Bendigo is a large regional town in central Victoria, Australia. It has about 100,000 residents & is the 4th largest town in Victoria.

Located 150 km north-west from Melbourne, Bendigo has one of the finest collections of Victorian buildings of any inland city in Australia. 

The area was settled in 1851, proclaimed a municipality in 1855, & a city in 1871. The town was officially known as Sandhurst but the name Bendigo was restored in 1891.

By 1840 squatters had moved in & sheep were being successfully grazed. The history of Bendigo changed in 1851 when gold was discovered. 

The Bendigo gold seam covered an area of 3600 hectares & from 1851 until 1954 a total of 25 million ounces of gold were taken from the area around Bendigo.

As miners rushed to the site the settlement grew dramatically. Like so many mining communities Bendigo formed a series of small ethnic communities. 

The Irish moved into the district known as St Killians. The Cornish established themselves at Long Gully. The Germans settled at Ironbark Gully & the Chinese at Emu Point.

The early discoveries of alluvial gold quickly gave way to the more difficult quartz-based gold. By the 1860s the goldfields had changed from small operations to major mines with deep shafts.

When Mark Twain visited the city in 1897 he described it as 'The town is full of towering chimney stacks & hoisting works & looks like a petroleum city.'

Today Bendigo is a charming & elegant rural centre with an economy which is driven by a mixture of tourism, industry & servicing the surrounding agricultural district.

Bendigo grew as a result of gold mining in the mid to late 19th century. As a legacy of the Gold boom Bendigo has many magnificant buildings built in a late Victorian colonial style.

Every corner you turn in Bendigo reveals another living treasure, another vivid reminder of the city’s glorious & heady past.

Many people still come to the Bendigo region with the hope of striking gold.  Recreational fossicking is allowed in some areas. In Victoria, a prospector or fossicker requires a Miner's Right permit to prospect -These can be purchased on-line at www.dpi.vic.gov.au

Gold prospecting is a fantastic way for Australians & tourists to discover an important chapter in Australia's history. Bendigo Gold World Tours offers a number of guided fossicking adventures.  Nothing can beat the thrill of unearthing your own natural gold nugget & experiencing the beautiful Australian bush at the same time.

A reminder of the Chinese population, who came to the goldfields, is the Bendigo Easter Festival.  It is Bendigo’s major cultural event & has been since 1871, the street procession has taken place featuring the Chinese community. 

Bendigo is the major railway hub for the region, with numerous V-Line Sprinter & Fast Rail services daily from Melbourne & coach links to regional towns.