Hidden Lanes - Ballarat & Victoria Tours

10/10/2026

We love misty rain, rugged gorges, and ancient landscapes ... and a good thing too, as Ballarat has them all in spades! 💦🏔️
Lal Lal Falls was looking particularly dramatic when we dropped in with family visiting from Indonesia a couple of weeks ago. Spring in the Central Highlands can be wonderfully atmospheric.
But this chasm isn’t just beautiful, it holds an ancient story that goes back to the creation of the world.
Lal Lal, which means “falling waters” in the Wadawurrung language, is a place of profound significance to the Wadawurrung people. In creation stories, the falls are closely connected with Bundjil, the ancestral Creator, who shaped the land and waterways and returned here to rest before taking his place among the stars. ✨
It’s a beautiful reminder that some of the most extraordinary places around Ballarat have stories stretching back to the very beginning of time.

01/10/2026

Bridge Mall has seen a few things.

Gold Rush mayhem, streets awash with sludge, devastating fires, and floods so bad that people had to paddle boats down the street.

It’s produced some remarkable people — among them, a theatrical trailblazing feminist and a pioneering widowed mother who laid the foundations of a Ballarat retail dynasty.

This October, we’re bringing some of those stories back to life with A Bridge in Time, a 90-minute history walking tour.

The tour includes a coffee break and an art print to take home.

$35 Seniors | $49 Adults
Various dates throughout October for Seniors Month.

Bookings are now open: https://hiddenlanes.com/bridge-time-tour-ballarat

18/09/2026

GOLD HAS BEEN SPOTTED AT RACV GOLDFIELDS RESORT.

This afternoon we’re launching the spring edition of our Goldfields Treasure Hunt — a family adventure walk packed with hidden gold, a nature scavenger hunt, curious stories, and even a real gold mine to discover.

It’s part treasure hunt, part history adventure!

⛏️RACV Goldfields Resort
⛏️Today — Saturday 19 September
⛏️3:30pm
⛏️ 60 minutes

We’ll also be back on Saturday 26 September and Saturday 3 October.

Bring the kids and bring your best detective skills - the weather’s looking perfect and we reckon it’ll a ripsnorting good time! 😉😁

Bookings via the QR code on the poster.

13/09/2026

Today I had the pleasure of showing Beryl and her daughter Mandy around historic Ballarat.

Born in the 1930s, Beryl spent her early years here and, remarkably, lived on the same street and attended the same primary school as Emma … only about 50 years earlier!

I soon realised that Beryl had actually been a child when some of the Ballarat stories I was telling took place. It’s not every day you get to share history with someone who has lived through so much of it! 🫡☺️

Thank you, Beryl and Mandy, for such a lovely afternoon. It was a genuine pleasure and privilege … and Beryl, you’re not looking a day over 95! 😉

09/09/2026

On the tail end of a long, damp Ballarat winter, we’re dreaming of warmer days! With its serene swans, lovely lawns, sublime statues, kaleidoscopic colour, foaming fountains, fragrant flowers and soaring sequoias, the Ballarat Botanic Gardens does autumn particularly well.

03/09/2026

It’s been a long cold winter and we’ve been quiet on Instagram, but we’ve been buuuuussssyyyyyy!

Winter brought wonderful guests to explore Ballarat with us on City Tales, our Food & Gin Tours, plus the Wintertide by Candlelight evening at Craig’s Royal hotel. The event was magical and a huge success - we’ll be announcing more historically themed immersive events soon!

Jarrod also ventured further afield with his Mum to the extraordinary Murtoa Stick Shed. Built in 1941 as an emergency wartime wheat store, its cathedral-like interior is supported by 560 unmilled mountain ash poles sourced from the Dandenongs and Otway Ranges (their gift store stocks custom Hidden Lanes Stick Shed tea towels too).

We also caught up with our favourite Ballarat history “influencer” recently, on a City Tales tour - he’s a bit cheeky. 😄

We’re currently brainstorming and planning future history-themed events including music, dance, murder-mysteries, historic menus … let us know if you have any suggestions! ☺️ We’d love to hear what you think.

22/08/2026

We’re extremely saddened that Aradale Lunatic Asylum has been closed. It’s terrible news for our good friends at Eerie Tours and it’s heartbreaking for the tourism and hospitality community in Ararat. It’s a waste of a world-class tourism resource. We hope the State government can sort this out.

ARADALE ASYLUM CLOSED❗️❗️

We are devastated to announce that Aradale Asylum has been closed due to concerns relating to it's upkeep. We have, and will continue to, advocate for the maintenance of the heritage site. This is a loss for our guides. Our community. Our business partners. Our families. Our friends.... We won't give up, we've been through this before and survived 15 years of fighting to keep the asylum alive. We have suspended all bookings and will begin to process refunds as the situation develops..We appreciate your support during this time. Please share, like and comment to spread the word.

Thank you, from Nathaniel Buchanan, Emilee Mclean and all of us at Eerie Tours.

Media enquiries: [email protected]

16/08/2026

Whether you like the rich storytelling and insight of guided tours or the freedom and flexibility of self-guided tours, we've got you covered!

Head to bit.ly/3S0knBj to check out the new tours page on the Visit Ballarat website.

📸 Hidden Lanes - Ballarat & Victoria Tours at the Ballaarat Mechanics' Institute

27/07/2026

25/07/2026

You haven’t heard from us in a while as we’ve been in Sydney doing some training with Visit Victoria and pitching our product to Visit Australia and international travel agents. It’s been a chaotic whirlwind couple of days, but also magic. We finally had a chance the last couple of days to really get out at pound the pavement, exploring Sydney, Woolloomooloo, and Redfern. We caught up with family and old friends - and we made some new friends too. But Sydney, oh Sydney, how beautiful you are!

The Rocks Walking Tours Cafe Me We Melbourne, Australia Visit Sydney ▫️ 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓔𝓪𝓼𝓽 𝓢𝔂𝓭𝓷𝓮𝔂 𝓗𝓸𝓽𝓮𝓵 ▫️