Ballan, Victoria

When I drove into Ballan and saw the ‘Watch for Koalas’ sign in the middle of a residential neighbourhood, I knew I was going to like the place. Anyone who looks after these furry little Australian icons gets a pat on the back from me. However, it should be noted early on, that despite looking in every tree I passed, I never spotted a single koala myself.

My visit to this little town, 78 kilometres northwest of Melbourne, was a fleeting one – but not quite as fleeting as the first time I discovered it on a trip to Geelong a year before. I had liked the look of the place then, as I flashed through on my way south, but I didn’t have time to stop. And I was reluctant to visit during the searing hot summer because I had to drive through several forested areas to get there and I was apprehensive about bush fires.

 It was early when I arrived this time – around 9am. Not much was happening. The streets were quiet. I graciously blamed that on the hour of the day, although I suspect not a lot DOES happen in Ballan. It became obvious fairly quickly that it is something of a rural service town – one of those small places the farmers come to for their seeds and manures, their tractor repairs and such, followed by a quick nip into the local agents for a paper and perhaps a Lotto ticket, followed by a quick ale (and maybe a casserole lunch) at the local pub. And like most Aussie towns, Ballan certainly had more than one of those.

As a footnote to that paragraph, many of the farmers in the area are descendants of members of the Australian Defence Forces, who settled their families in the wider Ballarat district after the war.

I probably could have walked around the whole of the township in an hour or so but I chose to drive – after all, I had gauged fairly quickly that unless you had chosen to live there, Ballan wasn’t the sort of place that commanded a lingering visit. That said, it does have a clutch of wonderful old buildings and ‘wonderful old buildings’ always set my imagination to wondering about life in the early days – who lived there and why? How much they had paid to build their handsome dwelling, who lived in it now? Where did they work? Were they one of the hundreds who now commute to Melbourne by train to work every day?

Located near the Werribee River (I never even saw that!), Ballan was established in the 1830s when one Robert von Steiglitz settled in the area. He named the new town that sprang up in 1838, after Ballan in Ireland. Gold was discovered in 1851 and the town’s population more than doubled in the years thereafter. The Ballan Hotel in fact, dates back to that gold rush era.

The first Mechanics Institute was built in 1861 but the current building sits on land that was purchased in 1881 and the building, complete with a new 1922 façade, now houses a hall and library.

 There was another population boost in the 1980s and 90s and with that came new amenities – a hospital, new shops, schools, cafes and more. And by 2016, the Census reported a population of 2985. Whether it has declined or increased since then is hard to tell but there is a lot of new housing (suburbs of awfulness), so I suspect the trend for Melbournites to move out of the city to the quieter, cheaper confines of a small Victorian town on a main commuting line has continued here.

It seems though, that Ballan is a town large enough to have an industrial estate, AND a uniformed meter reader. And judging by the posters around town advertising groups and classes, a lot DOES go on here – from quilting groups and assorted other stitchery to fitness groups, community luncheons, baby groups, floral arranging (single session $50), Hatha yoga, art classes, high teas and belly dancing classes.

For all its quietness, there was something about Ballan that appealed to me – some intangible that ‘dwelt’ in the wide, tree-lined streets, the pretty old houses, the quaint old public buildings and the smiling residents – the few I saw at least. I might not choose to live there at this particular point in my life, but I would certainly visit again.