Daylesford is a spa town located in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, within the Shire of Hepburn, Victoria, Australia, approximately 108 kilometres north-west of Melbourne. First established in 1852 as a gold-mining town, today Daylesford has a population of 2,548 as of the 2016 census. As one of Australia’s few spa towns, Daylesford is a notable tourist destination. The town’s numerous spas, restaurants and galleries are popular alongside the many gardens and country-house-conversion styled bed and breakfasts. The broader area around the town, including Hepburn Springs to the north, is known for its natural spring mineral spas and is the location of over 80 per cent of Australia's effervescent mineral water reserve. It is also the filming location for the third season of The Saddle Club, and scenes from the 2004 film Love's Brother. History Prior to European settlement the area was occupied by the Djadja Wurrung people. Pastoralists occupied the Jim Crow and Upper Loddon districts following white settlement in 1838. A farming protectorate was established at Franklinford, but was short-lived and by 1863 most of the survivors had been moved to Corranderk station at Healesville. In 1848, Irish immigrant John Egan took up land on the future town site then known as Wombat Flat. He and a party of searchers found alluvial gold in 1851 on ground now covered by Lake Daylesford initiating the local gold rush. Other finds quickly followed. With the finding of alluvial gold a town site was surveyed and founded in 1852. Between 1851, and when Daylesford was declared a municipality and formed its first Council in 1859. The population had risen to approximately 7000 Men and women of all nationalities came to this town of muddy-streets and numerous hotels. Initially called Wombat, it was renamed Daylesford. Agricultural activity quickly followed the miners, and many Chinese miners quickly turned to market gardening. The early Europeans, particularly Italians, established vineyards. In 1859, around 3400 diggers were on the local diggings. The post office opened on 1 February 1858 and a telegraph office was opened in August 1859. Daylesford was declared a municipality in 1859 and a borough in the early 1860s. By the 1860s, the alluvial gold was exhausted and a shift to quartz reef mining began. This continued on and off into the 1930s. In later years, Daylesford became associated as being a fashionable spa resort, but fell out of favour in