Creswick
Creswick is a historic gold rush town set amid tall eucalyptus and pine forests just north of Ballarat in Victoria’s Goldfields region.
Creswick’s wide main street is dotted with historic buildings including the old Masonic Lodge, State Savings Bank (now an antique and gift shop), Creswick Library, Post Office and the Creswick Historical Museum.
Noted artist Norman Lindsay was born in Creswick. You can see a permanent exhibition of his paintings at the Creswick Historical Museum. The museum also displays paintings from the Lindsay family and historic artworks relating to Creswick’s past.
Get outdoors and tour the Creswick Regional Park, which includes a 15-hectare koala park, trails through natural bushland, camp sites and picnic facilities. Follow the track around the shore of scenic St George Lake, home to waterbirds and the elusive platypus. Or, get yourself lost in the Tangled Maze, a garden maze grown from thousands of climbing plants.
Drop in a line at the Tuki Trout farm. You catch the fish and then it is cooked and served to you at this 1850s sheep station turned country retreat.
Take a short drive from Creswick to the mineral springs of Daylesford, the wineries of the Pyrenees, and the historic town of Clunes.
Creswick is 129 kilometres north-west of Melbourne or about 90 minutes by car on the Midland Highway.
