Lose yourself in cultural discovery

Melbourne has always been on the cutting edge of Australian culture and art. The National Gallery of Victoria’s two galleries, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square and NGV International on St Kilda Road, focus on home-grown and imported art respectively.

Just a Stone’s Throw from Melbourne, Victoria’s regional galleries are just as famous. Among the Geelong Gallery’s 4000 works are Frederick McCubbin’s heart-rending A Bush Burial and Eugene von Guerard’s spectacular View of Geelong, 1856, but the gallery also enjoys strong collections of contemporary Australian art, colonial silver, British art and European ceramics.

Travel onto Ballarat, where The Ballarat Fine Art Gallery is especially rich in 19th and early 20th century Australian art, with works by McCubbin, von Guerard, Walter Withers, Arthur Streeton, Rupert Bunny, Roberts, Emanuel Phillips Fox, Louis Buvelot and the Lindsays, whose somewhat controversial fame is celebrated with a special exhibition.

Discover the icons
Along with Ned Kelly and the Eureka Stockade, the Convent Gallery in Daylesford is a historic icon. Built in the 19th century as a nunnery, it now displays and sells works of art, much of it produced in the local area.

Continue your cultural discovery in the Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges at Montsalvat - an eclectic architectural and artistic treasure on the fringe of Melbourne. A village of buildings constructed of rammed earth, stone and materials gathered from demolition sites and wreckers’ yards throughout Melbourne in the 1930s, it is now home to artists and musicians.

Heronswood on the Mornington Peninsula is a historic building turned to new pursuits. Heronswood was built around 1871 of granite hewn from nearby Arthurs Seat and limestone from the southern end of the peninsula, and its two hectares of gardens are spectacular.

Culture in the wild
For a dose of nature with your culture, travel on and explore the Rhyll Wetlands at Phillip Island. Boasting wetlands that are a significant habitat for resident and migrating shorebirds, you might see the migratory Eastern Curlews or Bar-tailed Godwits, which fly up to 12,000kms one-way on their annual pilgrimages.