Tesselaar Tulip Festival | Before you visit | Silvan Victoria | Melbourne | Exploring Australia |

Tesselaar Tulip Festival .... I will start of by briefing how the festival started here in Melbourne. The festival is held in Silvan, Victoria every spring since 1954. It has become one of iconic tourist attraction in Victoria, Australia with more than 120 varieties of tulips are shown on a 55-acre farm.
This tulip farm was initiated by a couple of Dutch immigrants, Cees and Johanna Tesselaar. They arrived in Melbourne at 1939 and started to grow tulips, gladioli and daffodils on their land. After purchasing a bigger land in Silvan, they grew more tulip bulbs and it attracted people to stop by on their property and admire their fields. At 1954, Cees and Johanna decided to publicly open the farm with silver coin donation for Red Cross Australia. In 2017, around 900.000 tulip bulbs were planted using modern machinery and 80.000 of bulbs still planted traditionally by hand. This tulip festival has been more commercialised by including music, food and wine to attract more visitors

How to reach
The best way to get to the #Tesselaar #Tulip Festival is to get a group of family and friends together and take a scenic drive through the Dandenong Ranges to the Tesselaar Flower Farm, which is located within 60 minutes of #Melbourne. There is ample parking space around the area for your car.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT
Public transport is another alternative method for getting to the Tesselaar Tulip Festival for people who do not have access to a vehicle.
1. Board a Train from a Melbourne station to Lilydale Station
2. At Lilydale Station catch the Tesselaar Tulip Festival shuttle bus (which departs 3-5 minutes after the train arrives at the Lilydale station. The 20 minute trip costs $3 for a return ticket, Children U16 Free.
3. The first bus departs Lilydale Station at 10am and approximately every 30 minutes thereafter.
4. The last bus returning to Lilydale Station departs the festival at 5.30pm.

The entry fee for the festival is 29$ per person however children under 16 yrs are free. This year the festival started on 14 September and ends on 13 October. Every week has a different theme during the festival. The week we visited was celebrating food , wine and jazz weekend. Entry during this week included complimentary wine tastings from some amazing boutique wineries. There was also ample choice for food options.