Kelly Country - Travel Victoria

Benalla is a pretty little place on the Broken River. This river was dammed in the 1970s creating an wide waterway known as Lake Benalla.

On the western bank of the river are the restful botanical gardens, home to an art gallery, the Sir Weary Dunlop memorial statue and Benalla's famous rose gardens with over 2,000 varieties of colourful roses.

The eastern bank of Lake Benalla is lined with a network of bicycle and walking tracks which meander along through the several islands that exist in the lake.

To find out more about the life and legend of Ned Kelly visit the museum in Benalla. Shudder at Ned's bloody sash, worn under his armour at the final battle with police.

The Benalla Costume & Pioneer Museum, managed entirely by volunteer members of the Benalla & District Historical Society, hosts major exhibitions, a costume collection dating from 1770, local historical artefacts and a permanent Ned Kelly story display.

Two of Benalla's famous sons - surgeon and war hero Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop, and Captain Hector Waller, RAN - are remembered in the Services Room. The tea room and associated display is named after a third 'famous son' - Michael Joseph Savage, first Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand, who was born at Tatong near Benalla.

There are 21 cellar doors in Rutherglen!

A huge variety of wines are produced here in the combination of great sunshine, cool nights, warm days and long dry autumns. Muscat and Tokay grapes reach high levels of sweetness and flavour, and the Rutherglen reds such as Shiraz and Durif develop into great cellaring wines and vintage tawny ports.

Many of the great winemaking houses of Rutherglen sprang up in the gold rush days of the mid nineteenth century and are still owned and run by the fourth, fifth and sixth generations of the original family.