Minyip Accommodation, Hotels, Tours & Information

Minyip

It is not unusual for first-time visitors to experience a sense of deja vu when they first set foot in the small Wimmera town of Minyip. Chances are they have seen the historic streetscape before - on television. Minyip, 305km north-west of Melbourne, was the setting for The Flying Doctors series and a Main Street sign reminds us that the Senior Citizens' Club once doubled for the Cooper Crossing Flying Doctor Base. A lot of history has been absorbed in some of the town's buildings but none has a more interesting background than St John's Lutheran Church. The original church - built in 1875 by Lutherans who'd fled persecution in their native Silesia and Prussia - was lost in a violent storm in 1889 and rebuilt in the same year. In 1935 the wooden church was lifted on to a wagon and hauled by steam traction engine to its present site. Some of the older, Main Street buildings - including the post office and the historical research centre which occupies the old Guardian newspaper office - date back to the 1880s.