Kryal Castle - Ballarat, Australia

I am a castle freak. I have a kind of internal radar that leads me to them if there is one within 50 kilometres. Such was the case on a recent weekend run to Ballarat, Australia. The end-goal was to be the much-lauded Sovereign Hill tourist trap there, but on the way we happened upon a huge billboard advertising Kryal Castle. I glanced at my husband. He turned on the blinker. There it was, in all its glory. Sitting up on a hill just as pretty as you please. A really real pseudo-medieval-ish castle. Approximately 20 Australian bucks apiece later, we were inside the walls.

I must tell you Australia was the last place I ever thought to find a castle, medieval or otherwise. Much like myself, the guy who built it had dreamed of owning such a castle since his childhood. He went off and made his fortune with import-exports and came back to build Kryal Castle in the early 1970s. Apparently the townsfolk of Ballarat fought against this 3-million dollar project, but he went on with it anyway. Today Kryal Castle is a bustling tourist attraction.

You enter across the drawbridge (complete with moat) and through the grand doors into a small museum-like room full of weaponry and armor. The walls and floor of the castle are grey brick, lending an authentic feel to the whole thing. After paying your fees, you then encounter Sir George and his fairy-tale dragon. Since they knew a lot of children would be coming to visit with their parents, they made the huge dragon to look rather friendly and whimsical so as not to scare the wee tots. Still, it is very cool.

Out in the castle courtyard is a big brick maze. Bit of fun, that. Be warned, though, that if you give up and simply try to scale the walls of the maze they retain the right to have you taken to the stocks and ridiculed.

There is a graveyard behind the maze with very cool headstones. Do take the time to stop and read those. Funny funny funny…

                              Here lies a guy named Sydney

                             He drank til he ruined his kidney

                             It shrivelled and shrank

                            As he sat there and drank

                            But he had a good time of it, didn't he

Yes, the founder and employees of Kryal Castle all have a wicked sense of humor. While you are wandering the numerous rooms which ring the castle courtyard, you will encounter lots of fun folks dressed to period having a very good time. You can go into the gift shop and rent an outfit to wear for the day if you wish, or purchase some wonderful hand-made pieces. They had a lovely headdress that cascaded down the back for a mere $au90. For handcrafted metal, that was a very good price.

There is a small eatery on the premises in case you get hungry. Their eats consist mainly of sandwich kinda items and lots of different beverages. The prices are fairly reasonable as such things go and you can opt to sit inside or out.

There is a small wax museum depicting torture scenes, an old medical lab, an ironworks room with lots of weaponry and armor, a history room, magic room, and falconry room. In the center of all this is the jousting arena. Now, you can't expect to see jousting every day, but they do have it every fall when they hold their big Medieval Faire. When the faire is not going on, they use this area of the castle for little shows, such as The Whipping of the Witch. Here staff members put on a bit of an amusing show surrounding a woman who has wrongly been accused of witchcraft. The skit is very Monty Python-esque and funny as hell.

There is a small hotel on premises that blends into the castle motif. The rooms are done up in castle-chic also, with large four-poster beds and the like. Many nights of the year events are held on the castle grounds which last until the wee hours of the morning. Some having to do with times medieval, some not. One such event is a night of duelling Rock bands. This is when the jousting arena is transformed into a dance floor at 5pm and the festivities go on until 4am. These events usually run around $50(AU.)