Central Vic is basically a gold rush theme park that never closed, but instead of panning for gold you’re panning for decent Wi-Fi.
Everyone here is either:
- A Melbourne escapee who “just needed more space” but still spends $150 a week on artisanal cheese.
- A fifth-generation local who still calls Melbourne “the big smoke” and has never forgiven it for stealing the Grand Final.
- A “creative entrepreneur” whose business model is selling tie-dyed socks at the farmers market.
The Vibe
- Imagine the gold rush never ended, but the gold is replaced with grant funding and everyone’s digging with MacBooks.
- The cafés serve coffee so strong it can dissolve a teaspoon, and they all have a dog on the premises called “Beans” or “Pickle.”
- Local politics is just passive-aggressive Facebook posts with a link to the council website.
Bendigo vs Ballarat
- Bendigo thinks Ballarat is full of bogans. Ballarat thinks Bendigo is full of pretentious bogans.
- Bendigo’s got trams. Ballarat’s got Lake Wendouree. Both have more roundabouts than sense.
Castlemaine
- The unofficial capital of kombucha and mid-century furniture.
- Every second person is in a band. Every first person has an opinion about your band.
- Castlemaine’s economy runs entirely on coffee, second-hand jeans, and wistful Melbourne money.
Daylesford & Surrounds
- Basically Byron Bay but with frostbite.
- Where wealthy couples come to “find themselves” in mineral spas and somehow also buy a $1.4 million weatherboard.
Central Vic: the only place where you can go from a heritage-listed post office, to a world-class wine bar, to a paddock full of rusting utes in under 3 minutes.