Ararat is a western Victorian goldfields town with a sharper identity than most highway stops between Ballarat and the Grampians. Its foundation story runs through Chinese miners heading inland during the 1850s gold rush, and its darker nineteenth-century buildings later became some of Victoria's most unsettling institutional heritage.
The town's best pair of sights are Gum San Chinese Heritage Centre and J Ward. Together they tell two very different stories: migration and gold on one side, incarceration and mental health history on the other. Neither feels generic.
Ararat also has a useful landscape setting. One Tree Hill Lookout lifts you above town for views toward the Grampians, Mount Langi Ghiran, and the plains, which helps explain why this inland junction has always felt like a meeting point.