Places I Have Visited In Regional Victoria, Australia – Part 1

As you know, I have always lived in Victoria my whole life. We have lots of pretty areas around the State, and thought I would go through the places I have visited, and my thoughts on them. There is definitely more places I’d like to go to! It is important to help businesses in Regional areas, especially at the moment as many have been impacted by COVID-19 and the bushfires that occurred in Summer.

I have decided to make this into a mini blog series as I have visited more places than I thought! I haven’t seen a lot of the North-West, past Bendigo & Ballarat, heading up towards Mildura. There’s a section past Warrambool I haven’t seen, and also past Bright and Lakes Entrance.

I am going to list the places I’ve visited in no particular order. I hope you enjoy this little series 😀

Warrnambool

Warrnambool is located in South-West Victoria, about a 3-hour drive from Melbourne. I have been there only twice, though Josh lived there for about 4 years for university, so he knows the area really well. We also have some friends that live there. It has a huge open beach and many parks, cafes, restaurants and shops. It is a fairly big town. I sort have bad memories here as one time we went I drank a lot and spent the next day hungover 😂

Bendigo

I had never been to Bendigo properly until 2019. I had passed through it but never actually stopped. Josh & I booked a little weekend trip with our dogs and made an effort to check out the town.

Bendigo is located in North-West Victoria, about a 1hr 45min trip from Melbourne. Bendigo is literally like a city in the middle of nowhere. We tried out some awesome pubs. They had a really nice atmosphere. We played pool for a while at one and it was great fun. There is also a lot of shops – but don’t go down town on a Sunday as most of them are closed!! I found this really bizarre, as so many people are out and about on a Sunday! I was also disappointed that I couldn’t find a lolly shop 😔 There are a few pretty churches and really nice, well looked after parks also.

Wangaratta

It’s been a while since I’ve been here! I went with my parents a few years ago, I think it was actually 2015/2016. We ate some great food and had some good coffee. We also went for a lot of walks and visited other towns nearby.

The hotel we stayed at was really good. There was a pool and outdoor seating area where you could sit, relax and have a drink and read a book. Literally right next door was KFC so that was a massive bonus haha. Of course one of the nights we had to get some for dinner.

Wangaratta is North-East of Victoria, and is about a 2hr 40min drive from the city. It isn’t as big a town as Warrnambool & Bendigo.

Woodend

Woodend has a pretty big place in my heart. I have been going here ever since I was born as we have family that live here, on large property. I was always so excited to visit. I LOVE it here in winter. It is a pretty cute little town. It is definitely smaller than the above towns. There are some nice restaurants and cafes here. They have a bakery with award-winning vanilla slice. There is also some nice walking tracks, we have walked these a few times. In winter, it gets really cold, and in the summer, really hot. A big difference to where we live in the suburbs.

It shows on the map that it is about a 1hr drive from Melbourne, but I think there is a detour here, it usually only takes around 45 minutes.

Those are all the places for part 1 of this series! I hope you enjoyed. I have plenty more of these to come, so keep an eye out.

Let me know in the comments if you have ever visited any of these areas!

Thanks for reading!

Chelsea x