Nature and wildlife – Goldfields

The Goldfields region is home to many natural attractions, be they cultivated and landscaped or natural by design. If you are interested in cultivated beauty, stroll through one of the local botanical gardens. Early residents of the region made their homelands come to life in the form of magnificent and stately gardens. These wonderlands still thrive 150 years later, in Bendigo, Ballarat, Buninyong and Castlemaine. If you are in the region in March, make sure you visit the Ballarat Botanical Gardens to see the renowned annual Begonia display.

Beyond the towns there are many national and state parks offering dazzling wildflowers, abundant wildlife and stunning scenery. A centrepiece of the region's cultural landscape is the Goldfields Track. Part of the Great Dividing Trail, the track links Ballarat and Bendigo through Daylesford and Castlemaine and traverses a series of landscapes including ironbark and stringybark forests. In late winter golden wattles are in bloom and during spring, hundreds of wildflowers add a burst of colour along the track.