G'day Ballarat! Victoria found itself a new premier this week, apparently an easier decision than settling Ballarat’s best-pie debate.

Closer to home, Ballarat gets its first Biodiversity Week, we say farewell to a major music festival, Family Day Care gets a three-year reprieve, and there’s a $600 spa giveaway plus a Black Hill house with room for almost everyone you know.

Have a great day!

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Ballarat’s first Biodiversity Week runs from Saturday 1 to Friday 7 August, with more than 40 walks, workshops, exhibitions and citizen-science activities across the city.

Locals can join bird surveys, explore hidden waterways, make beeswax wraps or photograph plants, animals and fungi for the citywide BioBlitz. The week also marks ten years of Woowookarung Regional Park, where a new 10,000-step trail will open on Wednesday 5 August before a community walk.

Most activities are free, though some require bookings. A fairly convincing reason to leave the heater, with the beanie still allowed.

Spilt Milk is leaving Ballarat for Geelong, where it will remain until at least 2030. But don’t worry, the festival calendar is hardly empty. Strummingbird lands at Victoria Park on Saturday 10 October with Post Malone headlining, followed by the Red Hot Summer Tour on Saturday 7 November. So there is still plenty of music coming our way.

A new youth mental health centre has opened in Durham Street, Newington, offering voluntary residential support for people aged 16 to 25. With ten private bedrooms, it provides an alternative to hospital admission or a place to recover afterwards, allowing more young people to receive specialist care in Ballarat rather than travelling to Melbourne.

The bright blue synthetic track at Ballarat’s new regional athletics centre is now complete, although runners will need to hold their starting positions a little longer.

Work is continuing on the clubhouse, undercover seating, amenities, lighting, parking and turf infield. The Mars Stadium scoreboard is also being reused at the site, with the full project due to finish later this year.

The Nordic Film Festival wraps up at Palace Regent this Sunday, with films from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden still screening across the weekend.

The program ranges from dark comedies and family dramas to Fjord, this year’s Palme d’Or winner, and a 60th-anniversary screening of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. Subtitles, snow and people making complicated life choices. Very Nordic.

The Council’s July meeting recap is in, with the decisions most likely to matter to locals, minus the pages of council paperwork:

The draft plan for City Oval would add female-friendly netball change rooms, new public toilets, better lighting, seating and paths, while giving the 1898 grandstand some long-overdue attention. A few tired buildings may also go.

Locals can see the plans and ask questions at City Oval Bowling Club on Tuesday 11 August from 4 pm to 5.30 pm. Feedback closes Sunday 30 August.

6🛏️ 3🛁 6🚗 | House | 1,106m²

Six bedrooms, multiple living zones, a brand-new kitchen, hydronic heating and an upstairs master suite with its own gas log fire make 11 Esmond Street anything but modest. Add a covered heated pool, six-car garaging, a workshop and 1,106 square metres beside the Yarrowee Trail. Black Hill living with the volume turned well up.

What do you reckon it’s asking?

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Until next Thursday!