Wendouree playground at Ballarat — Pass by a fun adventure playground as you stroll around the lake. (Image: Tourism Midwest Victoria)

Located on the banks of lovely Lake Wendouree, and just across the road from the Ballarat Botanical Gardens (more on that shortly), lies the Lake Wendouree Adventure Playground. A castle-like structure, it features slides, several different kinds of swings, monkey bars, forts, climbing structures, tunnels, and more. Once you’ve exhausted the playground’s assets, take one of the walking tracks around the lake, which is home to ducks and swans.

Cost: Free

8. Ballarat Botanical Gardens

strolling around Ballarat Botanical Gardens with kids — The gardens are the perfect backdrop for your family photos. (Image: Visit Victoria)

Ballarat’s sprawling green lung, the Ballarat Botanical Gardens , cover some 40 hectares. Added to the Victorian Heritage Register in 2010, it invites ankle biters to run loose across manicured lawns (also a great place for a summer family picnic) or wander among the vivid seasonal floral displays hosted in the Robert Clark Conservatory. Encourage interactive learning within the Sensory Garden, designed to stimulate sight, sound, smell and touch with its diverse range of plants, all chosen for their unique texture, colour or scent. The website even has its own Garden Explorer guide to all the species you might encounter along the way.

Cost: Free

9. Inclusive Play-Space

Inclusive Playspace at Ballarat — This playground enables children and adults of all abilities to socialise and play. (Image: City of Ballarat)

More commonly known as Livvi’s Place Ballarat, the brilliant Inclusive Play-Space offers all abilities access to very cool play equipment. Think a splash zone, flying foxes, sand play equipment and even musical instruments. The park’s amenities are naturally inclusive, too, such as the Adult Changing Place, plus the entire space is fenced so you can take a well-deserved load off. (Kind of, for a bit, anyway.)

Cost: Free

1o. Gold Rush Mini Golf

Gold Rush Mini Golf in Ballarat — The outdoor and indoor courses offer fun for the whole family.

Home to two themed (and licensed) 18-hole courses, Gold Rush Mini Golf is a good spot to mop up free time together as a family. There’s both an indoor and an outdoor course. The former is named ‘Lost World’ and is an eclectic mishmash of the Jurassic period and the Middle Ages, while the latter is modelled on Ballarat’s gold rush history and features worn timber facades, props and Ballarat streetscapes. There’s also arcade games on site.

Cost: Adults cost $16 for one course, children aged between 3-13 cost $10 for one course and families cost $46 for one course

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Video credit: Visit Victoria/Tourism Australia

The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

There are no kangaroos back in Chicago: they’re all here in the Grampians/Gariwerd . In the heart of the Grampians National Park’s main gateway town, Halls Gap, pods of eastern greys are eating grass beside my parked rental car beneath the stars. Next morning, when I see the backyard of my rented villa on the edge of town for the first time, there are kangaroos feeding beside a slow-moving creek, lined with river red gums.

Five hundred metres up the road, 50 or so of them are eating by the side of the road in a paddock. I pull over to watch and spot three emus. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos fly overhead towards the tall green mountains just beyond town.

‘Kee-ow, keee-oww’… their calls fuse with the maniacal cackle of a kookaburra (or 10). Gawd, how I’ve missed the sound of them. Far above, a wedge-tailed eagle watches, and there you go: the ‘great birds of Australia’ trifecta, all half a kay from the town limits.

Exchanging city chaos for country calm

kangaroos near Halls Gap, Grampians National Park — The park is renowned for its significant diversity of native fauna species. (Image: Visit Victoria/Robert Blackburn)

I’ve come to the Grampians to disconnect, but the bush offers a connection of its own. This isn’t just any bush, mind you. The Grampians National Park is iconic for many reasons, mostly for its striking sandstone mountains – five ridges run north to south, with abrupt, orange slopes which tumble right into Halls Gap – and for the fact there’s 20,000 years of traditional rock art. Across these mountains there are more than 200 recorded sites to see, created by the Djab Wurrung, Jardwadjali and Gunditjmara peoples. It’s just like our outback… but three hours from Melbourne.

I’ve come here for a chance at renewal after the chaos of my life in America’s third-largest city, Chicago, where I live for now, at the whim of a relative’s cancer journey. Flying into Melbourne’s airport, it only takes an hour’s drive to feel far away from any concept of suburbia. When I arrive in Halls Gap two hours later, the restaurant I’m eating at clears out entirely by 7:45pm; Chicago already feels a lifetime ago.

The trails and treasures of the Grampians

sunrise at Grampians National Park /Gariwerd — Grampians National Park /Gariwerd covers almost 2000 square kilometres. (Image: Ben Savage)

Though the national park covers almost 2000 square kilometres, its best-known landmarks are remarkably easy to access. From my carpark here, among the cockatoos and kangaroos on the fringe of Halls Gap, it only takes 60 seconds’ driving time before I’m winding my way up a steep road through rainforest, deep into the mountains.

Then it’s five minutes more to a carpark that serves as a trailhead for a hike to one of the park’s best vantage points, The Pinnacles . I walk for an hour or so, reacquainting myself with the smells and the sounds of the Aussie bush, before I reach it: a sheer cliff’s edge lookout 500 metres up above Halls Gap.

walking through a cave, Hollow Mountain — Overlooking the vast Grampians landscape from Hollow Mountain. (Image: Robert Blackburn)

There are hikes and there are lookouts and waterfalls all across this part of the park near town. Some are a short stroll from a carpark; others involve long, arduous hikes through forest. The longest is the Grampians Peaks Trail , Victoria’s newest and longest iconic walk, which runs 160 kilometres – the entire length of Grampians National Park.

Local activities operator Absolute Outdoors shows me glimpses of the trail. The company’s owner, Adrian Manikas, says it’s the best walk he’s done in Australia. He says he’s worked in national parks across the world, but this was the one he wanted to bring his children up in.

“There’s something about the Grampians,” he says, as he leads me up a path to where there’s wooden platforms for tents, beside a hut looking straight out across western Victoria from a kilometre up in the sky (these are part of the guided hiking options for the trail). “There are things out here that you won’t see anywhere else in Australia.” Last summer, 80 per cent of the park was damaged by bushfire, but Manikas shows me its regrowth, and tells me of the manic effort put in by volunteers from town – with firefighters from all over Australia – to help save Halls Gap.

wildflowers in Grampians National Park — Spot wildflowers. (Image: Visit Victoria)

We drive back down to Halls Gap at dusk to abseil down a mountain under the stars, a few minutes’ walk off the main road into town. We have headlamps, but a full moon is enough to light my way down. It takes blind faith to walk backwards down a mountain into a black void, though the upside is I can’t see the extent of my descent.

Grampians National Park at sunset. (Image: Wine Australian)

The stargazing is ruined by the moon, of course, but you should see how its glow lights up the orange of the sandstone, like in a theme park. When I’m done, I stand on a rocky plateau drinking hot chocolate and listening to the Aussie animals who prefer nighttime. I can see the streets of Halls Gap off in the distance on this Friday night. The restaurants may stay open until 8pm tonight.

What else is on offer in The Grampians?

a boat travelling along the Wimmera River inDimboola — Travelling along the Wimmera River in Dimboola. (Image: Chris McConville)

You’ll find all sorts of adventures out here – from rock climbing to canoeing to hiking – but there’s more to the Grampians than a couple of thousand square kilometres of trees and mountains. Halls Gap may be known to most people, but what of Pomonal, and Dimboola, and Horsham? Here in the shadow of those big sandstone mountains there are towns and communities most of us don’t know to visit.

And who knew that the Grampians is home to Victoria’s most underrated wine region ? My disconnection this morning comes not in a forest, but in the tasting rooms and winery restaurants of the district. Like Pomonal Estate, barely 10 minutes’ drive east of Halls Gap, where UK-born chef Dean Sibthorp prepares a locally caught barramundi with lentil, pumpkin and finger lime in a restaurant beside the vines at the base of the Grampians. Husband-and-wife team Pep and Adam Atchison tell me stories as they pour their prize wines (shiraz is the hero in these parts).

dining at Pomonal Estate — Dine in a restaurant beside vines at Pomonal Estate. (Image: Tourism Australia)

Three minutes’ drive back down the road, long-time mates Hadyn Black and Darcy Naunton run an eclectic cellar door out of a corrugated iron shed, near downtown Pomonal. The Christmas before last, half the houses in Pomonal burnt down in a bushfire, but these locals are a resilient lot.

The fires also didn’t stop the construction of the first art centre in Australia dedicated to environmental art in a nature-based precinct a little further down the road (that’s Wama – the National Centre for Environmental Arts), which opened in July. And some of the world’s oldest and rarest grape vines have survived 160 years at Best’s Wines, outside the heritage town of Great Western. There’s plantings here from the year 1868, and there’s wines stored in century-old barrels within 150-year-old tunnels beneath the tasting room. On the other side of town, Seppelt Wines’ roots go back to 1865. They’re both only a 30-minute drive from Halls Gap.

Salingers of Great Western — Great Western is a charming heritage town. (Image: Griffin Simm)

There’s more to explore yet; I drive through tiny historic towns that barely make the map. Still part of the Grampians, they’re as pretty as the mountains behind them: full of late 19th-century/early 20th-century post offices, government offices and bank buildings, converted now to all manner of bric-a-brac stores and cafes.

The Imaginarium is one, in quirky Dimboola, where I sleep in the manager’s residence of an old National Australia Bank after a gourmet dinner at the local golf club, run by noted chef and teacher, Cat Clarke – a pioneer of modern Indigenous Australian cooking. Just south, I spend an entire afternoon at a winery, Norton Estate Wines, set on rolling calico-coloured hills that make me think of Tuscany, chit-chatting with owners Chris and Sam Spence.

Being here takes me back two decades, when I lived here for a time. It had all seemed as foreign as if I’d driven to another planet back then (from Sydney/Warrane), but there seemed something inherently and immediately good about this place, like I’d lived here before.

And it’s the Australian small-town familiarity of the Grampians that offers me connection back to my own country. Even in the better-known Halls Gap, Liz from Kerrie’s Creations knows I like my lattes with soy milk and one sugar. And while I never do get the name of the lady at the local Ampol station, I sure know a lot about her life.

Kookaburras on a tree — Kookaburras are one of some 230 bird species. (Image: Darren Donlen)

You can be a local here in a day; how good is that? In Chicago, I don’t even know who my neighbour is. Though each day at dusk – when the kangaroos gather outside my villa, and the kookaburras and the black cockatoos shout out loud before settling in to sleep – I prefer the quieter connection I get out there in the bush, beneath these orange mountains.

A traveller’s checklist

Staying there

Sleep beside the wildlife on the edge of Halls Gap at Serenity .

Playing there

abseiling down Hollow Mountain — Hollow Mountain is a popular abseiling site.

Go abseiling under the stars or join a guided hike with Absolute Outdoors . Visit Wama , Australia’s first environmental art centre. Check out Dimboola’s eccentric Imaginarium .

Eating there

steak, naan bread and beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap serves a great steak on naan bread.

Eat world-class cuisine at Pomonal Estate . Dine and stay at much-revered icon Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld. The ‘steak on naan’ at Halls Gap brewhouse Paper Scissors Rock , can’t be beat.

Dunkeld Arboretum in Grampians National Park — The serene Dunkeld Arboretum.

For Halls Gap’s best breakfasts head to Livefast Cafe . Sip local wines at Great Western’s historic wineries, Best’s Wines , Seppelt Wines and Norton Estate Wines .

two glasses of beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Sink a cold one at Paper Scissors Rock.

10 of the most entertaining things to do with kids in Ballarat

Make friends with a meerkat or deep dive a sensory garden – this list of the best things to do in Ballarat with kids is your key to beautiful family memories.

1. Sovereign Hill

2. Ballarat Tramway Museum

3. Ballarat Wildlife Park

4. Tuki Trout Farm

5. Kryal Castle

6. Eureka Aquatic Centre

7. Lake Wendouree Adventure Playground

8. Ballarat Botanical Gardens

9. Inclusive Play-Space

1o. Gold Rush Mini Golf

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The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

Exchanging city chaos for country calm

The trails and treasures of the Grampians

What else is on offer in The Grampians?

A traveller’s checklist

Staying there

Playing there

Eating there