Bendigo

Gallery

Bendigo Art Gallery

Gold money built this place — the 1887 building says so plainly. Now one of Australia's largest regional galleries, Bendigo draws interstate audiences for its international touring exhibitions alongside a permanent collection spanning Australian art from the 1850s, European paintings, and work from the goldfields era that funded it all.

Botanical Garden

Bendigo Botanic Gardens

Bendigo Botanic Gardens sprawls across a beautiful property in White Hills, featuring historic avenues of elms, a significant cacti and succulents collection, ferneries and peaceful lakeside walks.

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Bendigo Pottery

Scottish immigrant George Duncan Guthrie stumbled on a clay deposit near Bendigo in the early 1850s and declared it perfect for pottery. More than 160 years later, his Epsom site is still throwing. The working pottery sells its own Australian-made ceramics — Heritage, Organic, Coupe and Classic collections — alongside antiques and hands-on activities. One of the country's few remaining industrial-scale pottery operations still open to the public.

Museum

Bendigo Tramways

Heritage tramway operating vintage trams through central Bendigo. The depot houses a collection of restored trams and offers a talking tram tour of the city's historic sights.

Museum

Buda Historic Home & Garden

A goldfields villa in Castlemaine, named Buda after Budapest by its Hungarian owner, the silversmith Ernest Leviny, and home to his creative family for 118 years. The Museums Australia accredited museum keeps the Levinys' intact collection of furniture, art and belongings, much of it tied to the Arts and Crafts movement the daughters worked in. Outside lie three acres of heritage garden with original plantings, a bird aviary, a tennis pavilion, a grape pergola and ornaments the family made.

Heritage Site

Carisbrook Historic Mine

Carisbrook and the surrounding Central Victorian goldfields preserve a remarkable concentration of 19th-century mining landscapes — mine shafts, Chinese-built water races, engine mounts and alluvial workings that together form one of the most authentic gold rush heritage environments in Australia.

Gallery

Castlemaine Art Museum

Founded by community subscription in 1913 and housed in a heritage-listed art deco building since 1931, this Castlemaine institution holds one of regional Victoria's more serious permanent collections: tonal realism paintings of national significance, strong work by women artists, and First Nations cultural material alongside colonial-era artefacts. Free entry, open daily.

Botanical Garden

Castlemaine Botanical Gardens

Castlemaine Botanical Gardens occupies 5.6 hectares on the town's outskirts, established in the 1870s during the gold rush. The gardens hold substantial collections of native Victorian plants alongside plantings from the cooler regions of Europe and Asia. Notable features include a stone Victorian fernery, heritage trees, and constructed water channels that reflect 19th-century landscape design. The grounds support conservation programs focused on local native species. Entry is free; walking tracks connect the main garden areas to native woodland sections. The site sits within striking distance of Newstead and the broader Castlemaine district's historical mining landscape.

Gallery

Castlemaine State Festival Gallery

The Castlemaine Market Building, a magnificent 1862 Greek Revival structure at the heart of the goldfields town, serves as a major exhibition venue for the celebrated Castlemaine State Festival — a biennial arts event that fills the town with exhibitions, performances and creative exchange.

Museum

Central Deborah Gold Mine Bendigo

Bendigo's gold rush ran deep — literally. At 76 Violet Street, the Central Deborah mine shaft drops visitors underground into working geology: tunnels, machinery, and the particular darkness that made this one of Victoria's last operating goldfields. Above ground, the industrial infrastructure stays intact. It's the rare site where the history isn't dressed up — it's still in the walls.

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Central Goldfields Art Gallery

A former fire station on Neill Street houses this small regional gallery, which draws on a permanent collection tied specifically to the Central Goldfields landscape — textiles, paintings, the country itself as subject. Touring and visiting exhibitions rotate through. Free entry, Thursday to Sunday.

Museum

Discovery Science & Technology Centre Bendigo

Australia's first regional science centre occupies a former Railway Goods Shed in central Bendigo. Since 1995, the not-for-profit has run hands-on exhibits, a planetarium, a vertical slide, and school programs for kids who'd rather touch things than read labels. The Dja Dja Wurrung acknowledgment notes their ancestors as among the first scientists and astronomers — a framing that sets the tone before you're through the door.

Museum

Dunolly Goldfields Historical Museum

Dunolly Goldfields Historical Museum is a heritage-listed museum in Dunolly, VIC. The museum explores themes of mining geology, social history, local history. Core activities include exhibition, conservation. The venue serves as a community hub and is housed in a historic building. Visitors can enjoy tours, accessible. Notable for being long established. Nearby towns include Tarnagulla, Kingower, Castlemaine. Admission is free.

Museum

Golden Dragon Museum

Opened in 1991, this is where Australia keeps its Chinese-Australian goldfields story — and some remarkable objects. Sun Loong, the world's longest imperial dragon, lives here, alongside Dai Gum San, a heritage Chinese precinct. Monthly mahjong nights keep the place from feeling like pure archive. Bridge Street, Bendigo.

Museum

Goldfields Railway & Museum

Goldfields Railway & Museum is a heritage-listed museum in Maldon, VIC. The museum explores themes of mining geology, transport, social history. Core activities include exhibition, conservation, community. The venue is housed in a historic building and features outdoor spaces. Visitors can enjoy guided tours, cafe, picnic area, accessible. Nearby towns include Castlemaine, Newstead, Chewton.

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La Trobe Art Institute

A centre for contemporary art in Bendigo's arts precinct, operating as part of La Trobe University and custodian of the University's art collections. The Bendigo base presents curated exhibitions, artist residencies and social spaces, alongside public programs, events and public art commissions across La Trobe's Victorian campuses. The Brockley Auditorium, a meeting room and common facilities are available for hire. Open to everyone.

Cultural Centre

Lot19

A three-acre artist precinct in Castlemaine, hand-built from repurposed materials by Mark Anstey since 2000 and run, first and foremost, for artists. Twenty-one studios sit alongside a contemporary gallery that mounts ten-plus exhibitions a year, an outdoor sculpture park, two stages, a theatre, open-access printmaking and ceramics workshops, and a literary bar housed in an old W-class tram. It runs the Spring Sculpture Prize and the Castlemaine Idyll, and leans hard into work by youth, disabled and First Nations artists.

Heritage Site

Maryborough Railway Station Visitor Centre

Maryborough Railway Station Visitor Centre is a heritage-listed heritage site in Maryborough, VIC. The heritage site explores themes of transport, architecture, social history. Core activities include exhibition, community. The venue serves as a community hub. Visitors can enjoy guided tours, cafe, shop, accessible. Notable for being architecturally significant. Nearby towns include Creswick, Clunes, Castlemaine.

Cinema

Star Cinema

Run as a non-profit community project out of the heritage-listed Eaglehawk Town Hall — eight kilometres north of Bendigo, in a goldfields suburb that was once an independent borough. The original Star Pictures cinema operated in the same building from the early 20th century until television closed it in the 1960s; it was revived in 2005 by volunteers using the original projection room. Crimson couches, knitted rugs over your knees, licensed bar with local wines, antique Town Hall furniture. Independent and arthouse programming seven nights a week.

Cultural Centre

The Capital Theatre Bendigo

At 50 View Street, The Capital sits within Bendigo's View Street arts precinct and forms part of the group of performing arts venues run by Bendigo Venues and Events. Its stage carries a broad program across the year, from youth theatre productions such as Beauty and the Beast to chamber recitals of flute and piano works spanning the Romantic and modern repertoire.

Cultural Centre

Ulumbarra Theatre Bendigo

One of the venues run by Bendigo Venues & Events, Ulumbarra Theatre sits at 10 Gaol Rd in central Bendigo. Its stage carries a broad performance program through the year, from Orchestra Victoria and Opera Australia's national tour to school ensemble concerts by local students. The organisation presents and develops performing arts for Bendigo and the wider central Victorian region.