The Tesselaar Tulip Festival is an annual flower festival in the Yarra Valley & Dandenong Ranges, just an hour’s drive from Melbourne. Every September & October, the Tesselaar Tulip Farm bursts into bloom more than a million colourful tulips, and attracts thousands of visitors for four weeks of flower festival splendour.
After living in Melbourne for nearly a decade, I visited the Tesselaar Tulip Festival this spring, for their Dutch Weekend. My Mum was visiting us, which was divine timing as tulips are Mum’s favourite flower, and we love visiting flower gardens together. We made a full day trip from Melbourne to the festival, which I’ve outlined below.
It was SO much fun, and even more beautiful than I expected. I really loved visiting the Tesselaar Tulip Festival, and strongly encourage you to get there this year before the festival ends on October 13th. It’s a great thing to do if you’re visiting Melbourne in spring, in September or October.
Tesselaar Tulip Festival 2024
In 2024, the Tesselaar Tulip Festival runs from 14 September-13 October. Every weekend of the festival has a different theme!
- September 14-15: Turkish Weekend
- September 16-20: Spring Fever Week
- September 20-21: Dutch Weekend
- September 23-26: Children’s Week
- September 27-29: Food, Wine & Jazz Weekend
- September 30-October 4: Children’s Week
- October 5-October 6: Rock the Fields
- October 7-October 11:Spring Fever Week
- October 12-October 13: Irish Weekend
The festival has a simple but impressive set up. At the entrance, there are a number of pop up shops and some food stalls. The main attraction is the field of flowers, with several enormous displays of stunning spring tulips, in a range of varieties.
At the other end of the farm, is a collection of more pop up food stalls and a festival stage, where music & performances are held.
Dutch Weekend
The Founders of Tesselaar Tulip Farm, Cees and Johanna Tesselaar, emigrated from the Netherlands on their wedding day! They brought tulip bulbs in their suitcase, and the Dutch weekend celebrates their Dutch roots.
We visited on the Dutch Weekend, which I absolutely loved because of the Dutch snacks!
Appelflappen – a sweet pastry filled with apples, apricots, currants and raisins
Bitterballen – a popular Dutch snack, of a crunch breadcrumb outer with beef ragout filling
Frikandellen – a historic 17th century recipe, of spiced Dutch sausages
Oliebollen – a sweet snack, very similar to a doughnut
Tips for visiting the Tesselaar Tulip Festival
Buy Tickets in Advance
The Tesselaar Tulip Festival is extremely popular, so it is a good idea to buy your tickets online in advance. It also means you’ll get into the festival faster when you arrive.
Arrive Early
You don’t need to arrive at opening, but I’d advise arriving before 12pm. We arrived at around 10:30 am, and had no trouble finding a park, and didn’t find it too crowded when we arrived. It was much busier at the festival and in the carpark when we left around midday, and I was glad we arrived in the morning.
It’s Muddy!
While the phrase “April showers bring May flowers” doesn’t quite line up with our southern hemisphere seasons, the principle remains true. Spring is often wet and rainy in Melbourne, and Tesselaar Tulip Festival is on a working flower farm, so it is likely going to be muddy.
Wear shoes that are easy to clean or you don’t mind getting muddy. It would be a perfect occasion for gumboots! There are paths down either side of the flower farm, but the paths to get up to the flowers get very muddy.
I had dressed more for the winery than the festival, not thinking about the potential mud, so was wearing high ankle boots and white jeans (!). I was actually very lucky to be wearing high ankle boots rather than sneakers, because the height of the shoes kept my white jeans off the ground, and miraculously, mud free. My ankle boots were easy to wipe clean, but my Mum will have to put her white sneakers in the wash – they were brown by the end of the day!
How to get to the Tesselaar Tulip Festival
By Car
Tesselaar Tulip Festival is in Silvan, a town in the Dandenong Ranges. The easiest way to get there is to self drive, which is a 60 minute drive from Melbourne. This also gives you a bit of flexibility for making a full day of it, and visiting Sassafrass in the Dandenongs or some nearby wineries.
Bus to Tesselaar Tulip Festival
On weekends, the Tesselaar Tulip Festival charter a bus to the tulip festival, departing from Lilydale Train Station. You can find the bus timetable on their website.
Day Trip Ideas for the Tesselaar Tulip Festival
When we visited the Tesselaar Tulip Festival on a day trip from Melbourne, we made a day of it by adding a coffee stop at a cute cafe in the Dandenongs before the festival, and having lunch at a nearby winery after the tulip festival.
Ripe Cafe Sassafrass
Ripe Cafe is a super cute cafe in the heart of Sassafrass, a charming village in the hills of the Dandenongs. Ripe has a cosy indoor area, with a roaring fireplace, as well as a beautiful covered deck surrounded by trees. The cabinet here is to die for!
Tesselaar Tulip Festival
We visited the festival from around 10am, it was a good time to arrive as it wasn’t yet too overcrowded. Because we bought tickets online in advance, getting in was very quick.
Sir Paz Estate
There are two wineries near Tesselaar, Seville Estate and Sir Paz Estate. We’d visited Seville Estate just two weeks prior to our trip, so this time we visited Sir Paz Estate. Both wineries have beautiful views of the rolling hills of the Dandenongs and the Yarra Valley.
Sir Paz Estate has a covered deck, and offers a casual dining menu with woodfired pizzas. The food here is delicious, the views are gorgeous and you can do a wine tasting alongside your meal. Highly recommend!
Seville Estate also has a restaurant, which has been recently renovated and has a slightly more formal menu.
Hello! I’m an Australian travel blogger, living in Melbourne, Australia. I grew up in Brisbane, studied in Paris, lived & worked in New York City and now live in Melbourne, Australia.
I love sharing specific and useful recommendations, itineraries and guides for the most beautiful things to see, do, experience & eat wherever I go.
My favourite travel destinations are Australia, New York City & surrounds, France, Greece & Japan, but I’m always excited to explore somewhere new!
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