Avoca Chinese Garden

The Avoca Chinese Garden is a beautiful Chinese heritage site in the Grampians.

Also known as the Garden of Fire and Water, the tranquil area is a great place for visitors to learn about Chinese culture.

Avoca Chinese Garden, Fire & Water, Pavilion, Wetland & Address, VIC

The garden features a spacious wooden pavilion, a pond, a variety of stunning flowers and plants, lush lawns, walking paths, and rocks. Kids enjoy climbing the big rocks in the garden, and it’s safe, as long as it’s dry. Cambridge Street, right outside the garden, features several park benches as well as a helpful information sign detailing the history of the Chinese in Avoca.

A small brick funerary was discovered in the cemetery in 2005. The burner was traditionally used for incinerating paper representations of money, clothing, and other possessions intended to serve those who have passed in their afterlife. Other items discovered here include fragile grave markers, and in each of them, there were inscriptions made in Chinese and covered by metal grills.

What’s curious is that the Chinese’s contribution to the small goldfields town in Victoria’s past was not known. It’s been suggested that the old saleyards located on the floodplains were the first burial sites for the Chinese, and the bodies were exhumed.

The cemetery has been repaired several times and maintained thanks to the help of the local townspeople. The Chinese area in the Avoca Chinese Garden is now visible, and several Crepe Myrtle and Ginko trees add to its magnificence. In 2012, a stone plaque was erected by the Chinese Memorial Foundation as a tribute to the Chinese who contributed to Victoria’s society.

Today, the Avoca Chinese Garden remains a notable heritage site. All the elements found within the garden represent various facets of Chinese culture. The water here represents the ever-changing, also known as the yin. The rocks symbolize the eternal, or yang. The architectural structures such as the gates, bridges, and pavilions, including the round moon gates, are all strategically placed to both reveal and conceal certain scenes. Last but not least, the plants symbolize the changing seasons.