Talbot

You'd never believe the sleepy hamlet of Talbot, 40 minutes drive north-west of Ballarat, was once a chaos of gold diggers, dozens of stores and businesses, and 100 pubs and grog shanties.

Today, the influx of crowds comes to find a different kind of gold, every third Sunday of the month. That's when more than 2000 people hit town for the Talbot Farmers' Market, regarded as one of Victoria's finest. But that's not all.

Talbot's colonial treasures include Victoria's oldest functioning post office, the Talbot Museum in the former Primitive Methodist Church, a public library, the town hall, magnificent early bank buildings and the historic former court house. And don't forget the 1859 Courthouse Hotel.