Sugarloaf Creek, Victoria


Sugarloaf Creek is a pastoral region in central Victoria, Australia. It is located on the Sugarloaf Creek Road in the Shire of Mitchell local government area, from the state capital, Melbourne. At the 2016 Australian Census Sugarloaf Creek had a population of 257. The Sugarloaf Creek itself is a tributary of the Goulburn River in Australia.
The traditional owners of Sugarloaf Creek are the Taungurong people, a part of the Kulin nation that inhabited a large portion of central Victoria including Port Phillip Bay and its surrounds.
Sugarloaf Creek has the distinction of being the site of the first European settlement in inland Victoria, a sheep station, and the generator of the second and third ever European settlements in inland Victoria at Carlsruhe and Kilmore.
Charles Hotson Ebden and Charles Bonney drove 10,000 sheep from Mungabareena station on the Murray on 1 March 1837 and reached Sugarloaf Creek station on about 14 March 1837. They set up their first sheep station adjacent to the intersection of Seymour Pyalong Road with Tallarook Pyalong Road, 37°05’04" S; 145°02’41" E.
Ebden shifted 9000 of the sheep to the second settlement in inland Victoria, Carlsruhe, on 26 May 1837. Charles Bonney in turn drove 1000 of the sheep to Kilmore and set up the third settlement in inland Victoria, another sheep station, on about 17 June 1837.
William Hamilton took up the Sugarloaf Creek station after Ebden and remained there for the rest of his life. Sugarloaf Creek remains a thriving pastoral region.