This Victorian town was once scandalous and wild. Now it's having a revival

A silver-haired volunteer jumps from her seat as I ask about a famous children's book author and illustrator. She thumbs through a biography and props it open - not to whimsical doodles, but to a page of scantily clad women.

She's mistaken, I think, as she dutifully rummages through more material.

Norman Lindsay's iconic book, The Magic Pudding, features an ensemble of animals and stars a cranky - you guessed it - pudding that grows back when eaten.

The site of Lindsay's first family home here in Creswick, a former goldmining town between Ballarat and Daylesford, is just outside the tourist information centre I'm in.

I'm handed a copy of his novel Redheap and told this salacious story was banned for being obscene.

It's based on the scandals of a small country town, so it didn't take the residents of Creswick long to realise they were the source material.

Lindsay crusaded against the wowserism he believed was here; puritan beliefs that clashed with his avant garde personality.

His seemingly left-field choice to compose the enduring Australian children's book simply came from a bet that kids preferred reading about food more than fairies.

Outside, a walk along the acorn-crusted main street takes me to a French patisserie, Le Peche Gourmand. It translates to "the sin of gluttony"; wowsers despair.

Inside, I feel Lindsay's pudding goad me at the vitrine:

"Eat away, chew away, munch and bolt and guzzle, never leave the table until you are full up to the muzzle."

As I feast on an eclair, a religieuse, a tiramisu and a canele, the unrelenting stare of an envious child breaks my flow. She's told to turn around by her mother.

The bakery's owner, Tobin, wanders over. The tiramisu is his personal favourite, he says.

His partner Rida tells me the pair loved the desserts here so much, they decided to buy the business in 2025.

Perfection was to be preserved under the tech guru and nurse's new leadership.

"Even if we want to make changes, we can't, because we don't have experience in baking," Rida says with a chuckle.

Like Lindsay's "cut-an'-come-again" protagonist, Creswick is regenerating with the help of new faces who are ready to take a slice.

With a gluttonous glow and a happy belly, I plod across the road and enter the former town hall, now a museum.

Under its boom-style facade lies the town's working-class roots.

A commemoration for 22 men, many migrants from Ireland and England, sets an early tone. They were entombed when the New Australasian No. 2 Gold Mine collapsed in 1882.

Mining exhibits lay bare unforgiving work conditions, equipment and evidence of homesickness.

The men ate "what they could get", a guide says. The sensory nightmare of my still-sticky fingers would have been a dream for many.

By the 1920s, the mining industry had come to an end, having launched the area's engineering and manufacturing capabilities into the new century.

The town was primed for the arrival of Polish refugee, entrepreneur and philanthropist Paul Ryzowy.

He was "very switched on", my tour guide Margie says, as we walk through the Creswick Woollen Mills and its award-winning exhibit, A Very Fine Yarn.

Suspended sheets labelled "world's longest picnic rug" pique my interest.

Ryzowy's sheep and alpaca wool were as warm as his character, she continues, despite an escape from Nazi invasion.

He bought a former straw-thatching factory and in 1947, using his post-war resourcefulness, began producing blankets from recycled wool.

The business grew to collaborate with David Jones, produce Billabong picnic rugs and create CFA fire blankets.

It also entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2011 with a 100-metre-long rug that weighed 120 kilograms.

Today, the business is led by Ryzowy's grandchildren and continues with a retail focus.

As I mull over a pair of turquoise possum gloves, I'm struck by Creswick's ability to evolve, all the while keeping its past within arm's reach.

Enter the present-day Leaver's Hotel. Behind it, you'll find narrow hallways and a rickety staircase that once formed part of a brothel, but is now accommodation.

The Madame Suite and The Boudoir pay homage to its promiscuous past which might have even provided feedstock for Redheap.

The remainder of the former Leaver's Hotel building is now a speakeasy-style bar, restaurant and live music venue named Odessa.

Its decor seems to bridge both the Edwardian era and the Roaring Twenties.

But his true home was in nature, where he was free from the town's ever-scrupulous gaze.

There, he would have revelled in what's now the Creswick Regional Park and pioneering conservationist John La Gerche's post-mining reforestation efforts.

Young people still flock to the area, many for its pump track. Others head to the Djuwang Baring mountain bike trails that reward even the most novice of cyclists with sweeping views of St Georges Lake.

There, I'm reminded of Chantel's comments; there's something here for everyone.

In the spirit of Lindsay's wry sense of humour, the town he once depicted as dated is now a dynamic destination that embraces that portrayal as just one piece of its story.

Creswick has become the kind of thriving artisan hub he left in search for at age 16, and, like his magic pudding, it continues to resurrect and rejuvenate through new industry, attractions and faces.

The writer was a guest of Destination Central Victoria