Flowerdale and Hazeldene

Flowerdale is a rural district and township 65 km north-east of Melbourne. It is reached by crossing the Kinglake Ranges, and is about mid-way between Kinglake West and Yea. Hazeldene is 4 km south of Flowerdale.

Flowerdale is situated near the King Parrot Creek, which rises north of the Great Dividing/Kinglake Range and flows northwards to the Goulburn River. The King Parrot Creek valley attracted settlement in the late 1830s, and the Flowerdale pastoral run was taken up in 1839. The original holder of the run was Farquhar Mackenzie, grandson of Sir Alexander Mackenzie of Gairloch, Scotland, east of the Isle of Skye. There is a Flowerdale Valley at the head of Gair Loch.

Settlement became sufficiently concentrated for a school to be opened in 1892, but was mostly confined to within a few kilometres of the King Parrot Creek and along the few tracks in the district. As a result the Flowerdale district has extended to localities south and east, Hazeldene and Break O'Day respectively.

Hazeldene and Flowerdale are less than 20 km across the Dividing Range which scarcely exceeds 500 metres above sea level where the Whittlesea-Yea Road crosses it. The area is within commuting distance of metropolitan Melbourne. On 7 February 2009 an exceptionally fierce bushfire engulfed the Kinglake Ranges, destroying over 220 houses and taking 13 lives in Flowerdale/Hazeldene. The school, hotel and general store were spared, but the community centre was lost. Many homeless residents were accommodated in a temporary village in the Yea recreation reserve. In 2014 Flowerdale primary school had 42 pupils.

Flowerdale's census populations have been: