Clunes

Clunes combines its identity as an internationally recognised Booktown with well-preserved Gold Rush-era architecture. A stay can focus on books and events, the history of the discovery of gold, or historic buildings. When choosing when to travel, consider whether you’d like to visit the annual Clunes Booktown Festival or one of the monthly markets.

Books and encounters in Clunes

Clunes is one of only 15 internationally recognised Booktowns. The annual Clunes Booktown Festival takes place on the third weekend in March. The program includes browsing books, book talks and opportunities to meet authors. If you enjoy browsing books, you can make the festival a focus of your trip; the talks and author conversations offer a different emphasis. The March date helps you plan your trip around the event.

Books are part of Clunes’ character even outside the festival: the Italianate Post Office, dating from 1878, now houses a second-hand bookshop. This brings a historic building and a contemporary book-trading purpose together, without implying that it is part of a festival program.

Museum and Gold Rush history

The Clunes Museum is housed in a former warehouse belonging to the building contractors Nichol and Wallace, dating from around 1860. In the Gold Room, the museum displays artefacts relating to the discovery of gold. The Sir John Longstaff Kitchen offers a different historical perspective: it recreates a typical kitchen from a 19th-century miner’s cottage. The museum therefore presents the discovery of gold and a glimpse into a period home kitchen as distinct topics.

These topics can also provide a starting point for conversations during a family trip.

Discover historic architecture

A walk through Clunes takes you to the former London Chartered Bank Building, built in 1871, and the Italianate Post Office, dating from 1878. Fraser Street features particularly well-preserved Gold Rush-era architecture. These examples invite you to notice the range of historic buildings and the character of the streetscape as you explore. The dates place the two named buildings in time; Fraser Street represents the surviving building stock from the Gold Rush era.

If architecture is your main interest, you can include the historic buildings and Fraser Street as discoveries in their own right in your travel plans. If you’re mainly looking for books and events, you might instead plan your travel dates around the Booktown Festival. These different interests can help you decide when to visit Clunes and which holiday accommodation might suit your trip, without limiting your stay to just one theme.

Markets and recurring events

The Clunes Farmers’ Market and Clunes Makers’ Market are held on the second Sunday of every month. The Clunes Agricultural Show is scheduled for the third Saturday in November. These events differ both in frequency and character: the two markets return monthly, while the Agricultural Show is tied to a date in November. If you’d like to plan around one of these events, you can time your trip accordingly and use the event date as a guide before looking for holiday accommodation.

Discover more places

More destinations to explore: Heath Hill, Murrabit, Dinner Plain, Cohuna, Redesdale, Swanpool, Moe and Cowes.

For the broader travel overview: Victoria.