Diggers Rest, Victoria 4.54

Diggers Rest is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 33km north-west from Melbourne's Central Business District. Its local government areas are the Cities of Hume and Melton. At the 2016 Census, Diggers Rest had a population of 2,763.Diggers Rest lies on the Old Calder Highway, near the Calder Freeway.HistoryDiggers Rest began life as a stopping place on the road to the Bendigo goldfields and the Post Office opened on 18 June 1860. 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. The Diggers Rest Hotel was built by 1854, and later enlarged, and became an important stopping place on the route to the goldfields. It was severely damaged by fire in 2012.Diggers Rest is sometimes erroneously referred to as being famous 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. This was however preceded by 2 other flights. The only cafe in town is named in his honour.To the north of Diggers Rest township within the locality is the former township known as Aitken's Gap, The Gap or Buttlejorrk.