Heely,

Ballarat is in the central Victorian goldfields area, and not far from there is Castlemaine - Maldon - Daylesford - Newstead - an area which seems to have more folkies per head of population than any other area of Oz that I know of! I live in Sydney but visited Victoria in January. Your best bet is to go to the visitor's centre when you hit town - they should know what is going on while you are there. I bought several folk CD's from the visitor centre in Castlemaine. Take your warm woolies though, it gets very cold in Ballarat.
And it has one of the loveliest patchwork shops in Oz too....guess what I do when I'm not playing music...
Cheers
JennieG