Ballarat has produced many notable sports people, perhaps the most famous being marathon runner Steve Moneghetti. The city is well endowed with parks, sport fields and organised sporting clubs and associations.

Australian rules football and cricket are highly popular in the city. Basketball, horse racing and rowing are also popular.

The city is excellently equipped with indoor stadiums and training centres for most sports. The city has three international standard cricket ovals, an international standard athletics track, two Olympic sized pools as well as an indoor 25 metre (82 ft) competition short course pool.

Notable sporting teams in Ballarat include the North Ballarat Roosters who compete in the Victorian Football League and the Ballarat Miners who compete in the South East Australian Basketball League. The region is home to the strong Ballarat Football League and Central Highlands Football League. The Ballarat Football Club, formed in 1860, remains one of the oldest football clubs in the world.

The city has a soccer competition, known as the BDSA.

Ballarat has excellent horse and greyhound racing tracks, and the Harness Racing centre is considered to be among the best in Australia.

Ballarat is home to numerous rowing clubs, and annually hosts the Victorian Schools Rowing Championships. Lake Wendouree plays host to the annual 'Head of the Lake' rowing regatta- contested by Ballarat High School, Ballarat and Clarendon College, Ballarat Grammar School, St Patrick's College and Loreto College. The city hosted rowing events for the 1956 Olympic Games.

Ballarat's Eastern Oval hosted a game in the 1992 cricket world cup.

[

Climate

Ballarat experiences a temperate climate with four seasons. Its elevation, at 450 metres (1,476 ft) above sea level, causes its mean monthly temperatures to tend on average 2-3 degrees Celsius below those of Melbourne. The mean daily maximum temperature for January is 24.9 °C (76.8 °F), while for July it is 10 °C (50 °F). The mean annual rainfall is 705 millimetres (27.75 in), with August being the wettest month (77 mm/3.0 in). There are an average of 198 rain-free days per year. In winter, snow occasionally falls on nearby Mount Buninyong, and in very cold winters, has been known to fall heavily in the city. It is not uncommon however for snow to fall in the city during most winters.

In recent years, Ballarat (along with South Eastern Australia) has experienced a severe decrease in average annual rain fall. This is marked by the recent drying out of Lake Wendouree and heavy water restrictions being imposed on the city and many other regional centres throughout Victoria. The City of Ballarat, The Central Highlands Water Commission, and State Government of Victoria have initiated a number of projects that are designed to ensure that the city is guaranteed a steady water supply and that the lake will be regenerated using storm water and recycled water from the city's treatment plants. Many residents have become pro-active and redirect grey water from homes directly onto gardens and for outdoor cleaning as a matter of daily routine.

The City of Ballarat is further using the drought as an opportunity to dredge the lake and upgrade the international rowing course. Sadly, many decade old introduced trees have not coped well with the recent, persistent drought and many in recent times have been cut down, and replaced with Australian natives.

[

Notable residents

• Reginald Ansett, Businessman and founder of Ansett Airways
• Geoffrey Blainey, Former Professor of Economic History and Ernest Scott Professor of History at the University of Melbourne, and former Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University
• Sir Henry Bolte, Premier of Victoria
• Steve Bracks, Premier of Victoria
• John Button, Federal Labor politician
• Sir Albert Ernest Coates, Surgeon and Soldier (Prisoner of War Surgeon)
• Raffaello Carboni, Author of an eye witness account of the uprising at the Eureka Stockade
• John Curtin, Prime Minister of Australia
• Henry Daglish, Premier of Western Australia
• Jacqueline Dark, Opera Singer [1]
• Bob Davis, Geelong Football Club champion
• Alfred Deakin, Inaugural Federal Member of Parliament for Ballarat and Second Prime Minister of Australia
• Roger Donaldson, Film Producer, Director, Writer
• Warren Ellis, Musician, Composer, Member of The Dirty Three, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Grinderman Ellis has also composed music for movies such as The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
• Frank Fenner, Virologist
• Edward King, Lawn Bowler
• E.T.C James, Sprinter
• David Fleay, naturalist, and first breeder of the Platypus
• Duncan Gillies, Premier of Victoria
• David Hirschfelder, Film score composer, performer
• David Hobson, Opera Singer
• Thomas Hollway, Premier of Victoria
• William G. James, the ABC's first Director of Music.
• Peter Lalor, Leader of the Eureka Rebellion and colonial Parliamentarian
• Frank Little, Catholic Archibishop of Melbourne
• Tony Lockett, Australian Football League footballer, Brownlow Medallist and holder of the all-time goalkicking record
• John Lynch, Eureka identity and Author
• Arthur Alfred Lynch, Politician
• Michael Malthouse, Current coach of Collingwood Football Club. Previous coach of Footscray Football Club and West Coast Football Club (2 Premierships in 1992 & 94).
• Sir Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia
• Sir Douglas Menzies, Justice of the High Court of Australia
• Alfred Arthur O'Connor, Miner and Politician
• Steve Moneghetti, Olympic marathon runner
• Leslie Morshead, General in the Australian Army
• Cardinal George Pell, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney
• Rosina Raisbeck, Opera Singer [2]
• James Scullin, Prime Minister of Australia, 1930-31
• Henry Sutton, Inventor [3] [4]|

[

Sister Cities

• Inagawa, Japan
• Zhaoyuan City, China

[

See also

• List of Mayors of Ballarat

[

Notes

[

References

History Books on Ballarat

• Bate, Weston.Lucky City: The First Generation of Ballarat 1851-1901 (1978)
• Bate, Weston.Life After Gold: Twentieth-Century Ballarat Melbourne University Press (1993)
• Carboni, Raffaello. The Eureka Stockade (1980) first published (1855)
• Goodman, David. Gold Seeking: Victorian and California in the 1850s (1994)
• Lynch, John. The Story of the Eureka Stockade: Epic Days in the early fifties at Ballarat, (1947?)
• Fleet, James. The History of Gold Discovery in Victoria
• Moloney, John. Eureka, (1984)
• Serle, Geoffery. The Golden Age: A History of the Colony of Victoria, 1851-1860, (1963)
• Freund, P with Sarah V, Her Maj A History of Her Majesty's Theatre, Ballarat (2007)
• Ballarat City Council
• Victorian Heritage Register, Heritage Victoria

[

External links

The external links in this article may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links.

• Ballarat Heritage Weekend
• Ballarat Tourist Association
• Ballarat Goldfields Tourism Guide Victoria Australia Tourism information for the Ballarat Goldfields tourism region including accommodation, attractions, activities, restaurants, cellar doors, events diary and more.
• Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
• Little Bendigo or Nerrena Gold field W.M. Bradford, Bulletin of the Geological Survey of Victoria, 1904. Discusses Gold field outside Ballarat; History and Geology. See also their links to articles on Berringa and Enfield gold fields by Vict. Geol. Survey.
• Ballarat City Council
• Ballarat Come To Life
• Ballarat Tourism website
• Ballarat Tourism and Accommodation Directory
• Ballarat Historical Society
• Ballarat CityGuide
• Wendouree West Community Gateway
• International League of Historical Cities
• Residents Portal
• The Courier (Local Newspaper)
• University of Ballarat
• Sovereign Hill Historical Park
• Australian Ex Prisoner of War Memorial
• Her Majesty's Theatre Ballarat
• Ballarat Walking Tracks
• Ballarat Heritage Watch
• Ballarat Tramway Museum
• Ballarat Health Services

v • d • e Localities of Greater Ballarat Alfredton · Ballarat East · Ballarat South · Brown Hill · Canadian · Eureka · Invermay · Lake Gardens · Linton Junction · Miners Rest · Mount Clear · Mount Pleasant · Morshead Park · Nerrina · North Ballarat · Redan · Sebastopol · Wendouree · Wendouree West

Coordinates: 37°33′S, 143°51′E

v • d • e Cities of Victoria, Australia Melbourne Ararat · Ballarat · Benalla · Bendigo · Geelong · Hamilton · Horsham · Moe · Morwell · Mildura · Portland · Sale · Shepparton · Swan Hill · Traralgon · Wangaratta · Warrnambool · Wodonga

BCUZ.com FACTS Encyclopedia content is licensed under the GFDL as approved by Wikipedia.
For more information review our copyright contact and privacy policy. © 1996 - BCUZ.COM - We have all the FACTS you need about Small Business Financing, Behavior Disorder, Having Too Many Bills, Needing Cash Fast, Structured Settlements, Frequent Flier Programs, Top Steak Houses, The Mayan Indians, Norfolk and Suffolk England, Growing Longer Hair and a full reference English Encyclopedia and Spanish Encyclopedia.Privacy Policy