The Golden Dragon Museum tells the story of the Chinese community that shaped Bendigo during and after the gold rush — a story largely absent from the conventional gold rush narrative. Chinese miners arrived in their tens of thousands in the 1850s and 1860s, many settling permanently and building one of the most significant Chinese-Australian communities in the country.
The centrepiece is Sun Loong, one of the world's longest imperial dragons at over 100 metres, still used in the annual Easter Festival parade. Alongside him sits Loong, his older predecessor, who arrived from China in 1892 and is believed to be the oldest imperial dragon in the world still in ceremonial use. Seeing both dragons laid out in the museum gives a strong sense of the scale and ceremony involved in the parade.
The museum also covers the history of Chinese settlement in Bendigo in considerable depth, with artefacts, photographs, and stories that complicate the standard gold rush narrative in interesting ways. It is run by the Bendigo Chinese community and is a genuine act of cultural preservation rather than a tourist attraction.
Address: 1–11 Bridge Street, Bendigo
Hours: Daily 9:30am–5pm
Admission: Adults around $15