Towns in Australia

Exploring Australia, town by town

Diggers Rest VIC

Diggers Rest

Postcode: 3427

Diggers Rest is a town northwest of Melbourne Airport near Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria, Australia, along the Calder Freeway. It is part of the Local Government Areas of Shire of Melton and City of Hume.

Diggers Rest began life as a stopping place on the road to the Bendigo goldfields. Caroline Chisholm started a women’s shelter in the area. The town grew in the 1870s and 1880s and became a postal village with a general store, post office, weighbridge, mechanics’ institute and a chaff mill.

It is famed for being the location of the first controlled powered flight of an aeroplane undertaken in Australia. The flight was performed by Harry Houdini in 1910.

Diggers Rest contains a general store, a primary school and a CFA fire station, along with three large recreation reserves. Sporting groups in Diggers Rest include Diggers Rest Football Club who play in the Riddell District Football League.

Other facilities in the Diggers Rest area include the Holden Flora and Fauna Reserve, Animal Land Childrens Farm and SPSK Jadran, a Slovenian social club which services nearby St Albans and Keilor.