Small group tour of Victoria for Senior travellers

This 16 day escorted small group tour of Victoria for the senior or mature traveller who enjoys learning whether as a couple or solo traveller explores an area of central Victoria that is rich in historic houses, gorgeous gardens and some amazing art.

From A$9,995AUD

Available
Small group tour of Victoria for Senior travellers itinerary

Departure Dates

Departure Date Price
13 November 2023

Ends 28 November 2023

A$9,995 Twin

A$11,895 Single

Available
Selected
22 March 2024

Ends 06 April 2024

A$9,995 Twin

A$11,895 Single

Available

Small group tour of Victoria for Seniors of Gardens and Goldfields

Introduction to this small group tour of Victoria

Sometimes we overlook the great attractions to be found in our own local area (or country). There are often fabulous museums and historic houses in the next suburb or town that we only think to visit when we have guests come to stay.

This, like all Odyssey Traveller small group tours is limited to 12 people.

This 16 day escorted small group tour of Victoria for the senior or mature traveller who enjoys learning, whether as a couple or solo traveller, explores an area of central Victoria that is rich in historic houses, gorgeous gardens and some amazing art. This small group tour of Victoria, like other small group tours, takes you off the beaten track to find the great historic attractions that are found locally. But no Phillip island or Penguin parade on this group tour!

Our small group tour of Victoria for the senior traveller with an interest in Australian history, is concerned primarily with the colonial history of the state of Victoria and the impact of Europeans on the region. We will travel a circular route north from Melbourne through Ballarat and Castlemaine as far north as the Murray River, before turning east to Beechworth and then back south again through Benalla and the Yarra Valley, and then, back to Melbourne. We look particularly at a number of historic houses and gardens established by 19th century European settlers and at the art which they collected and continue to collect and create to this day. It was the gold rushes of the 1850s which ensured Victoria’s initial prosperity and we concentrate our tour on a number of gold rush towns as well as areas made rich by agriculture, viticulture and pastoral activities. A number of the towns we visit on the road, are as a day tour, had their glory days in the second half of the 19th century when wealth from mining led to a rush of substantial public and private buildings being built. When the gold ran out a number of the towns slipped into obscurity and were consequently preserved with their Victorian era characteristics intact.

This small group tour commences in Melbourne

This small group tour begins in Melbourne. The city of Melbourne founded in 1835, located on the Yarra River on the traditional land of the Kulin Nation. When John Batman, one of the first European settlers, arrived he made, what he claimed, was a treaty with the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation giving him ownership of the land. It is unlikely that the Wurundjeri realised exactly what this would mean for them as they, and other members of the Kulin Nation, were progressively dispossessed over the following fifty years. European Melbourne developed rapidly as a port and trading centre for settlers heading inland to graze their flocks on the rich pastures of central Victoria. Melbourne competed with Sydney and South Australia's Adelaide as places to do business.

Just over 25 years after the Europeans first arrived, gold was discovered north of Melbourne and the great rush began. In 1851 there were some 80,000 Europeans living in the region south of the Murray/Murrumbidgee with 20,000 of them living in Melbourne. By 1854 the colony’s population had grown to 300,000 and an extraordinary period of prosperity had begun. In 1856, for example, 86 million grams of gold were mined, and Melbourne had begun to form the foundations of Australia’s financial centre. All of this resulted in a building boom and accelerated development in a number of the areas which form the basis of our small group tour of Victoria through regional Victoria.

The first full day tour, the small group begins its exploration of Melbourne, named for the British Prime Minister at the time the city was founded. We spend three nights in the city but have time to look at just a small portion of the city’s rich architectural heritage. The National Trust of Victoria has been instrumental in preserving a number of important buildings from the colonial era and, on the second day of our tour, we begin by visiting the National Trust of Victoria’s Rippon Lea, a grand 19th century mansion surrounded by seven hectares of pleasure gardens, including the Southern Hemisphere’s largest fernery.

A visit to Rippon Lea

In 1868 Frederick Thomas Sargood bought 27 hectares of scrub at Elsternwick to establish his dream home and garden. It was designed by Joseph Reed, Melbourne's most important architect of the time. He named the property after his mother, Emma Rippon, adding 'lea', an old English word for meadow. In 1869 construction began on the two-storey, 15 room house which was made from polychrome brickwork, a new material at a time when most of the important buildings in Victoria were built in stone or stuccoed brick.

(Some of you might recognise Rippon Lea from its starring role in Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.)

Magnificent ornamental gardens surround the house with features including a large lawn, extensive shrubberies, flower gardens and a lake. Hedges separate the ornamental gardens from the more practical areas, which included a large kitchen garden, an orchard of historically significant fruit varieties, farm paddocks and a stable complex.

Sargood was ahead of his time in devising a sophisticated system for water self-sufficiency for the house and garden. An underground water collection, irrigation and drainage system, with water pumped by a windmill, ensured the garden flourished.

In the afternoon you will have time to explore some of Melbourne’s city attractions. Deciding just where to begin will be the main problem. Perhaps you could begin in Federation Square, on the banks of the Yarra and opposite Flinders St Station. When Federation Square opened in 2002 to commemorate 100 years of federation, it divided Melbourne’s citizens. There were those who loved it and those who hated it. Either way, it has become an integral part of the city and a great place for tourists to start their sightseeing. The building's ultra-modern design of open and closed spaces contrasts with the surrounding Victorian architecture. Federation Square also houses the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, dedicated to Australian art. This outstanding collection features works from Aboriginal art, through the Heidelberg School and on to contemporary mixed media and is well worth a few hours of exploring.

Perhaps you’ll find time to visit the Botanic Gardens. In the heart of green parkland extending south of the Yarra River, about two kilometres from the CBD, the Royal Botanic Gardens are among the finest of their kind in the world. Established in 1846, the gardens encompass two locations: Melbourne and Cranbourne. (We will be including a visit to Cranbourne later in the tour.) The Melbourne Gardens cover an area of 38 hectares with more than 8,500 species of plants, including many rare specimens. The Aboriginal Heritage Walk is a popular tour that looks into the rich heritage of indigenous Australians.

Or possibly you’d just like to take a stroll through the streets of the city. Wandering the labyrinth of lanes and alleyways around Flinders, Collins, and Bourke Streets reveals elegant, interesting, and quirky Melbourne at its best. The jewel in the crown is the magnificent Block Arcade in Collins Street. With its mosaic floor, period details, and unique shops, this is the place where late 19th-century gentry promenaded, coining the phrase, "doing the block." It's worth lining up for a morning tea at the Hopetoun Tearooms. This Melbourne icon dates back to 1892 and is the only original shop still in the arcade today. The opulent Royal Arcade is Melbourne's oldest arcade, and Flinders and Degraves Lanes are also well worth exploring. Your programme leader/tour guide will be happy to make suggestions.

Exploring Como House

On Day Three we remain in Melbourne and take a day tour to visit another National Trust treasure. Built in 1847, Como House and Garden is one of Melbourne most glamorous stately homes. “A unique blend of Australian Regency and classic Italianate architecture, Como House offers a rare glimpse into the opulent lifestyles of former owners, the Armytage family, who lived there for over a century. Famous among Melbourne high society for its elegant dances, dinners and receptions, the Armytage home remains furnished with original family heirlooms, and even the servant’s areas have been carefully preserved. Como was acquired by the National Trust of Australia in 1959 and the opulent property features two hectares of sprawling lush gardens, a fountain and even a croquet lawn.”

In the afternoon we visit a third National Trust property. Every effort will be made to include Waller House in our itinerary. The history of Waller House, built in 1922, is often associated with the life and career of noted Australian muralist, mosaicist and stained-glass artist Napier Waller. Less is known however about the women who also worked within these walls. Christian Waller worked alongside her husband to establish this superb Arts and Crafts style home, whilst also pursuing her own successful career. Christian’s young niece Klytie Pate came to live in the house, going on to become one of Australia’s foremost studio potters of the twentieth century. Napier’s second wife Lorna, also a talented artist, worked alongside Napier to create the Hall of Memory mosaic for the Australian War Memorial.

If Waller House remains closed to the public, then another National Trust property will be substituted.

Today we head to Ballarat

On Day Four we leave Melbourne and head north towards Ballarat, the first of our gold rush towns. Before reaching Ballarat, however, we’ll turn off the main road to stop in Werribee to visit Werribee Park Mansion and gardens. Werribee Park is set on approximately 1,000 acres of land and we will visit the elaborate Victorian era Italianate mansion built in the 1870s for the pioneering Chirnside family. The area includes the Werribee Mansion (1873) with formal garden, grotto, mansion gates and gate lodge, freestanding laundry, the Chirnside homestead (1865) with ha-ha wall, ration store (built by 1861), blacksmith shop, men's quarters, stables and implement shed.

Thomas Chirnside arrived in Australia in 1839 to invest in sheep. By 1875, Thomas and his younger brother Andrew owned 250,000 acres of freehold land, and large areas of leasehold land, in Victoria. In addition to running the 93,000-acre Werribee Park sheep station, the Chirnsides also hosted numerous sporting events, hunts, picnics, balls, vice-regal visits, and the first Volunteer Military Encampment in Victoria (1857).

The formal garden's meandering paths, shrubberies and trees were used to frame views, illustrating the influence of the 18th century English landscape movement. There is a dominance of conifers and evergreen trees, especially Araucaria, Pinus, Cupressus, Cedrus, Schinus, Lagunaria, Corymbia and Eucalyptus. Deciduous Ulmus, Quercus Phytolacca, and the palms, Phoenix canariensis, P. reclinata, Trachycarpus fortunei have been planted to provide foliage contrast in the landscape. The State Rose Garden is also to be found at Werribee Park. It covers some five hectares and contains over five thousand roses.

From Werribee we continue to Ballarat, important in Australian history not only for its gold but also for the rebellion known as the Eureka Stockade with its contribution towards the development of Australian independence and democracy. Gold was the catalyst for great change in Australia. The belief that you could dig your own fortune attracted people from across the country and around the world. Melbourne lost half its men to the goldfields, crews abandoned their ships in port, shepherds deserted their flocks; the call in London, California, Germany and Italy was, ‘off to the diggings’. At first the pickings were considerable but as time went by the amount of gold recovered decreased, while the costs of remaining on the diggings did not. A gold licence had to be bought whether you found any gold or not.

On 30 November 1854 miners from the Victorian town of Ballarat, disgruntled with the way the colonial government had been administering the goldfields, swore allegiance to the Southern Cross flag at Bakery Hill and built a stockade at the nearby Eureka diggings. Early on the morning of Sunday 3 December, when the stockade was only lightly guarded, government troops attacked. At least 22 diggers and six soldiers were killed. Although the authorities won the battle the miners eventually won the war.

The police arrested and detained 113 of the miners. Eventually 13 were taken to Melbourne to stand trial. Governor Hotham called for a Goldfields Commission of Enquiry on 7 December, but the citizens of Victoria were opposed to what the government had done in Ballarat and one by one the 13 leaders of the rebellion were tried by jury and released. In March the Commission of Enquiry released their recommendations. The licence fee was removed, replaced by an export duty and a nominal £1 per year miner’s right. Half the police on the goldfields were sacked and one warden replaced the multitude of gold commissioners (who had issued the licences), many of whom were corrupt. Twelve new members were added to the Victorian Legislative Council, four appointed by the Queen and eight elected by those diggers who held a miner’s right. One of these members was Peter Lalor who had survived the Eureka clash but had been wounded in the left arm, which was later amputated. It was a victory for the miners and was one of the key steps to Victoria instituting male suffrage in 1857 and female suffrage in 1908.

Ballarat.

Ballarat with a population of over 100,000 is now one of Victoria’s largest regional centres and has many attractions for the visitor including the art gallery, the Botanic Gardens and the Sovereign Hill theme park. On Day Five we’ll take a guided tour of the city with its many fine Victorian buildings and then, in the afternoon, we’ll visit the Art Gallery. The Art Gallery of Ballarat is not just Australia's oldest regional gallery but one of its most exciting. Located in the heart of Ballarat's central heritage precinct, the Gallery boasts a stunning collection of Australian art.

The Gallery's magnificent collection of Australian paintings, sculpture, ceramics and works on paper gives visitors the opportunity to experience key moments in the history of Australian art, with important representative works from colonial to contemporary periods. The heritage-listed Gallery building has evolved to accommodate the expanding collection and now includes a range of spaces from grand and elegant nineteenth century rooms to stunning contemporary additions.

The following morning (Day Six) we’ll take the opportunity to visit Sovereign Hill.

Sovereign Hill

Sovereign Hill is an open-air museum and depicts Ballarat's first ten years after the discovery of gold there in 1851. It was officially opened on 29 November 1970 and has become a nationally acclaimed tourist attraction. Set in the Australian 1850s, the complex is located on a 25-hectare site that is linked to the richest alluvial gold rush in the world. The site comprises over 60 historically recreated buildings, with costumed staff and volunteers, who are able to answer questions and will pose for photos. The recreation is completed with antiques, artwork, books and papers, machinery, livestock and animals, carriages, and devices all appropriate to the era.

From Sovereign Hill this group tour heads back to the Botanic Gardens, set on the shores of Lake Wendouree, with plenty of time to explore. Ballarat Botanical Gardens' historically significant lakeside gardens were designed and planted in the 1860s and now feature magnificent mature trees, statues and constantly changing plantings and glasshouse displays. Begonias provide a significant part of the garden’s attraction. This garden covers some 40 hectares.

In the morning on Day Seven, our small group tour leaves our Ballarat hotel and drive north though Creswick, Daylesford and Hepbourne Srings to Castlemaine where we spend the next three nights.

At Creswick we visit a family run woollen mill. Here we can have morning tea followed by an informative tour of the mill.

Daylesford is located between Castlemaine and Creswick, within a region that contains Australia's largest concentration of natural mineral springs. A gold rush occurred in the area when alluvial gold was found in 1851, with the town of Daylesford being surveyed in 1854. While Daylesford's initial growth was due to the thousands of workers looking for gold, the town, today, is much more famous for the bubbling mineral waters which flow from its many springs. The commercial centre of Daylesford is located along Albert Street and Vincent Street. Here we will find a generous collection of historic buildings including the post office (built in 1867), town hall (1882), and several hotels and shops.

Lake Daylesford, which covers land upon which gold was first discovered, was created in 1929 and is located in the beautiful Central Springs Reserve, just a few minutes’ walk south of the town centre. A short walk east of the town centre is the Wombat Hill Botanical Gardens which were first established in 1863. They are situated on an extinct volcano and offer good views over the surrounding countryside from its manicured lawns and pathways. The gardens also feature a rotunda, lookout tower and conservatory.

Renowned for its mineral spring water, hot mineral water spas and iconic heritage buildings, Hepburn Springs, only a few minutes’ drive from Daylesford is an historically rich destination. Originally known as Spring Creek, the village was later renamed as Hepburn Springs after Captain John Hepburn, an early settler in the region. In the early 1850s alluvial gold was found, again drawing thousands of immigrants, particularly Swiss Italians to the search.

Castlemaine

In the afternoon we arrive in Castlemaine, another town built on the proceeds of gold mining but now sustained by a variety of other activities including fruit growing, farming, light industry and tourism. Europeans settled in the area, once occupied by the Jajowurrong People, in 1841 when William Barker established at sheep run, he called “Mount Alexander”. Before long, however, gold was discovered on the run by one of Barker’s shepherds. Soon all of the area's streams were being scoured by a rag-tag army of hopefuls from all over the world.

By 1852 it is thought that there were some 25 000 people on the Mount Alexander diggings, living mainly in shanty towns of canvas tents. Gradually more substantial buildings were added, including a school at Castlemaine (1852), dwellings, sly-grog shops and even an office of the Bank of NSW (also 1852). Castlemaine became an administrative centre for the region. Due to this and to the immense riches which poured into Castlemaine in the 1850s and early 1860s, substantial administrative, commercial and private buildings emerged far more quickly than in many other centres. Moreover, the town ceased to grow when the alluvial gold dwindled, and so the older buildings were deemed adequate for the town and not replaced by more modern structures. Consequently, many of the CBD's structures date from that early period. Even those that have been transformed retain older elements, such as post-supported verandas and ground-floor shop facades.

After breakfast on Day Eight the group tour takes a guided walking tour of Castlemaine’s` historic centre with visits to the town Market Hall (now the information centre) and, if possible, the historic Theatre Royal. We also visit The Castlemaine Art Gallery and Museum, as well as Buda House.

Centrally located, and the centrepiece of the Market Square, is the exceptional Castlemaine Market. Designed by town surveyor William Downe it reflects the influence of Christopher Wren and was built in 1861-62 of stone and brick with cement rendering. It was also the venue for celebratory balls: in 1862 for the opening of the railway and in 1867 for the visiting Duke of Edinburgh.

The original Theatre Royal was built in 1855. Two years later it was burnt to the ground, but it was immediately rebuilt. It has now been in continuous use since 1857, which makes it one of Victoria's oldest theatres. In 1856 noted Irish-born dancer and entertainer Lola Montez appeared at the theatre during a tour of Australia. The facade dates from the 1930s.

After morning tea, we visit the Castlemaine Art Gallery and Museum is considered one of the state's finest provincial galleries, featuring major Australian works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection includes the paintings of Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts, Louis Buvelot, Russell Drysdale, Fred Williams, Margaret Preston and many more recent works. The gallery was founded in 1913 and the Art Deco facade was added in 1931.

Tour of Buda House

Buda, originally a private home, was built in 1861 in the Indian bungalow style by Colonel John Smith, an army colonel who had served in India. He named it 'Delhi Villa'. In 1863 it was purchased by silversmith, jeweller and watchmaker Ernest Leviny who journeyed to Australia in 1853 to mine gold. He made improvements to the building, giving it its current name in honour of Budapest in Hungary, his birthplace. It was extended in 1890.The house features the Leviny family's collection of silver, art and crafts (including the enamelling, wood-carving, embroidery, photography and painting of Ernest Leviny's daughters which reflect their Hungarian heritage), works by other distinguished Australian artists, furnishings and domestic effects accumulated over a period of 120 years. The house features stucco moulding, a clerestory and projecting bay-windowed wings and a broken pediment over the porch. The excellent historic garden covers 4.5 acres. Given a Category One in the 1980 Study of Historic Gardens the citation notes that 'More than any other garden in Victoria, this has retained the very elusive character of the nineteenth century...its clipped cypress hedge is probably the largest in Victoria'. The ornate aviary was made at Thompson's Foundry in Castlemaine

Maldon

The next morning (Day Nine) this small group tour of Victoria will circumstances permitting, take a steam train ride to Maldon. (If the trains aren’t running for any reason, we’ll take the coach.) Maldon has been perfectly preserved since its mining days and is Australia's First Notable Town - classified by the National Trust in 1966. Its list of historic buildings is impressive and includes the railway station (built in 1884), the Grand Hotel (1888), the old post office (1870) and a number of churches. Most of the historical buildings of interest are concentrated around the block in the town centre.

In the afternoon we take a guided tour of the 1880s Carman’s gold mine tunnel. Around 1882 the Great International Quartz Mining Company commenced work in Carman's Tunnel in an attempt to drive a tunnel straight through Mt Tarrangower and intersect rich reefs which had been previously mined from shafts on the mountain.

After processing only about 600 metres, work at Carman's Tunnel was abandoned at the end of 1884 after a mere two years of operation. While no gold bearing rock was cut, this tunnel is an excellent example of 1880's mining techniques. The 570m long tunnel is now open to the public for candle lit tours, and is dry, clean, spacious, level and, apparently, easily accessible.

We return to Castlemaine for the night and continue our way north the next morning.

Bendigo and Echuca

In the afternoon of Day Ten we arrive in Echuca, on the banks of the Murray River. On our trip to Echuca we have a day tour of the city of Bendigo with its elaborate Victorian streetscape, enormous cathedral and renowned art gallery. Bendigo has a rich heritage dating back to the time gold was discovered in the area in the 1850s. Since then, Bendigo has been the second highest producing goldfield in Australia and remains the seventh largest in the world.

The group's local tour guide provides a talk about the history of Bendigo and its key buildings from the Victorian period. One of Bendigo's most elegant streets is Pall Mall, in the city centre. At its southern end stands the grand Alexandra Fountain which was built in 1881 out of granite. Further along Pall Mall is the elaborate old post office (built between 1883 and 1887) which now houses the Bendigo Visitor Information Centre, and next door are the law courts (built between 1892 and 1896), also of similar architecture. On the corner of Pall Mall and Williamson Street is Bendigo's most famous hotel, the lavishly adorned Shamrock, which was built in 1897. Rosalind Park, in the city's centre, features a lookout tower offering impressive views across Bendigo, while Bendigo's Sacred Heart Cathedral, built in 1896, is the largest Gothic cathedral in the southern hemisphere. Other attractions include several art galleries and the Golden Dragon Museum which is a tribute to the city's long history of Chinese settlement.

Bendigo hosts a tulip festival in September and October.

After the day spent exploring Bendigo, we continue to Echuca where we spend the next two nights.

Day Eleven of our trip involves a departure from the gold rush towns of central Victoria. After breakfast we drive, from our Echuca hotel, to the Barmah wetlands for a tour of this ecologically important region. According to the Australian Government’s, Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment website:

The Barmah Forest Ramsar site is located on the Murray River floodplain in north Victoria. It predominantly consists of river red gum forests and floodplain marshes. Together with Millewa Forests (on the New South Wales side of the Murray River), it forms the largest continuous stand of river red gums in Australia. It is also an Icon Site in The Living Murray program. The wetland site features major streams, anabranches, swamps, billabongs and permanent lakes. The majority of the forest functions as a single floodplain system and is dependent on seasonal flooding.

Many threatened species of wildlife including native birds, fish, reptiles and plants make the forest their habitat.

On our return to Echuca we have the opportunity to take a cruise on the Murray in a paddle steamer. The Murray River was first navigated in 1853 by William Russell and Francis Cadell who responded to the South Australian Government’s 2,000-pound competition to open the Murray as a waterway. From then on numerous paddle steamers began travelling inland with stores and passengers, returning to port laden with wool.

The paddle steamers which came to trade along the inland rivers of the Murray, Darling and Murrumbidgee were an Australian design. Some 300 were built of local red gum. Paddle steamers were flat bottomed with a broad beam for greater stability. They usually had two or more decks, and were propelled by steam engines driving paddles, either at the rear or more often the side. Their carrying capacity was increased by towing barges with goods such as wool, sheepskins, hides, tallow, station supplies, timber and farming equipment. Up to 2,000 bales of wool could be carried, stacked in the hull and piled in several tiers above the deck.

In its heyday, from about 1860 to the early 1900s, Echuca was a bustling, pioneering outpost. Paddle steamers ferried people and goods from all through the Murray, Darling and Murrumbidgee River systems, to Echuca – the closet point to Melbourne on the Murray.

Echuca flourished. Pubs, breweries and brothels boomed as the township revelled in its success. Legend has it that it wasn’t uncommon for horse races to stir up the dust down High Street where boutiques boasted the finest in European fashion and finery, bare knuckle fights lasted hours down on the river banks and you could catch cod fish as big as a man. The centre piece was the huge Redgum wharf, where in just one year (1872), more than 240 boats were cleared. Once Australia’s largest inland Port at 1.2km long, it is now home to the world’s largest collection of paddle steamers. Both PS Pevensey and PS Alexander Arbuthnot were restored in Echuca by shipwrights at Port of Echuca.

The Murray River and the Mallee

West of Echuca, the lands around the Murray River slowly become more arid, turning into mallee country. ‘Mallee woodlands’ have been listed by the Australian Department of Environment and Energy as one of the 32 ‘Major Vegetation Groups’ of Australia. Mallee country is defined by the predominance of the mallee eucalyptus, a stocky eucalyptus with several stems, which grows on semi-arid soil. Mallee country spreads in a belt across the south of Australia, centring around the Murray River in western Victoria and eastern South Australia, the Eyre Peninsula west of Adelaide, and the 'wheat belt' of Western Australia.

For European settlers, the mallee was a 'dreadful country', desolate and inhospitable, but Aboriginal Australians made a home in these areas for at least 40, 000 years. For the numerous Aboriginal groups who inhabited the Victorian/South Australian mallee, the Murray River was a source of life, providing fishing, meat, eggs, and fibrous water plants. The roots of kumpung were steamed in an earth oven, creating a carbohydrate starch similar to flour, which was in turn used to bake cakes. Kumpung was also used to create twine, which was used for fishing nets, the weaving of bags, belts, and headbands, and traded for stone axeheads and myall spears at great gatherings. Murray River peoples also used fire to create pasture mosaics.

Though each group held custodianship over particular lands, the Murray River peoples shared an overlapping culture, with closely-related languages and spiritual beliefs. People around the Murray River believed in an all-Father who was the creator of all things, though he bore different names to different peoples – Bunjil the eaglehawk to the Wotjobaluk and Kulin people, Tha-tha-pulli to the Wadi Wadi, and Tulong to the Dadi Dadi.

The lives of Aboriginal peoples of the Murray River are vividly recorded in a number of sources, including the journals of explorer Charles Sturt (who charted the river to its ending point in South Australia) and Surveyor-General of NSW Thomas Mitchell. Though Sturt and Mitchell were influenced by the racial biases of their times, they wrote fascinatingly of their complex encounters with the peoples of the Murray River.

All Saints winery visit

We spend a second night in Echuca before moving on to Beechworth on Day Twelve. On our way east to Beechworth we visit the historic All Saints winery at Wahgunyah for a wine tour and, after passing through picturesque Rutherglen, visit the little township of Chiltern.

All Saints Estate is a family owned winery established in 1864 and located on the banks of the Murray River. Original owners George Sutherland Smith, and John Banks, arrived from Caithness, Scotland in 1852. They were just 23 and 20 years of age. Choosing to settle in the Wahgunyah area, they used their training as engineers from the Edinburgh Railway Institute to build a bridge over the Edwards River at Deniliquin.

Smith and Banks began growing vines at ‘Sunday Creek’ closer to Wahgunyah than the present All Saints Estate winery, before relocating to build the 'All Saints castle' just three miles north of Wahgunyah, in 1864. The partners took up 100 acres and proceeded with planting vines in earnest whilst also constructing pise cellars made from the estate soil.

The All Saints Estate castle was based on the design of ‘The Castle of Mey’, including turrets and a tower. The castle was constructed mainly of handmade bricks that were fired in the All Saints Estate Brick Kiln (classified on the Victorian Heritage Register) on the property. However, only the battement parapets of the lower wall and a turret were copied, not the main castle style. The Castle of Mey owned, until her death, by the late Queen Mother, was where George Sutherland-Smiths’ father was a carpenter and joiner.

The All Saints Estate castle is classified by the Victorian Heritage Register and National Trust, including two other buildings on the Estate: the (former) bottling hall and cellar which now houses the Indigo Food Co. (est. December 2005) and the Chinese Dormitory.

The main wine storage area, The Great Hall, is lined with huge 100-year-old oak casks, filled with rare Tokays and Muscats. When originally built, this hall was considered to be the largest wine storage facility in the Southern Hemisphere. All Saints Estate won the first gold medal for Australian wine in 1873 at the London International Exhibition. George Sutherland Smith was the first Australian winemaker to win an award at an overseas wine show.

The All Saints Winery boasts an excellent restaurant and we will lunch there before continuing our journey through Rutherglen, famous for its fortified wines. From there we continue to Chiltern, a once thriving gold rush town. It was home (for one year) to Australian author Henry Handel Richardson, but is now a quiet back water.

Chiltern

At its height the town had an estimated population of up to 20,000 prospectors but this was short lived because the easily accessible gold disappeared and deep quartz reef mines, requiring major investments, dominated the local economy. Prospectors moved to easier alluvial fields.

These days over 20 buildings in the village are registered or owned by the National Trust and we can take a walk through the streets, past the historic post office, courthouse and masonic hall. The original police cells still stand as does the Federal Standard newspaper office and the famous Dow's Pharmacy.

Lakeview House, the elegant former childhood home of distinguished author Henry Handel Richardson (who penned the Australian classic The Getting of Wisdom), is now owned by the National Trust. It has been restored to the period when the Richardson family lived there, and we will pay it a visit. Time permitting, we will also visit Dow’s Pharmacy and the historic Federal Standard newspaper office.

A pharmacy for over a century, this fascinating commercial premises was built in 1859. One of the early pharmacists was David McEwen, father of the Australian prime minister, John McEwen. Pharmacist Hilda Dow ran the store from 1929 until 1968. When the pharmacy doors closed in 1968, everything inside remained intact. Some of the stock and equipment even predated Mrs Dow’s tenure and is from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Medicines, photographic supplies, shop fittings and other stock in original packaging and on original displays, can be seen in one of the few authentic vintage shops remaining in Australia.

The Federal Standard Printing Works is one of the few substantially intact provincial newspaper printeries remaining from the gold mining era. It contains still functioning printing presses from a century ago. The Federal Standard newspaper was founded in Chiltern in 1859 and operated from its printing works for the next 110 years. The building still stands and houses printing equipment from the 1870s to1930s, all working and maintained and demonstrated by retired printers.

From Chiltern we continue down the road to Beechworth, another well preserved town with its origins in the gold rush period.

Beechworth

On Day Thirteen our small group tour sets out in the morning for a 1/2 day tour of the town, with particular attention to the historic precinct. In Beechworth’s historic centre we will visit the courthouse where forty trials for various members of the Kelly family were held. The courthouse, built in 1858, was in continuous service for 131 years and was the site of many trials other than those of the Kelly family. Famously is was the scene for the trial of the first woman to be hanged in Victoria.

The Burke Museum is also well worth a visit. The Robert O’Hara Burke Memorial Museum is one of the oldest in Australia and proudly known as “the museum of museums”. It boasts a collection of over 30,000 items, many dating back over 150 years. The building itself was originally built as the Beechworth Athenaeum in 1857, but after the death of Beechworth's former Superintendent of Police, Robert O'Hara Burke at Coopers Creek in 1861, the Athenaeum was renamed in his honour. Now more commonly known as the Burke Museum, it combines traditional didactic exhibition settings, combined with modern technology and interpretative techniques to bring the visitor a unique perspective on Beechworth’s place in Australian History.

In the afternoon you may continue to wander through Beechworth’s many craft and curiosity shops, or perhaps take a hike starting at the town information centre. There are a number of walks, but the six-kilometre circular Gorge Walk takes you through one of Victoria's richest goldfields and includes views of waterfalls and rugged countryside. Natural features include woodlands, granite tors, spring wildflowers, stands of native cypress pine and Spring Creek, with its cascades and tranquil rock pools.

The effects of the gold strikes on the landscape are also evident on this walk. The trail passes the impressive granite Newtown Bridge, built by Scottish stonemasons in 1875, the old Rocky Mountain gold mining tunnel and the restored Powder Magazine, where gunpowder used in mining was stored. The Precipice gives an excellent view over the Reids Creek goldfield, and Fiddes Quarry looks as if the masons have downed tools only minutes ago.

We spend a second night in Beechworth before continuing our small group tour early the next morning.

Benalla

Day Fourteen of this trip takes us past some spectacular silo art on our way to Benalla, where we visit the art gallery and museum, before moving on to Yarra Glen in the late afternoon.

The Benalla silo art trail takes us past a number of spectacular murals painted on local grain silos. The GrainCorp Silos at Devenish in North East Victoria were painted by Melbourne Street Artist Cam Scale. The stage one artwork, unveiled on Anzac Day 2018, depicts a stunning image of a WW1 nurse and a modern female military medic in the Australian Armed Forces. This mural also depicts the changing role of women in the military and society in general. Stage two, on the short silos, was officially unveiled one year later on Anzac Day 2019. This mural is a tribute to the Australian Light Horse. The Australian Light Horse were mounted troops with characteristics of both cavalry and mounted infantry, who served in the Second Boer War and WW 1.

We also visit silos at Tungamah, Goorambat and St James, pausing for morning tea before continuing to Benalla.

The Benalla Art Gallery

The art gallery, situated on the shores of Lake Benalla, is a striking modernist building. The gallery was constructed in 1975 as a result of a generous donation by a local benefactor, Mr Laurie Ledger, of 25 percent of the construction costs and his collection of fine Australian art. The permanent collection includes works spanning three centuries of Australian art, including outstanding examples of contemporary and Indigenous art. The Gallery’s permanent collection includes wonderful works by Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin, Fred Williams, Sidney Nolan, and many other great Australian artists.

After lunch you have a choice of activities. The Benalla Museum, with its exhibitions on both Ned Kelly and Weary Dunlop (Dunlop was born in Benalla), is worth a visit, as is the historic Botanical Garden. Or you might like to just take a wander through the streets to enjoy the street art for which the town is noted.

The Benalla Botanical Gardens were designed and developed in 1886 by Alfred Sangwell and were listed on the Register of the National Estate in 1995. They are significant because much of their original layout remains intact and are notably unusual for their combination of ornamental gardens, with a large oval described as the most picturesque cricket ground in the country.

Later in the afternoon we continue our journey to the Yarra Glen area where we spend the night.

Yarra Glen

Day Fifteen is the final full day of our small group tour of Victoria and we plan to visit both Beleura House and Gardens on the Mornington Peninsula and the Royal Botanic Gardens complex at Cranbourne.

A division of The Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Cranbourne Gardens is one of Victoria’s most precious areas of remnant native bushland and offers visitors the chance to explore heathlands, wetlands and woodlands on the 363-hectare site. It is recognised as a site of State significance for flora and fauna conservation, the local wildlife here includes over 25 species listed as endangered, threatened or at risk of extinction. Following representations by the Maud Gibson Trust, Cranbourne Gardens was established in 1970 when the Victorian Government acquired the land with a view to developing it into a botanic garden that complemented Melbourne Gardens through the display of native plants and ecosystems.

Beleura House and Gardens

From Cranbourne we drive the relatively short distance to Beleura House and Gardens. Built in 1864 by James Butchart, the wealthiest man in the colony of Victoria, Beleura comprises twelve acres of pleasure gardens surrounding a Classical style villa designed by architect Joseph Reed. Its final owner was the composer John Tallis who bequeathed Beleura to the people of Victoria as a memorial to his late father, Sir George Tallis, the well-known theatre entrepreneur and head of J.C. Williamson Ltd. The house and its splendid grounds, interiors and archival material reflect the life and legacy of the Tallis family. A small collection of work by ceramic artist, Klytie Pate was part of this legacy and has since expanded to become the Klytie Pate Treasury.

Later in the afternoon we return to our Melbourne Hotel where we spend the night. Our farewell dinner will be in a local restaurant.

Your small group tour of Victoria for seniors finishes after breakfast on Day Sixteen.

Odyssey Traveller acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn and work. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.

Articles about Australia published by Odyssey Traveller:

For all the articles Odyssey Traveller has published for mature aged and senior travellers, click through on this link.

External articles to assist you on your visit to Victoria:

Itinerary

16 days

Day 1: Melbourne

Accommodation: Victoria Hotel or similar.

Check into your Melbourne Hotel and, in the evening, meet with your programme leader for a tour briefing.

The welcome dinner this evening will be in a local restaurant.

Day 2: Melbourne

Accommodation: Victoria Hotel or similar.

This morning we begin with a visit to historic National Trust property, Rippon Lea, for a tour of the house and gardens. The house, a grand 19th century mansion, is surrounded by 7 hectares of Victorian pleasure gardens.

We return to the city in the afternoon and the rest of the day you will have free to explore the city at your leisure.

Day 3: Melbourne

Accommodation: Victoria Hotel or similar.

Our tour this morning is to Como House and Gardens. Here we can explore the gardens and, depending on opening hours, we may be able to visit the 1847 home, built in a mix of Australian Regency and classic Italianate style.

In the afternoon our tour will, opening times permitting, take us to Waller House and Gardens. This is the c1922 Arts and Crafts home of artists Napier and Christian Waller. If the home is unavailable another National Trust property will be substituted.

Day 4: Ballarat

Accommodation: Overnight in the historic George Hotel or similar.

This morning we leave Melbourne after breakfast and head towards Ballarat via Werribee.

Werribee Mansion Park includes a Victorian era restored Italianate homestead, built for the pioneering Chirnside family, as well as 10 hectares of formal garden.

This afternoon we drive to Ballarat, famous as one of the most important of the Victorian gold rush towns. We spend three nights here. The remainder of the afternoon will be at leisure.

Dinner tonight will be at a local restaurant.

Day 5: Ballarat

Accommodation: George Hotel or similar.

This morning we begin with a guided walking tour of the main historic buildings in the city. The abundance of cash flowing into the area, from gold being mined, meant that there was money available for both public and private building.

In the afternoon we visit the Ballarat Art Gallery, the oldest and largest gallery in regional Australia. The gallery was established in 1884 and contains a large collection of Australian paintings covering all periods from colonial times to the present day.

Day 6: Ballarat

Accommodation: George Hotel or similar.

This morning step back in time and visit the Sovereign Hill museum village.

In the afternoon we visit the Ballarat Botanic Gardens for a guided tour. The gardens, situated on the shores of Lake Wendourie, were first designed and planted in the 1860s and feature magnificent mature trees as well as constantly changing plantings and glasshouse displays.

Day 7: Castlemaine

Accommodation: Castlemaine Colonial Motel or similar.

After breakfast this morning we leave Ballarat and drive towards Castlemaine, another gold rush town with a rich past. On the way we stop to visit a woollen mill and to explore the towns of Daylesford and Hepbourne Springs.

Dinner tonight will be in a local hotel or restaurant.

Day 8: Castlemaine

Accommodation: Castlemaine Colonial Motel or similar.

This morning we take a walking tour of historic Castlemaine including a visit to the art gallery and to Buda house and gardens. Buda was occupied by just two generations of the Leviny family between 1863 and 1981. Ernest Leviny was a renowned gold and silver smith who exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London before travelling to the Victorian gold fields and settling in Castlemaine.

The rest of the day you will be free to explore the town at your leisure.

Day 9: Castlemaine

Accommodation: Castlemaine Colonial Motel or similar.

This morning we make a steam train journey from Castlemaine to nearby Maldon and stop to

explore this well preserved gold era town with its impressive collection of historic buildings including the 1884 railway station and 1870 post office.

In the afternoon we take a candlelit tour of an 1880s gold mine.

We return to Castlemaine for the evening.

Day 10: Echuca

Accommodation: CocknBull Boutique Hotel, Echuca, or similar.

After breakfast this morning we leave Castlemaine and drive through Bendigo to Echuca on the Murray River. We stay in Echuca for the next two nights.

In Bendigo we will tour the historic centre and visit the Art Gallery, established in 1887, before driving on to Echuca where we will spend the night.

Dinner in a local restaurant.

Day 11: Echuca

Accommodation: CocknBull Boutique Hotel, Echuca, or similar.

This morning we visit the Barmah Wetlands and Forest, home to Australia’s largest Red Gum forest. Many threatened native birds, plants, fish and reptiles make the forest and wetlands their home. Spring floods help to keep the red gums healthy.

In the afternoon we take a ride on a Murray River paddle steamer.

Day 12: Beechworth

Accommodation: Beechworth at The Linaker Quarters, or similar.

After breakfast this morning we drive to the historic All Saints Winery at Wahgunyah (near Rutherglen) for a tour of the winery and for lunch.

After lunch we drive through Rutherglen to Chiltern on our way to Beechworth, where we stay two nights.

In Chiltern we visit Lake View House, the home of author Henry Handel Richardson and featured in a number of her works. The house, built in 1870, is now owned by the National Trust and has been restored and furnished in period style.

Time permitting we will also visit Dow’s Pharmacy built in 1859 and the Federal Standard Printing Works, both also owned by the National Trust for Victoria. The printing works contains one of the few intact printeries dating from the gold rush era. It was founded in 1859 and operated for the next 110 years.

From Chiltern we continue to Beechworth where we stay two nights.

Dinner in a local restaurant.

Day 13: Beechworth

Accommodation: Overnight in Beechworth at The Linaker Quarters, or similar.

Today we spend exploring Beechworth with visits to the historic centre. Here we can find the courthouse built in 1858 and in continuous service for the next 131 years. The courthouse saw over forty trials of various members of the Kelly family, though not the final trial of Ned Kelly himself.

We also visit the local museum. Established in 1857, it is one of Australia’s earliest museums and known by many as “the museum of museums”. In 1861, after his death, it was renamed in honour of Robert O’Hara Burke. Burke had at one time been Beechworth’s much respected Superintendent of Police.

In the afternoon there will be time to take a walk along one of Beechworth’s scenic hiking trails.

Day 14: Yarra Glen

Accommodation: TBC

This morning we have an early start and after breakfast drive to the Yarra Glen area via Benalla.

On our way to Benalla we take a rather circuitous route stopping to view the amazing silo art at Goorambat, St James, Tungamah and Devenish.

Once in Benalla we visit the regional art gallery, a strikingly modernist building overlooking Lake Benalla and the botanic gardens. The gallery, built in 1975, contains a collection spanning three centuries of Australian art. There are outstanding examples of contemporary and Indigenous art as well as works by well known earlier artists including Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin, Fred Williams and Sydney Nolan.

After our visit to the gallery there will be time to visit the galleries café for lunch, have a look at some outstanding street art or possibly visit the local museum. The museum has an interesting Ned Kelly exhibition as well as one on Weary Dunlop (who was born in the town).

Later in the afternoon we will continue on to The Yarra Glen/Healesville area.

Dinner will be in a local restaurant.

Day 15: Melbourne

Accommodation: TBC

Today we visit the Royal Botanic Gardens at Cranbourne, followed by Beleura House and Gardens on the Mornington Peninsula.

In the morning we visit the Royal Botanic Garden of Victoria which specialises in native plants. A diversity of more than 170,000 individual native plants are maintained at the Cranbourne Gardens. You will find them displayed in settings that capture the essence of Australia’s diverse landscape from the Red Centre to the coastal fringes.

From Cranbourne we travel to Mornington where we visit historic Beleura House and Gardens.

Later in the afternoon we drive the short distance to our Melbourne hotel where we stay for the final night of our tour.

This evening we enjoy a farewell dinner in a local restaurant.

Day 16: Melbourne

Our tour concludes this morning after breakfast.

Tour Notes

  • The itinerary is subject to change pending local restrictions and opening times.

Includes / Excludes

What’s included in our Tour

  • 15 nights accommodation.
  • 15 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 8 dinners.
  • Transport by modern and comfortable vehicle suitable for the highway conditions.
  • Entrances and sightseeing as specified.
  • Services of Tour Leader for the duration of tour.
  • Detailed Preparatory Information.

What’s not included in our Tour

  • Return Domestic airfares
  • Comprehensive travel insurance.
  • Items of a personal nature, such as telephone calls and laundry.
Level 2 - Moderate

Participants must be able to carry their own luggage, climb and descend stairs, be in good health, mobile and able to participate in 3-5 hours of physical activity per day, the equivalent of walking / hiking up to 8 kilometers per day on uneven ground.

Book now

Departure

13 November 2023

Available

Ends 28 November 2023 • 16 days

Change departure date

Customise

Room Type

Single Traveller
A$11,895
Two Travellers
A$9,995 pp

By booking two travellers sharing a room you save $1900 per person.

Payment Type

You can reserve your spot by paying a A$1,000 pp deposit, for full details please see our Terms & Conditions .

Pay Deposit
A$2,000
Pay Full
A$19,990

Prices are per person and valid until 30th December 2023.

Need Help?

We're here to help you with any questions you have. Call us anytime 24/7.
Australia flag 1300 888 225

Make it a private tour

If you have a group of 6 friends or more you can book this tour as a private departure, with all the benefits of our small group tours.
Get in touch to find out more.

Easing your journey

Crossing international borders with restrictions

The list of requirements to travel internationally has changed and will continue to change for several years. Odyssey is here to assist you in managing your way through these requirements:

Pre-departure checklist for travelling across International borders.
Support over email or phone available 24/7 for any questions you have.

For more information see our Crossing international borders with restrictions page.

Book With Confidence

If less than 30 days before your tour starts you are unable to travel as a result of Government travel restrictions, Odyssey Traveller will assist you with a date change, provide you with a credit or process a refund for your booking less any non-recoverable costs.

See Terms and conditions for details.

Peace of Mind Travel

The safety of our travellers, tour leader, local guide and support staff has always been our top priority and with the new guidelines for public health and safety for keeping safe for destinations around the world, we’ve developed our plan to give you peace of mind when travelling with us.

See Peace of Mind Travel for details.

Reviews

Odyssey office staff is very good at answering correspondence promptly. The timing and variety of all our visits was perfect and each day full of new and fulfilling experiences with beautiful and interesting scenery and a glimpse into the past. Mal’s in depth notes and preparation for the trip meant we made the most of every experience. Each of the Odyssey tours we have taken have had excellent transport. Glenn or driver was not only an excellent driver but was great company and most accommodating. The program was both enjoyable and stimulated further reading on the history and general economy of the areas we explored. Brenda & Ian S. Mar '21

I liked the balance between goldfield history, interesting houses and gardens. The itinerary was well thought out. There are always more places worth visiting but I appreciate that a balance has to be found between destinations and time available. This was an excellent, well-balanced tour. Mal was an excellent leader, always amiable, ready to adjust plans if necessary and great fun to travel with. Odyssey local guides are always excellent. We appreciated that our driver had removed some seats so we all had plenty of room and he became a valuable and appreciated member of the group. All accommodation booked were excellent and well situated. The Beechworth accommodation was particularly interesting. I really appreciated the chance to explore my own state in greater depth. Carolynn L. Mar '21

Reading List Download PDF

Cry Me A River: The Tragedy of the Murray-Darling Basin

The Murray-Darling Basin is the food bowl of Australia, and it's in trouble. What does this mean for the future - for water and crops, and for the people and towns that depend on it?

In Cry Me a River, acclaimed journalist Margaret Simons takes a trip through the Basin, all the way from Queensland to South Australia. She shows that its plight is environmental but also economic, and enmeshed in ideology and identity.

Her essay is both a portrait of the Murray-Darling Basin and an explanation of its woes. It looks at rural Australia and the failure of politics over decades to meet the needs of communities forced to bear the heaviest burden of change. Whether it is fish kills or state rivalries, drought or climate change, in the Basin our ability to plan for the future is being put to the test.

"The story of the Murray-Darling Basin ... is a story of our nation, the things that join and divide us. It asks whether our current systems - our society and its communities - can possibly meet the needs of the nation and the certainty of change. Is the Plan an honest compact, and is it fair? Can it work? Are our politics up to the task?"

By Margaret Simons

Amazon

Black Gold: Aboriginal People on the Goldfields of Victoria 1850-1870

Fred Cahir tells the story about the magnitude of Aboriginal involvement on the Victorian goldfields in the middle of the nineteenth century. The first history of Aboriginal–white interaction on the Victorian goldfields, Black Gold offers new insights on one of the great epochs in Australian and world history―the gold story. In vivid detail it describes how Aboriginal people often figured significantly in the search for gold and documents the devastating social impact of gold mining on Victorian Aboriginal communities. It reveals the complexity of their involvement from passive presence, to active discovery, to shunning the goldfields. This detailed examination of Aboriginal people on the goldfields of Victoria provides striking evidence which demonstrates that Aboriginal people participated in gold mining and interacted with non-Aboriginal people in a range of hitherto neglected ways. Running through this book are themes of Aboriginal empowerment, identity, integration, resistance, social disruption and communication.

By Fred Cahir

Amazon

Sludge: Disaster on Victoria's Goldfields

The fascinating, troubling legacy of the gold rush

Everyone knows gold made Victoria rich. But did you know gold mining was disastrous for the land, engulfing it in floods of sand, gravel and silt that gushed out of the mines?

Or that this environmental devastation still affects our rivers and floodplains?
Victorians had a name for this mining waste- 'sludge'. Sludge submerged Victoria's best grapevines near Bendigo, filled Laanecoorie Reservoir on the Loddon River and flowed down from Beechworth over thousands of hectares of rich agricultural land. Children and animals drowned in sludge lakes. Mining effluent contaminated three-quarters of Victoria's creeks and rivers.

Sludge is the compelling story of the forgotten filth that plagued nineteenth-century Victoria. It exposes the big dirty secret of Victoria's mining history - the way it transformed the state's water and land, and how the battle against sludge helped lay the ground for the modern environmental movement.

'A remarkable achievement' -Tom Griffiths

'A work of brilliant rediscovery and a wake-up call for our own times' -Grace Karskens

'Vividly conveys the long-term costs of short-term gains' -Billy Griffiths

By Susan Lawrence, Peter Davies

Amazon

The Spirit of the Goldfields: Victorian Goldfields History and Environment

This book is mostly light reading with copious illustrations. It is history with sufficient information to create interest. The book covers people of the goldfields, mines, engineering, law and order. The Eureka rebellion, particularly in relation to American involvement. And some of the public spirited individuals who used their wealth to create a better world as they saw it.

By David R Griffiths

Amazon

The History of Bendigo

Excerpt from The History of Bendigo

Readers who honor me by a perusal of this work will perceive that the first eight chapters deal with the general history of Bendigo, from the gold discovery in 1851 down to the present day chapters nine, ten, and eleven are devoted to an account of Mining Development; chapters twelve and thirteen to Politics; and chapter fourteen to matters Municipal. Thereafter follow chapters on Water Supply, Journalism, Public Institutions, the Churches, Amusements, Agriculture and Viticulture, and lastly on Local Industries.

I have found facts and events besetting me in my investigations in such battalions that I have had no occasion to draw on my imagination, or to adorn the tale. The narrative is plain and unvarnished.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

By George Mackay

Amazon

The Birth of Melbourne

The Birth of Melbourne is a spectacular anthology of contemporary writings giving a vivid insight into the history of Melbourne.

In 1835 John Batman sailed up the Yarra and was astonished by the beauty of the land. It was a temperate Kakadu, teeming with wildlife and with soils rich enough to spawn pastoral empires. With the discovery of gold, the city was transformed almost overnight into 'marvellous Melbourne'. And yet, as Tim Flannery writes, the price paid was environmental ruin and the tragic loss of societies that had flourished on Port Phillip Bay for millennia.

The Birth of Melbourne includes voices that range from tribal elders to Chinese immigrants, from governors to criminals. Among many others, John Pascoe Fawkner, Georgiana McCrae, J. B. Were, Ned Kelly, Marcus Clarke, Anthony Trollope and Rudyard Kipling contribute to this biography of our most surprising city.

'For me, a story is always more vivid when I can marry it to a particular place…I recommend this book to anyone with an affection for Melbourne and a lively interest in its past.' Martin Flanagan, Age

By Tim Flannery

Amazon

The Ship That Never Was: The Greatest Escape Story Of Australian Colonial History

The greatest escape story of Australian colonial history by the son of Australia’s best-loved storyteller

In 1823, cockney sailor and chancer James Porter was convicted of stealing a stack of beaver furs and transported halfway around the world to Van Diemen's Land. After several escape attempts from the notorious penal colony, Porter, who told authorities he was a 'beer-machine maker', was sent to Macquarie Harbour, known in Van Diemen's Land as hell on earth.

Many had tried to escape Macquarie Harbour; few had succeeded. But when Governor George Arthur announced that the place would be closed and its prisoners moved to the new penal station of Port Arthur, Porter, along with a motley crew of other prisoners, pulled off an audacious escape. Wresting control of the ship they'd been building to transport them to their fresh hell, the escapees instead sailed all the way to Chile. What happened next is stranger than fiction, a fitting outcome for this true-life picaresque tale.

The Ship That Never Was is the entertaining and rollicking story of what is surely the greatest escape in Australian colonial history. James Porter, whose memoirs were the inspiration for Marcus Clarke's For the Term of his Natural Life, is an original Australian larrikin whose ingenuity, gift of the gab and refusal to buckle under authority make him an irresistible anti-hero who deserves a place in our history.

By Adam Courtenay

Amazon

Articles

Birrarung Marr

Designing Melbourne, Victoria

The grid layout of central Melbourne did not just happen.... Read and learn more and consider joining a small group package tour for mature and senior travellers to this city for couples or singles. Spend a week exploring Melbourne it's arcades and Victorian architecture created on the back of the wealth from the gold rush.

26 Jun 20 · 9 mins read
Read Article
Royal Exhibition Building

Victorian architecture of central Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne is one of our two, week long city explorer programs. The other program being Adelaide. These are small group tours for mature and senior travellers, couples and singles interested in Colonial history of the two centuries. They form part of a collection of Australian learning tours.

26 May 20 · 7 mins read
Read Article
The Burke and Wills Expedition, 1860-61

The Burke and Wills Expedition, 1860-61

Learn on a small group tour of central Australia for active mature or senior travellers from Broken hill about Burke and Wills ambitious expedition. Suitable for mature aged couples or solo travellers.

15 May 20 · 7 mins read
Read Article
Echuca paddle-steamer

Echuca and Murray-Darling Trade, Victoria

The wool trade along the Murray was vital to British-Australia. Echuca was a major port for paddle steers. Learn and explore more on a Odyssey Traveller small group package tour of Victoria and the goldfields for mature and senior travellers, couples or singles with a curiosity. Understand the relationship of the Murray river to Echuca to Adelaide and Mildura.

21 May 20 · 5 mins read
Read Article
Eureka Stockade

Ballarat, Victoria

Ballarat is part of a series of regional towns explored and learnt about on a small group tour for mature and senior travelers into regional Victoria. The program examines the history of the gold rush and the wealth created that enabled the grand houses to her built that we visit. You can read all of the Australia articles published.

21 May 20 · 7 mins read
Read Article
Alexandra Fountain

Bendigo, Victoria

Bendigo is part of a collection of regional Victorian centres explored on this regional tour of Victoria. Bendigo's wealth was created by gold. This small group tour for mature and senior travellers explores this theme and the houses built, many now National trust properties from this period. This article is one of many prepared by Odyssey about Australia.

22 May 20 · 7 mins read
Read Article
Castlemaine Post Office

Castlemaine, Victoria

Castlemaine is part of our Victoria small group package tour into the region following the gold rush. Structured as a small group tour for mature and senior travellers, couples and singles. This program is part of a collection of tours of Australia focussed on History, wildlife and landscape.

26 May 20 · 5 mins read
Read Article
Benalla

Benalla, Victoria

Learn about Benalla, part of a collection of articles about Victoria. You can learn more on a small group package tour for mature and senior travelers, couples or singles interested in the history of Victoria and Melbourne. Since 1983 we have been offering educational style touring to seniors.

27 May 20 · 6 mins read
Read Article
Overtourism

Benefits of a small group tour for the mature and senior traveller

Article details the benefits of a small group tour for mature and senior travellers, whether travelling as a couple or solo, in your 60's or beyond in your 80's. Advice on choosing a responsible touring company and things to consider post pandemic.

29 Jan 21 · 8 mins read
Read Article

FAQs

When is the best time to visit Victoria?

Victoria is among the cooler Australian states. Summer is generally hot and dry, winter is cool and crisp, and autumn and spring are generally mild.

However, Victoria’s weather is infamously variable. Melbourne locals like to claim that their city experiences ‘four seasons in one day’. Whatever time of year you go, remember to bring warm clothing to prepare for sudden changes of weather!

What is Victoria Australia known for?

Victoria is the second most populous Australian state, and smallest (mainland) state in area. Melbourne, the capital, is considered to be the ‘most European Australian city’, recognised for its vibrant arts, culture and food scenes, and elegant Victorian architecture. Regional Victoria is home to the stunning coastal views of the Great Ocean Road, the sandstone forms of the Grampians, the Victorian Alps, and the genteel country towns of Ballarat and Bendigo.

Where can you go for a day trip in Melbourne?

There are a number of options for day tips in Melbourne. Our tour visits a number of National Trust listed properties, including Rippon Lea, a magnificent mid-Victorian house featured in the Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries TV show; Como House, a rare example of Australian regency architecture; and Waller House, an Arts and Crafts property owned by Australian muralist, mosaicist and stained-glass artist Napier Waller.

I am worried that the tour I am booked on will not go ahead, what are my options?

Odyssey will try to keep you up to date with the booking status and if we know that a tour is unlikely to go ahead, we will notify you early and offer to transfer your deposit to another Odyssey Tour. If we cancel the departure altogether, you will also get the option for a full refund.

Until the state borders in Australia are open for interstate travel or trans Tasman travel with New Zealand re-commences your $500 deposit on an Australia or New Zealand tour is fully refundable within 60 days even if the program is guaranteed. No additional payment for a tour will be requested for a guaranteed tour or summer school program until interstate and trans Tasman travel is permitted. Once a payment request for a guaranteed program is made then the terms and conditions shall apply in the event of a cancellation due to COVID-19.

How large are your group sizes?

Odyssey Travel is famous for our small groups, and we average of 8 participants per Tour. Our maximum group size is 18 people.

Related Tour Categories

Australian Tours

The Kimberley View 37 tours

Level 2 - Moderate

Sunrise reflected on Eyre Peninsula SA View 117 tours

Join 22,383 like-minded travellers receiving our weekly newsletter.

Special offers and promotions
A$350 AUD first trip travel voucher
The latest tours and articles