Five day-drives in five directions: gold towns, the Macedon Ranges, book towns, a river gorge and Bendigo
Hepburn Springs sits in the middle of a lot of good driving. Every loop below leaves from the motel door, fits in a day with stops, and gets you back for a soak at the Bathhouse. Fill up in Daylesford first, since there is no petrol in Hepburn Springs, and treat the times as driving only; the stops are the point. Days and hours of the places named here shift with the season, so check the ones you are counting on before you go.
North: The Gold Towns
About 120km and two and a half hours of driving, on the Midland Highway and its side roads.
- Mount Franklin - Ten minutes up the highway. Turn in and follow the road as it spirals up the outside of the old volcano and drops into the crater floor, a picnic ground ringed by pines. Five minutes for the view is enough, or 45 for the rim walk.
- Vaughan Springs - A Parks Victoria day visitor area where Fryers Creek meets the Loddon River: mineral water pumps, a swimming hole, and lawns under big old trees. The last stretch of road is gravel.
- Guildford - Pull over for the Big Tree, a river red gum on the corner of Fryers and Ballarat Streets that is more than 500 years old and 34 metres tall, then the 1850s pub across the road.
- Castlemaine - The Mill (an 1875 woollen mill full of makers, food and a brewery), the Art Museum in its 1931 art deco building with free entry, and the 1860 Botanical Gardens opposite. Our Castlemaine guide has the full day. (read)
- Maldon - Twenty minutes on: Australia’s first Notable Town, its main street barely changed since the 1860s, the Beehive Chimney above it, and the Victorian Goldfields Railway to Castlemaine on Sundays, Wednesdays and public holidays.
- Mount Alexander - On the way home, the sealed Joseph Young Drive climbs to Langs Lookout and Dog Rocks above Harcourt’s apple orchards. Applefest is the Labour Day weekend in March.
East: The Macedon Ranges
About 140km and three hours of driving, out through Trentham and home the same way.
- Trentham - Thirty minutes. Trentham Falls first, 32 metres over basalt columns and the biggest single drop in central Victoria, a short walk from the car park. Then the town, which has more good bakeries per head than it has any right to.
- Kyneton - Piper Street is the oldest streetscape in the district and now its best lunch: bluestone shopfronts full of restaurants, a distillery and homewares. The Botanic Gardens run down to the Campaspe behind it.
- Malmsbury - Ten minutes north for the 1860 railway viaduct, five bluestone arches over the Coliban, best seen from the Botanic Gardens beneath it.
- Hanging Rock - The 6 million year old rock from the film. Entry is per car, the summit walk is 1.8km return and moderately steep, and the trail closes in high winds and on extreme fire days. The picnic races run on New Year’s Day and Australia Day.
- Mount Macedon - A short climb to the Memorial Cross, 21 metres of it since 1935, with a 200 metre sealed path to the lookout. The hill’s great private gardens open to visitors in season and Honour Avenue turns gold in autumn.
- Woodend - Holgate Brewhouse in the 1902 Keatings Hotel, open daily from noon. Then the back road home through Tylden and Trentham as the light goes.
West: Book Towns and Big Elms
About 110km and two and a half hours of driving, through the farm country west of Daylesford.
- Kingston - Twenty-five minutes west, an Avenue of Honour of 285 elms planted for the First World War, heritage listed and glorious in April.
- Smeaton - Anderson’s Mill, a five-storey bluestone flour mill from 1862 on Birch Creek, now Parks Victoria’s; the exterior alone is worth the stop, and it opens for a festival and open days. Tuki Trout Farm, where you catch lunch and they cook it, is up the road.
- Creswick - The last coloured spinning mill in Australia, with a mill shop open daily, in a town built on the deepest alluvial gold in the district.
- Clunes - The site of Victoria’s first registered gold find in 1850, and a main street so intact it stood in for the outback in Mad Max and for the 1870s in Ned Kelly. Booktown takes it over on the third weekend of March; the second-hand bookshops trade year round.
- Talbot - Fifteen minutes further, an 1859 streetscape around Scandinavian Crescent and, on the third Sunday of every month, the region’s best farmers market.
- Or Ballarat - Turn south from Creswick instead: Sovereign Hill for the gold-rush day out, the Art Gallery of Ballarat (Australia’s oldest regional gallery, free), the 6km loop of Lake Wendouree with the vintage trams running through the Botanical Gardens, and the Wildlife Park, open daily. Ballarat is 50 minutes from the motel.
South: The Wombat Forest and the Lerderderg
About 140km and three hours of driving, out on the Ballan road and home through Greendale.
- Sailors Falls - Ten minutes south: a 20 metre fall with a mineral spring pump at the top and a lookout a short, steep walk down.
- Glenlyon - A detour east for the general store, which is a cafe with groceries attached, and the reserve where the district gathers for the New Year’s Day sports.
- Ballan - The 1922 Mechanics Institute, a mineral spring of its own, and coffee before the forest.
- Blackwood - A gold town in the forest with mineral springs on both banks of the Lerderderg, walking tracks to Sweet’s Lookout and Shaw’s Lake, and the Garden of St Erth, six acres around an 1860s cottage run by the Diggers Club; check its open days before you plan lunch around it.
- Lerderderg Gorge - A 300 metre deep gorge through the state park south of Blackwood. Forest roads to O’Briens Crossing and Mackenzies Flat are gravel and can close after rain and in fire season; short river walks start from both.
- Bacchus Marsh - The Avenue of Honour at the eastern edge of town, 281 elms planted in a single day in 1918, then the freeway to Ballan and the Ballan-Daylesford Road home.
North-East: Bendigo in a Day
An hour and ten minutes each way on the Midland Highway and the Calder, so this one is an out-and-back rather than a loop. Bendigo was one of the richest goldfields in the world and still looks it: Sacred Heart Cathedral with its 87 metre spire, the poppet-head lookout in Rosalind Park, the Golden Dragon Museum and its 125 metre imperial dragon, the underground tour at Central Deborah Gold Mine, and the vintage talking tram that links the mine to the Chinese joss house. One thing to know: the Bendigo Art Gallery is closed for redevelopment until early 2028, so plan around it.
Before You Go
- Fuel in Daylesford. The forest roads south and the Loddon back roads north have long gaps between towns.
- Gravel: the last stretch into Vaughan Springs, and the Lerderderg forest roads. Fine for any car when dry; ask us after heavy rain.
- Phone reception drops out in the Wombat Forest and the gorge. Download the map before you leave.
- Match the day: the Goldfields Railway steams on Sundays and Wednesdays, Talbot’s market is the third Sunday, Castlemaine’s farmers market the first Sunday, Kyneton’s the second Saturday.
- Every loop ends within a few minutes of the Bathhouse, which is not a coincidence.
