Melliodora Permaculture Tour: Hepburn, Australia (April 2026) - Apr 2026

📅 April 2026 | 📍 Hepburn, Australia | 🏷️ tour

The Permaculture Tour at Melliodora offers an immersive, full-day experience into one of Australia's premier examples of cool-temperate climate permaculture. Hosted by permaculture co-originator David Holmgren and his partner Su Dennett at their one-hectare property in the Victorian central highlands, this tour is ideal for anyone interested in sustainable living, small-scale farming, and regenerative design principles. Melliodora, transformed from a blackberry-infested wasteland in 1985 into a thriving demonstration site, showcases how permaculture can yield an abundance of food, energy, and other resources from a compact space. Attendees will explore the passive solar house, mixed food gardens, orchards, dams, livestock integration, and creek revegetation efforts, gaining practical insights into maintaining and developing these systems over decades. This is particularly valuable for owners of large town blocks or small rural allotments, but the underlying principles—such as zoning, sector analysis, and multifunctional design—are applicable to any scale, even urban backyards. Participants learn how to create beautiful, productive environments that mimic natural patterns, fostering household economies that reduce reliance on external inputs. The tour includes morning and afternoon teas, with attendees encouraged to bring their own lunch or visit local cafes in Hepburn or Daylesford. A shorter 'Garden Only Tour' option starts at 2:00 pm with afternoon tea. David Holmgren, a global permaculture pioneer, and Su Dennett provide personal guidance, sharing decades of real-world application. For permaculture practitioners, this event is invaluable as it bridges theory and practice, offering inspiration for retrofitting existing properties, enhancing biodiversity, and achieving self-sufficiency in challenging climates. It's a rare chance to see a mature, evolving permaculture system in action, sparking ideas for water harvesting, perennial cropping, and integrated animal systems that boost soil health and resilience. Whether you're a beginner seeking foundational knowledge or an experienced designer refining strategies, the tour equips you with actionable takeaways to apply immediately, contributing to broader goals of environmental regeneration and community sustainability.