Charming setting, interesting characters, highly recommended.
The isolated town of Clunes, with its wide roads and historic collection of goldfield-era buildings, makes for a wonderful setting for a two-day festival of all things book-related. Visiting authors, workshops and talks, rare and collectable works for sale with over 100 stalls and 60 booksellers - for bookworms, this is as good as it gets.
Growing steady since 2007, the festival has a theme each year so expect the town to be dressed for the occasion, with roaming street performers, live music and plenty of local beverages and baked and grown produce on offer.
Clunes has a long-held cultural reputation, appearing as a background for many Australian TV and film productions, including The True History of the Kelly Gang (2019), the original Mad Max (1979), The Dry (2020) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). Situated 36 kilometers north of Ballarat, the town is within easy reach of Maryborough and Daylesford and is a beautiful place to visit any time of the year.
