Map M3 - Bendigo Metropolitan area

This map covers the metropolitan region of the Victorian provincial city of Bendigo. Bendigo is a small city with a population of less than 100,000 - but it thinks its much bigger! It was the centre of Australia's gold rush in the 1850's and 1860's - its where all the Californians went when the gold ran out there! In fact Bendigo is named after San Francisco:- the name given to San Francisco by the Chinese diggers was Gum San (meaning Gold Mountain), and their name for Bendigo was Dai Gum San (New Gold Mountain).

Bendigo's architecture hints at the phenomenal wealth extracted from the soil below. It is possibly the most impressive Victorian-era city of its size anywhere! Though most of the gold mining stopped early in the 20th Century, but it is said there is as much gold remaining in the ground as was ever extracted, and today there is significant renaissant modern-era gold mining activity far underground.

Until 1972 Bendigo possessed a wonderful little electric street tramway network. Although it was closed in that year (the last tram network closure in Australia), all the trams and almost half the track was retained as a tourist tramway, and now operates hourly or more frequent tours every day under the tile Bendigo Talking Trams. There is even a cafe tram aboard which you can enjoy a meal as you are taken on a tour through this elegant city.

V/line operate regular passenger trains from Bendigo station to Melbourne. A few trains stop at the suburban station of Kangaroo Flat. One train daily runs Northward to Swan Hill, and serves another subrban station at Eaglehawk on the way. Two trains each week (Friday and Sunday) run north-eastward from Bendigo to Echuca.