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Clunes – Melbourne’s Bookish Day Out

Every year, Clunes (a country drive from Melbourne) hosts Booktown, its secondhand and vintage book fair. Throw in retro recyclables shops and an amazing bakery and we’re sold.

Booktown, Clunes is a huge weekend event when every spare tent, court house and hall is turned over to secondhand books and old magazines. This is the place to come for collectors’ items, but also $5 bargains. You can wander Service Street, Bailey Street, Fraser Street, Purcell Street and Templeton Street for hours (we found a stash of Life magazines from the 1960s for $5 each and got happily lost).

After that, enjoy a glass of award-winning wine at Mount Beckworth Wines (46 Fraser Street) and just a few doors down, delicious home-made egg and bacon pies, vanilla slices or apple cake at O’Haras Cafe and Bakery.

The retro recyclables are something else too. You’ll find everything from funky maxi dresses to farm equipment on Fraser Street.  You’ll find everything from an ancient thermos to 1950s furniture.

The books are the thing, though –and the classic Australian newspapers and magazines. Booktown is held at the start of Autumn in Clunes every year. Drive if you can – otherwise, it’s a bus connection to Ballarat by train from Melbourne! For more information on future events, see http://clunesbooktown.com.au/

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